This should describe every team in the state.  

Those “poor” rural towns already lose by 40-50 to Madison County, Blountstown and Hawthorne.    If Losing to them by 40-50 is no big deal, then why is losing to Trinity Christian, University Christian, Maclay etc etc and issue?

FHSAA Independent League is actually a good idea as this is basically what the SSAA is.  A pool of like-minded teams that are interested in fair play with strict rules on recruiting.  Of course, the champion is not considered a state champion so that kind of takes something away from this but it's still a good idea. Now merging Rural and 1A into a single class is only going to make the problem worse.  There are way too many private school powers in 1A and now poor rural teams have to compete against them?  

Could it? Sure, but the reality of it happening as a normal business practice—I'd say the chance is negligible at best... particularly in larger counties or school districts. The oversight/approval process is a typical one, and my point here was to show that despite the bill's language, this structure is already in place in practically every school board before the bill was even introduced. Let's face it: If this passes, no school board is going to allocate taxpayer-generated revenue to push a football coach's pay into six figures (or anywhere close). Those kinds of jumps, when possible, will come from private sources like booster associations/organizations—funneled through the board as the bill requires (with built-in checks so boosters can't directly control or "own" the coach). Before it even reaches the final oversight step (superintendent/board ratification), there's already an established relationship between the principal and that authority. Beyond maybe a few routine questions, the reality is it's usually a done deal once the principal recommends.

My county aside, you don't think favoritism is going to get shown in larger counties? IMO, it'll all get delegated to the superintendent.