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***UIL Considering Radical Football Realignment Plan***


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The biggest problem the UIL will face will be mainly in the larger classifications where the schools are all concentrated in the major metropolitan areas with a few isolated programs miles and miles away from the nearest school of similar size.  I mapped out the 102 largest programs in the state and came up with the following:

For one thing, the Houston area contains almost half of the schools with the largest enrollment. 

Greater Houston: 47 teams

Dallas/Ft Worth: 25 teams

San Antonio: 10 teams

Odessa/Midland: 4 teams

El Paso: 4 teams

Rio Grande Valley: 3 teams (La Joya, Brownsville Hanna, Harlingen)

Austin metro: 3 teams (Austin Bowie, Georgetown, RR Stony Point)

and then you have 6 outlying teams close to no one else: Del Rio, Laredo United, and Victoria Memorial in the bottom half of the state and Bryan, San Angelo Central and Tyler Lee in the upper half. 

The 5A-D1 classification would almost have to be divided up like this to avoid huge distances between district opponents:

District 1: 4 El Paso teams with the possibility of moving the next 1 or 2 largest in enrollment up to make a 5 or 6 team district

District 2: the 4 Odessa/Midland teams plus San Angelo

Districts 3 - 6: the 25 DFW teams plus Tyler Lee divided in to two 6 team districts and two 7 team districts.

District 7: The 3 Austin area teams + Bryan and possibly move Round Rock McNeil up as they are right at the cutoff

District 8-13: divide the 47 Houston area teams into six districts with 7 or 8 teams each.

Districts 14-15: divide the 10 San Antonio teams + Victoria + Del Rio in to 2 six team districts

District 16: the 3 South Texas teams plus Laredo United.

If you try to increase the total number of teams to try to add some that potentially would be closer to some of the outlying ones you would be out of luck.  Numbers 103 -120 in order of enrollment are: SA Taft, Houston Westbury, Round Rock McNeil, Ft Bend Hightower, Humble Atascocita, Pasadena High, CC King, Mansfield Summit, Baytown Lee, Lake Highlands, Round Rock Westwood, Edinburg, Donna, Mesquite, EP Coronado, Ft Bend Bush, Abilene, Katy Morton Ranch

 

102 Largest Enrollment Programs Statewide

(using official 2006 enrollments.  Odessa Permian has a marker but isn't labeled.)

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Greater San Antonio Area

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Dallas-Ft Worth Area

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Greater Houston Area (North of I-10)

(The bottom edge of the marker for Conroe HS is at the very top of the screen)

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Greater Houston area (South of I-10)

(Brazoswood is at the extreme bottom and Ft Bend Austin has a marker but isn't labeled)

5ad1shou.jpg

If I have time I'll try to plot out the lower classifications....

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Guest Eagle73

No matter what the UIL does in realignment, there will always be people complaining about unfairness to "their teams". When Newton won the championship in '98, it was the fifth smallest school in the entire state in 3A. Not just playoff teams, but all 3A schools. Don't adjust the system because some schools settle for mediocrity in their programs and hope they can "make the playoffs this year". Get real, you have to have a program that wants to win, period. These are built at home, not in Austin.

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My projected 5A-D2 containing the #103 through #204 largest programs in the state would look like this (using 2006 numbers):

The smaller 5A schools include a large portion of the Valley schools, about the same amount of DFW and San Antonio schools and a lot fewer Houston area schools compared to D1.

Greater Houston: 21 teams

Dallas/Ft Worth: 29 teams including Weatherford

Central Texas: 19 teams

Rio Grande Valley: 15 teams

Panhandle: 4 teams (3 Lubbock teams, Amarillo Tascosa)

El Paso: 5 teams (Coronado, El Dorado, Hanks, Bel Air, Eastwood)

There are 9 major outlying schools including Lufkin, Longview, West Brook, PA Memorial, Abilene, the 2 Corpus schools and the 2 Laredo schools. 

