The UIL wants 4 teams in playoffs for 5A. To me you have to put an average of 8.5 schools in each district to keep from having the fourth team be the next to last finisher in some districts. If you do this that means 272 schools will be in class 5A. There are currently 222 schools in class 4A. If you keep that the same and add in the 13 new schools opening up in 4A and 5A you have to have the 14 next largest in 3A to complete. Therfore the 3A cutoff is at 855. Just my opinion or hope.

I can see just like at work my opinion doesn't mean anything!

3A number is going up not down.

I can't possibly imagine or see the top number in Class 3A being 855.

I understand why everyone is believing it will go up. But what is the sense in letting 4 (128) teams in the playoffs and only have 256 in class 5A. That is 50% of the teams in 5A. That's absolutely ridiculous if it happens. About 43% made the playoffs this past year. The UIL wants to create good matchups in the playoffs to generate more money and to do that they would need to add schools to each district to get to an average of at least 8.5 to 9.5 schools in each district. Nobody wants to see a 4th place team out of 6 make the playoffs at 2-8. In an 8 or 9 team district you are virtually guaranteed at least 5-5, 6-4, and up make it in. This is why in my opinion the UIL will put approximately 288 in class 5A. The greatest majority of schools with 1800 can play with schools of 3600 and larger. This is not necessarily true at all in class 3A when schools with 400 are playing against schools with 899. Just my opinion or hope.

We are talking about the UIL here, so "ridiculous" has to factor into the equation.

I agree if it is ridiculous the UIL could make it happen

I too think that the number will be going down.... I don't see how you can add a playoff team and not add teams to the mix.... Also the bottom number should go up as well.... 3A was the largest classification, in terms of the gap in numbers, and needed to shrink down....

After reading several posts on many different sites and doing alot of thinking, I've come to the followinfg conclusion.(Not that the UIL cares what I think). The bottom number for 5A will drop considerably, therefore dropping the bottom number of 4A quite a bit. This is my reasoning. Next year 5A is going to have 4 teams make the play-offs. They will want as many 8 team districts as possible so only 50% of teams in a district make the play-offs instead of 67% in a 6 team district. If they do this it also solves a major problem in East Texas. The bottom number will then drop enough to put the old East Texas 5A district back together(Longview, Lufkin, Marshall, Tyler Lee, John Tyler, Nacogdoches) which has been a major thorn for the UIL since they broke that district up. If this happens then the bottom number of 4A goes down to include around 220 schools for 4A. Just my opinion but I think it makes alot of since.

I heard on Sports talk last week that the following classifications will have this many schools:
5a -220
3a = 185
and the other classifications will make up the rest. So out of the 1300+ schools 405 of those will be in 5a and 3a.

I believe the UIL has said Class 5A will have 245 schools.

Mandated that class 5A has to have 245 at least but I say it will go up to accommodate the 4 teams in playoffs to somewhere around 275.

Numbers, pins and rubber bands

By Doug Mitchell
The Daily Times

Published January 28, 2006

The biggest guessing game in Texas high school athletics is reaching a fever pitch. It can only mean the University Interscholastic League’s biennial district realignment process is drawing near.

The UIL realigns its competition districts for Classes 5A through A every two years, to account for changes in school enrollment. The objective, of course, is to align similar-sized in order to maintain a fair, competitive balance.

The UIL will announce its 2006 realignment Feb. 2, and Hill Country-area schools will be watching with interest. Depending on which coach or athletic director, at which school, one talks to, projections on changes to the current district structure range from minimal to widespread.

Area schools escaped relatively unscathed in the 2004 realignment. The largest fallout was felt by Tivy, as the Antlers and their traditional rivals were first placed in a district with Edgewood ISD schools San Antonio Kennedy and Memorial, which successfully petitioned the UIL to be relocated to a San Antonio-area district.

That left Tivy AD Mark Smith in a lurch to fills holes in the football schedule, which resulted in long road trips to Pflugerville and Waco to play North Texas-based Denison. The hope for this year is avoiding another last-minute surprise.

“I would rather not,” Smith said of going through the last-minute rescheduling, a chore he was forced into after Kennedy and Memorial departed 28-4A. “You get the schedule set, and then scramble for games.”

Smith has several football schedule contingency plans ready this year, as do his counterparts at other area schools, and throughout the state. It’s a matter of necessity rather than security, as this year’s realignment may be the most unpredictable yet.

“As you talk to people and other coaches, this is the most unsettled it’s been in a while,” Smith said. “To think you know what the UIL will do, you’ll never figure that out.”

A product of growth

The wild card in the realignment process is figuring out what UIL officials are thinking, which is perennially a tight-lipped secret. The process, though, starts with the schools themselves, who provided the UIL with their Average Daily Membership (enrollment) last October.

The UIL takes the figures, then begins dividing by class, trying produced even-numbered districts based on location.

It starts at the top with Class 5A, the largest schools, which for years has been set by the UIL at the largest 245 schools in the state.

That starts the questions for 2006, as the 5A number could grow. There are almost 30 new schools statewide that must be figured into the 2006 realignment, most at the 5A level.

Now start the projections. A first thought is why not make 32 eight-team districts in 5A, with the largest 256 schools? Not happening, as the 245 cutoff for 5A is in the UIL guidelines, and would require approval of the UIL Legislative Council, made up of 24 school superintendents from around the state, in order to be changed.

