The River City Classic pitting Warren Central and Vicksburg is headed back to September.

Vicksburg High is dropping from Class 6A to Class 5A. The final enrollment numbers, which determine athletic team classifications, were sent to the Mississippi High School Activities Association from the Mississippi Department of Education were released this week.

The crosstown rivals are scheduled to play their annual rivalry game on Sept. 6.

While Vicksburg’s move to 5A is confirmed, the new region alignments for football and divisional assignments for all other sports are still being worked out. The MHSAA Executive Committee meets today in Clinton to redraw the new football regions.

Vicksburg Warren School District athletic director Lum Wright said the directors will face some challenges, primarily in Class 6A.

“You never know quite what they’re going to do, but it starts by finding out who the 32 Class 6A teams are and then look where they are on a map,” Wright said.

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the new numbers for Class 6A was the rise of Hernando High in the north and the fall of George County in the south. Starkville, which plays for the Class 5A state title against Pascagoula on Saturday, also will rise to 6A along with Provine. Vicksburg was the lone North 6A school to drop to 5A.

That means there are 18 schools in the new 6A that played in the north in 2012. Two schools will have to move south to make up for the loss of Natchez and George County.

Geographically, Warren Central is the southernmost of the 18 schools, but the MHSAA has shown a tendency to send Jackson Public School teams to the south. Proximity to Interstate 55 and U.S. 49 are prime factors. Jim Hill was in the southern half of 6A in 2009-10 and is a possibility. So is Provine.

The last time Warren Central played in the south was 1994-95. The Vikings won the Class 5A football championship in 1994, beating Provine in the title game.

Warren Central football coach Josh Morgan said the committee will have to deal with a lot of moving parts.

“There’s just a whole lot of guessing on our parts,” Morgan said. “We know there will be some movement to the south. With Hernando coming in, we know they have to play with the Memphis schools. That means Grenada could come back to the region, and we are pretty sure Starkville is going to replace Vicksburg.”

That’s just fine for Vicksburg High coach Tavares Johnson.

“I’m ecstatic about us going to 5A,” Johnson said. “We just don’t have the bodies to compete in 6A. We’ll be able to compete on a more even level with these 5A teams.”

The MHSAA committee will have a much easier time setting up the new 5A regions. Vicksburg will essentially swap places with Starkville and that puts the Gators in Region 2 with Callaway, Neshoba Central, Lanier, Ridgeland, Canton, Germantown and possibly Pearl.

In 2008, the last year Vicksburg was not in 6A, the Gators went 9-3 and made it to the second round of the Class 4A playoffs. In four seasons at the 6A level, Vicksburg went 8-36. That includes a 1-10 record in 2012.

Morgan and Johnson were able to go ahead and set up next year’s annual contest between Vicksburg and Warren Central. The game was not played this year because of MHSAA sanctions handed down for Vicksburg’s role in an on-field fight with Murrah High on Oct. 22 at Memorial Stadium.

“We’ll play Vicksburg on the third date,” Morgan said. “We basically just swapped them out with Hattiesburg.”

The Gators and Vikings also have a new set of Red Carpet Bowl foes.

Vicksburg is scheduled to host Terry while Warren Central takes on McComb in August at Memorial Stadium.

“We’ll open with McComb and we’re keeping Callaway and Natchez as our non-region games,” Morgan said.

Johnson said he has picked up Indianola-Gentry to replace Tylertown on the Gators’ 2013 schedule. He is still trying to work out his last non-region game. All of the MHSAA football coaches will meet in Clinton Monday to work out their remaining schedules.