 

The 5A-D2 district breakdown could look something like this:

District 1: 5 El Paso teams

District 2: the 4 Panhandle teams + possibly Abilene

Districts 3 - 6: the 29 DFW teams plus Longview divided in to two 7 team districts and two 8 team districts

District 7-10: the 21 Houston teams plus West Brook, PA Memorial and Lufkin divided in to four 6 team districts

District 11-13: divide the 19 central Texas teams into two 6 team districts and one 7 team district

Districts 14-16: divide the 15 valley teams plus the 4 Corpus and Laredo teams into two 6 team districts and one 7 team district

 

#103-204 Largest Enrollment Programs Statewide

(using official 2006 enrollments)

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West Texas

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Central Texas

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Dallas-Ft Worth Area

(Weatherford is a little bit west of the left edge of the map)

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Houston Metro

5ad2hou.jpeg

South Texas

5ad2south.jpeg

More to come if you're interested.... 

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WOS87

You da Man

Quick question can you check out the Stephenville District we are 8AAAA we are stuck out in the middle of nowhere

It's almost certain that Stephenville and Brownwood will drop down to 3A so the nearest neighbors to Stephenville in my projection of 3A-D1 are plotted below:

3ad1west.jpeg

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There are no local teams (from the Golden Triangle at least) that fall in to the #205-306 enrollment window which potentially would be 4A-D1.  I haven't put the entire state together yet but the Southeast Texas region looks like this:

4ad1setx.jpeg

Almost all of the current District 22-4A are smack in the middle of the #307-408 enrollment window which potentially would be 4A-D2.  The Southeast Texas region would look like this:

4ad2setx.jpeg

#409-510 would be 3A-D1 and includes the smaller members of the current 4A and the larger members of the current 3A (Jasper is the very smallest of the group coming in as the 510th largest school in the state)

3ad1setx.jpeg

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According to WOS87's map, the 3A-D1 local district would be Silsbee, Jasper, Lumberton, LCM, Barbers Hill, Huffman, and Splendora. That would put Jasper, Barbers Hill, and Huffman traveling 2 hours for a district game. What's fair about that?

I'm sorry, but trying to get equal enrollment schools to face each other in district and the playoffs is impossible without stretching the districts out too broad. I'll be suprised if the super's pass this.

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Of course the new Baytown and Kingwood HS will both throw some kinks in the split, especially in Baytown as that will create 3 schools with an enrollment around 1500 students, which are all a Dayton size 4A in numbers. Food fo thought as to how it might look around this area.

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Guest ECBucFan

I'm sorry, but trying to get equal enrollment schools to face each other in district and the playoffs is impossible without stretching the districts out too broad. I'll be suprised if the super's pass this.

That was my point earlier, exactly. Less fans in the stands, I can guarantee that. Some folks don't get off work til 6 PM or so, then a looooooong drive? And gas $3/gallon?However, it really is a "done deal". Bank on it. CB & Co. loves to micro-manage. It's done.  :( 

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According to WOS87's map, the 3A-D1 local district would be Silsbee, Jasper, Lumberton, LCM, Barbers Hill, Huffman, and Splendora. That would put Jasper, Barbers Hill, and Huffman traveling 2 hours for a district game. What's fair about that?

I'm sorry, but trying to get equal enrollment schools to face each other in district and the playoffs is impossible without stretching the districts out too broad. I'll be suprised if the super's pass this.

Nothing the UIL might do would surprise me.  Back in the late seventies or early eighties Silsbee, Jasper, Lumberton, LCM, BC, Hebert, Crosby and others were in a district that also included Channelview and Galena Park.  Fourteen teams!  Don't for a minute think the UIL won't do the totally unthinkable. >:(

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Guest ECBucFan

Nothing the UIL might do would surprise me. ..........  Fourteen teams!  Don't for a minute think the UIL won't do the totally unthinkable. >:(

Amen. It almost seems like it's a game to the UIL. I think they love to see schools and fans left twisting in the wind. Some kinda ego trip, I guess. I swear, I wish they could just let things basically alone for awhile. Never happen, though, when politics and money is involved....  >:(

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Guest JCfan

The positive is that this could keep some small schools in each division from getting killed all the time.