“We work in the confines of our policy,” said Mark Cousins, the athletic coordinator for the UIL. “There are issues there, but we have policies that dictate how those issues are addressed.”

In competition, that issue comes down to size, mainly the enrollment from the top to a bottom of a classification. Most coaches will put on the gameface and say it doesn’t matter if the 2,000-enrollment school is playing the 1,000-student school.

Few will argue being a larger school is an advantage, however, in giving coaches the potential of more athletes to choose from.

Numbers game

Cousins said the UIL’s approach to realignment, a process that first started when the governing body was created in 1910, is to try and focus on a 2.0 enrollment ratio for Classes 4A-2A. In a nutshell, the goal is to create classes where the largest enrollment school in a class is no more than twice as large as the smallest.

The UIL now must wrestle with unprecedented growth. Cousins said nearly 1,300 schools in 1,000 school districts will be aligned this year, up from just more than 1,000 schools in the early 1990s.

“It’s not based on the number of schools in a class, but the goal is to keep it close to the 2.0 ratio,” Cousins said. “I don’t think that there’s more (issues), it’s different. We’re seeing explosion of growth in the I-35 corridor, and the loss of enrollment in West Texas and parts of East Texas (relating to the hurricanes of 2005).”

Numbers crunching

With the figures provided from the schools, the largest 245 schools are headed for Class 5A. In 2004, that cutoff number fell at the 1,925 ADM figure. Throw 30 new schools into the mix, with likely 20 being 5A schools in the Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio areas, and the 5A cutoff number will likely approach the 1,960-2,000 range this year.

Now the trickle-down effect starts. Class 4A, set at 1,925 to 900 in 2004, goes up. And so on down through 3A and 2A.

The UIL must be careful with Class A, which concerns local schools Harper, Center Point, Medina and Leakey, as its playoff format expands to three teams in 2006-07. Class A hasn’t been able to fill a full 32-district bracket for years, so justifying an additional playoff bracket is an issue.

The UIL will watch how the four-team playoff system works in 5A beginning this fall. How will the cutoffs for each class relate to the 2.0 ratio? Will the discrepancies be large or minuscule?

Once the classifications have been established, then the districts are drawn up.

This process for years has been done by the “rubber band approach.” Maps of Texas are placed on walls at the UIL for each class, and pins put in the towns for those schools. Rubber bands are used to outline potential district opponents in terms of geographic proximity.

The legend is if a rubber band breaks, the district is considered too large by travel standards. It works well in urban-dominated Class 5A, but becomes interesting in the rural-dominated classes, which is half of 4A and the others.

Now the real guessing game starts. Who’s number is on the bubble for a class? Who is moving up or down? How will district change?

With the additions for 2006, no one is quite sure what will happen.

“This is the most uncertain it’s been in a while,” said Fredericksburg AD Dean Herbort, who has seen the Billies teeter around the 4A-3A cutoff for the previous two realignments. “I think we’ll be 4A. We’re closer than we’ve been (to 3A) in a while, but I don’t think we’ll go this time.”

There are plenty of detractors to the current realignment process, saying it doesn’t equitably address enrollment-competition issues. Some say increase the number of 5A schools or change the 5A-4A cutoff, others advocate creating a 6A for the super-size metropolitan schools.

“The UIL has issues of a magnitude they haven’t had before,” said Ingram athletic director Greg Althof. “I try to guess with the best, and have been wrong every year.”

Cousins said the UIL will examine the process after this year’s realignment is completed, at the athletic committee’s June meeting, from where recommendations could head to the fall Legislative Council meeting.

“The policies will be addressed by the council,” Cousins said. “We look at trends and issues, and how they can be addressed.”

Where they’re headed, maybe

The only people who know for sure where a school is placed are UIL director Bill Farney, athletic director Charles Breithaupt, realignment point-man Cousins, and their staff, before Thursday’s announcement. They won’t tell even the most powerful of school superintendents what’s up, leaving conjecture to run rampant.

Here’s where we’ll try to dispel, discredit, or substantiate some of rumors and myths flying around for this year’s realignment, as they pertain to local schools and their current district counterparts.

Staying put — Tivy, Boerne, Fredericksburg, Alamo Heights and Uvalde, District 28-4A members, will remain Class 4A schools with numbers ranging from 1,943 to 971.

Boerne (1,943) and Fredericksburg (971.5) are the biggest question marks. Boerne’s figure should be safe, however, as the 5A-4A cutoff moves up with the addition of new 5A schools. The bottom of 4A will move up, but with a 25-student increase, considered large by previous UIL standards, Fredericksburg is still safe for 4A.

Ingram (503) and Bandera (858) are still in the 3A range for 2006. Harper’s 192.5 figure surpasses the 2004 Class A high mark of 189, but the Class A number has gone up by 10 students in each realignment since being 159 in 1998.

Going down — Say good-bye to Medina Valley being a Class 4A school. The Panthers’ 908 figure is above the 2004 cutoff for 3A, but all bets have that 3A number rising to the 910-925 range this year.

“I’ll be surprised if they don’t,” Smith said of Medina Valley dropping to 3A. Herbort and Boerne’s Stan Leech echoed Smith’s view, but Leech was quick to add, “No one’s safe until they’re under 900.”

Coming Tuesday: Adjust your Tuesday-Friday district travel plans.