Things will look a bit different for the Firebirds next year.

If a draft of the new North Carolina High School Athletic Association conference assignments released on Thursday morning holds, two Wilson schools — Hunt and Fike — won’t be on Southern Nash’s conference competition schedule for the first time in several years.

The new conference will instead consist of five 3-A schools (Southern Nash, Franklinton, Northern Nash, Rocky Mount and Vance County) and three 2-A schools (Bunn, Louisburg and Nash Central).

The change brings Nash Central back into the same conference with the other three Nash County schools and adds Vance County, Bunn and Louisburg.

While Southern Nash athletic director Robbie Kennedy welcomes the bigger conference that likely awaits the Firebirds beginning in 2021, he still regrets having to leave Hunt and Fike behind as conference opponents. Kennedy said text messages as it relates to nonconference scheduling were sent to Hunt’s Jon Smith and Fike’s Tom Nelson within an hour of Thursday’s release.

“I kind of had a feeling they were going to break us up,” Kennedy said. “We’ve been together for a long time. I hate to lose them, because we’ve been at it for a long time. If it sticks it will definitely be different, for sure.”

Now, Southern’s fate is largely out of its hands as it awaits how its potential out-of-county colleagues react to realignment.

“I think the biggest question with us will be: What do the Franklin County schools do?” Kennedy postulated. “Are they content, are they going to try to get out? I think that’s one of our biggest questions.”