The high school state football finals are moving to Lexington.

After an eight-year run in Bowling Green, the KHSAA Board of Control on Wednesday voted to move the six football state championship games to the University of Kentucky’s Kroger Field in Lexington for 2017 and 2018.

Western Kentucky University has hosted the state finals at Houchens-Smith Stadium since 2009. Talks about moving the games to Lexington emerged recently with Western Kentucky hosting the Conference USA football championship game the past two seasons.

Since 2015, WKU’s best regular-season record in C-USA was rewarded with the school hosting the conference championship game, which lined up on the same weekend as the previously scheduled state football finals.

That logistical hurdle was something WKU and the KHSAA worked to resolve in years past, but moving the football finals to Lexington for the first time since 1976 eliminates the scheduling conflict.

WKU athletics director Todd Stewart told the Daily News the news of the move didn’t surprise him.

“It’s certainly been an honor to host it for eight consecutive years,” Stewart said. “It’s something that has worked well and I commend our staff here for doing a phenomenal job of the efforts and time that go into successfully managing six championship football games.

“The last two years, the fact that we’ve hosted the Conference USA championship game added a lot of challenges for the KHSAA and the schools involved. I understand that. Certainly, it created challenges for them and it created challenges for us because our own football team had needs, the team we were hosting had needs and the championship game needed to have access to the facility. For two straight years, to have to work around that created challenges.”

Before WKU hosted its first C-USA title game in 2015, the KHSAA used two days – weather permitting – to play all six state championship games on Friday and Saturday.

The last two years, the state football finals have extended to one game on either a Thursday or Friday, two games on Saturday afternoon and three games on Sunday. The C-USA championship games have been nationally televised on ESPN at 11 a.m. on Saturday morning during that weekend.

“Our first priority will always be to our own football program,” Stewart said. “It’s an honor to host the Conference USA championship game and we’re just not in a position to say, ‘No, we won’t host a game.’ That would be such a detriment to our own football team to have the best record in the league and they can’t host a game because something else was scheduled here.”

Stewart said the school would definitely welcome hosting the event again in 2019, but understands there’s a security in the KHSAA’s own scheduling by moving the games to Lexington.

“While we are eternally grateful for the efforts of our tremendous partners, Western Kentucky University, Russell Athletic and the city of Bowling Green, over the last eight years, it cannot be understated that the issues that arose over the last two years were a detriment to our event,” said KHSAA Commissioner Julian Tackett in a news release. “This impacted the fan experience, particularly of those teams forced to play late on a Sunday evening, and certainly affected vital revenue to the Association.”

“We are excited about the opportunity provided by the University of Kentucky, which has proven to be an outstanding partner with some of our other championship events, to try and grow the football finals at a more geographically centered location with a pre-determined schedule.”

Kroger Field, formerly known as Commonwealth Stadium, has a capacity of 61,000 compared to the 22,113 at Houchens-Smith Stadium. Before it last hosted the event in 1976, UK hosted the high school state championships from 1959-66 and 1968-72 when the stadium was called Stoll Field.

“We are thrilled to be hosting the best weekend of Kentucky high school football at Kroger Field,” Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart said in a release. “We are committed to the growth of the game of football in the Commonwealth and excited to bring thousands of young athletes and fans to our campus and the city of Lexington through this event. Kroger Field will make an excellent home for the Kentucky state football finals.”

Since 2009, Bowling Green High School has won five Class 5A championships and South Warren High School won the Class 4A title in 2015.

Other local teams that played in football finals at Houchens-Smith Stadium were Allen County-Scottsville in 2010 and Franklin-Simpson and Glasgow in 2011. Franklin-Simpson was the 4A runner-up in 2016.

“We loved hosting it the eight years we had it,” Stewart said. “We were certainly prepared to host it this year. Absolutely, we’d love to have it back, but it has to be with the understanding we might host a Conference USA championship game. … I think when all was said and done, it worked very well, but certainly a week to a week-and-a-half out to change the schedule, it did create challenges for people involved and we understand that.”

The Board of Control also voted to cross-bracket the football playoffs in Class 2A, 3A and 4A just as Class 5A and 6A are already formatted.

The KHSAA approved the Girls’ Sweet Sixteen to return to Northern Kentucky’s BB&T Arena for 2017, but will move the event to Rupp Arena in 2019 and 2020. If no corporate sponsor is set for 2020, the tournament could move from Lexington that season.

With the departure of football, the only KHSAA championships hosted in Bowling Green are the girls’ and boys’ golf finals at the Bowling Green Country Club.

The Girls’ Sweet Sixteen was held in Diddle Arena from 2001-15 before it moved to NKU. Stewart said WKU would like to host that tournament again.

“We enjoy hosting things here because we’re proud of our facilities and proud of our campus,” Stewart said. “One of the neat things about having the Sweet 16 here is Diddle Arena, and the size of Diddle Arena created a great atmosphere.

“When you’ve got 3-5,000 in the Girls’ Sweet Sixteen game here in Diddle Arena, that’s a terrific atmosphere. I don’t know how that translates to Rupp Arena. That might be a change for the worse, but Rupp Arena is an awesome building with tremendous history there. Certainly, we enjoyed hosting the Sweet Sixteen and would love to have it back at some point.”

– Follow sports reporter Elliott Pratt on Twitter @EPrattBGDN or visit bgdailynews.com