UIL REALIGNMENT: Most Intriguing 6A Storylines to Watch

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West Texas Questions: With Wolfforth Frenship dropping down to Class 5A-Division I after the opening of Lubbock Frenship Memorial, only five 6A schools between El Paso and the DFW area remain. We are pretty confident Midland, Midland Legacy (changing to Midland Lee next school year), Odessa and Odessa Permian will be in 2-6A. The real question is what happens after that. San Angelo Central could join its West Texas counterparts, but it could also shift east into Central Texas. A four-team district is a possibility and a five-team district is a less-likely possibility. The real intrigue is does the UIL shift one, two or three of the western DFW schools out to West Texas, possibly in football only? Those three schools are Weatherford, Granbury and powerful Aledo, which is up from 5A-Division I.

Garland ISD Intrigue: For the past four alignments, Wylie ISD has paired with Garland ISD in a pairing of either eight or nine teams (Wylie East moved to 6A and was added in 2022). Does the UIL keep this pairing in a fifth straight alignment or, with Garland now only having six 6A programs, is this the chance for the UIL to shake things up and send Wylie ISD north? If that happens the best two candidates to move in with Garland ISD are Mesquite Horn and/or Dallas Skyline.

District of Doom (11-6A) Gets Broken Up: District 11-6A in its various iterations has dominated the scene at the 6A level in DFW over the past 10 years. The district is being broken up in a major way with four of the eight teams moving down to Class 5A, including 6A-Division II state champion DeSoto, along with Lancaster, Cedar Hill and Mesquite. That just leaves Duncanville, Waxahachie, Mesquite Horn and Dallas Skyline in 6A. We think Horn and Skyline are headed elsewhere and with Red Oak moving up to 6A, the Hawks will likely be in the mix. Our guess is Grand Prairie ISD and Mansfield ISD will move into this district in a new setup.

Does Houston’s District of Doom Get Changed?: Much like in DFW, there’s been one district in the Houston area at the 6A level that has dominated and it’s been the Humble ISD pairing with North Shore either in 20-6A or the last two years in 23-6A. North Shore has four state titles in the past eight years. Humble Atascocita has been a Division I power and Humble Summer Creek and Sheldon King have made appearances in the state title game recently. The eastern edges of Greater Houston have more 6A programs now with Crosby and Barbers Hill moving up to 6A. Does that mean Humble shifts back north into a new district in this alignment?

Big Questions in the RGV that Impact All of Region IV: The UIL shocked most of the state with the last realignment when they gave the Rio Grande Valley two districts despite only having 11 schools at the 6A level. This resulted in six-team and five-team districts and made for some real scheduling challenges. After Snapshot Day, we thought the Valley would only have 10 6A schools, but later we learned Edinburg CISD decided to opt up Edinburg and Edinburg Vela to 6A. So that begs the question if the UIL will give the Valley two six-team districts or do they shift the four Laredo United ISD 6A programs into the Valley? If the four Laredo schools shift into the Valley that makes things fairly clean for Austin and San Antonio in Region IV, but if Laredo moves north into San Antonio that will really crowd things in the rest of Region IV and could shift some northern Austin programs possibly into Region II.