By the way, if you get outside of towns and areas more populated with schools, then you have to travel anyway.

Team I played on had to travel up to two hours on some district games. That goes on now already for some schools.

Smaller districts with fewer teams in each district could even out how much travel is done.

I am with Cooper, think it will work.

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    • You got a LOT more than that, you’ve got Riceland filling up. GCM is dropping down from 23-6A back down to 5A in ‘26.  GCCISD is redrawing attendance zones to make sure of that.  At the same time, BH was only about 100 students under the 6A threshold last time UIL drew districts so BH is definitely going up to 6A when those maps get redrawn, probably right into the empty spot in 23-6A GCM is leaving when they drop down.
    • Like I said, even if it’s only 10% of the 100 kids BHISD takes from GCCISD each year, that’s 10 athletes per year and that’s being generous.  You’re right about the jobs with BHISD, BTW.  There’s more than 1 athlete from Baytown originally who got transferred to BHISD after a job opened up for Mama.
    • Here’s a link to another story about it This is the hidden content, please Sign In or Sign Up
    • It’s behind a paywall but here’s Baytown Sun’s story on it.  It was reported on in other papers statewide so if you search by the date I think you’ll find other stories on it. UIL strengthens student transfer rules By Ron McDowell [email protected] Oct 18, 2024   In order to maintain a level playing field for all member schools, the University Interscholastic League strengthened rules regarding transfer student eligibility at its most recent meeting in Austin. Every year thousands of students transfer schools in the state of Texas. A student’s ability to participate in UIL sanctioned activities may be limited base on the reasons for the transfer. A change in family status, work transfers, enrollment in an academic magnet program, or a move across town, receive scrutiny, but only rarely does one of these reasons result in the loss of eligibility. The only reason to automatically cause the loss of participation eligibility is a transfer for athletic purposes. The current rule, which has been in place since 1981, does not require a Previous Athletic Participation Form (PAPFs) to be submitted if the student-athlete does not participate in a varsity level sport during the first year of enrollment. There has been growing concern among some member schools, that other members are breaking the current rule and creating “super teams” with new transfer enrollees, and that the UIL is not doing enough to police, what appear to be, the inordinate number of transfers among high school athletes. To mitigate these concerns, the UIL approved a proposal to expand the power of the State Executive Committee (SEC) and allow it to investigate schools based upon the number of PAPFs submitted. Schools that submit an inordinate number of PAPFs would face heightened scrutiny and possible public reprimand and future sanctions. The UIL has also changed the requirements for PAPF submission, mandating that the form be submitted before a grade 9-12 transfer student may participate at any level of school athletics. This is a marked departure from the current policy which encourages schools not to complete PAPFs for students who transfer in, if the school believes that the student will not play a varsity sport in the first year the student is enrolled at the new school. Some critics of the current system think that the change doesn’t go far enough. Speaking on background, one local school district source suggested that there should be an automatic year wait for transfer students due to the number of loopholes in the waiver process. “If a student transfers, it should be a year out of competition automatically,” the source said. In addition, the UIL also approved a proposal that gives the SEC the power to appoint an independent administrator to oversee the conduct of the local District Executive Committee (DEC) if it is determined that the DEC is not consistently enforcing the rules of the governing body. The change is significant since all appeals that a school brings, starts and usually ends with the DEC. That includes the determination of transfer student eligibility. It is believed that with the implementation of this change, schools in a UIL district will be less likely to face retribution from the DEC chair and other members. The policy changes will go into effect, Aug. 1, 2025 This is the hidden content, please Sign In or Sign Up  
    • I was hoping WOS was going to win. To get another chance to redeem ourself. Silsbee did not look good in that game and has not played consistent during the season. Hopefully against La Vega they will play 4quarters of football
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