Uil Looking At New Alignment

[Cooley]

April 13, 2007, 11:45PM

Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO — The complicated system used to provide competitive balance in Texas high school football could get a radical overhaul under a plan being considered by the University Interscholastic League.

The UIL redraws competitive districts every two years. The plan, to be formally presented in June, would carve all UIL classifications into two divisions for football.

The split-division system would need approval from superintendents and coaches. It could be in place for the 2008-09 school year.

Charles Breithaupt, UIL athletic director, said the proposal would increase competitive balance by grouping more schools of similar size together.

"I think this plan has a lot of merit," Breithaupt told the San Antonio Express-News in a story published Friday. "There might be problems we haven't seen or thought of. But it looks pretty solid at this point.

"It just makes more sense to put teams into the same division at the beginning of the year instead of the end."

The UIL split Class 5A postseason teams into two divisions in 1991 and that system grew to cover playoff teams in all classes.

[e-bone ver2.awesome]

Sounds like there will be some even longer traveling for a lot of schools, especially those in West Texas.

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

I've got to see this one to believe it. Let's see, we reduce five divisions to two and yet we're going to "increase competitive balance by grouping more schools of similar size together"?

[NT80]

I've got to see this one to believe it. Let's see, we reduce five divisions to two and yet we're going to "increase competitive balance by grouping more schools of similar size together"?

"The plan, to be formally presented in June, would carve all UIL classifications into two divisions for football."

I think you may be misunderstanding what they want to change. There will still be 5 classes (A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A). However, now in the football playoffs schools are sent to bracketts based on size of the 3 teams in each district to the playoffs (one school to large division and two smaller schools to small division). It sounds like now they want to classify each class (A, 2A, etc.) into large and small divisions before the season even starts. It will still be complicated because now: size matters.

Edited April 16, 2007 by NT80

[GreenBat]

"The plan, to be formally presented in June, would carve all UIL classifications into two divisions for football."

I think you may be misunderstanding what they want to change. There will still be 5 classes (A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A). However, now in the football playoffs schools are sent to bracketts based on size of the 3 teams in each district to the playoffs (one school to large division and two smaller schools to small division). It sounds like now they want to classify each class (A, 2A, etc.) into large and small divisions before the season even starts. It will still be complicated because now: size matters.

Not size. Enrollment matters