In April, Flower Mound boys soccer coach David Doyle said his players were exhausted as they tried to win the program’s second state title.
After playing two matches in two days at the regional tournament, Flower Mound also played in the state semifinal and state final on back-to-back days, losing to Katy Seven Lakes in overtime, 2-1.
At the time, Doyle expressed frustration about the lack of recovery time for his players.
“You don’t see Duncanville or DeSoto [football] playing their semifinal on Friday night and then have to turn around on Tuesday and play their final,” Doyle told The Dallas Morning News. “Yeah, it’s a different sport. But our kids are moving for 80 minutes.”
The UIL splits the football postseason into two divisions based on enrollment and crowns two champions in each classification.
“Why do they do it for football and nobody else?” Doyle said. “If they’re going to do it for one sport, it should be the same way for all the other sports.”
The UIL has been considering that question since at least October, according to documents The News obtained last week through a public records request. The agency plans to vote Tuesday on a proposal to drastically restructure the basketball, soccer, volleyball, softball and baseball playoffs by splitting them into two divisions, resembling the format for football.
It could mean that state tournaments, which historically have included semifinals and finals and often back-to-back games, are limited to just championship matches.
Emails The News obtained indicate that UIL officials believe the two-division format would promote competitive equity across the state and increase opportunities for more member schools to win state championships, which some Dallas-area coaches said they support, while others said it would water down the competition. Some also said that they haven’t heard much about the proposal that hasn’t been presented to coaches and didn’t appear on the UIL website until this week after The News received the documents.
Draft proposals also suggest the move could decrease the number of playoff games, possibly eliminating the need for the regional quarterfinal round in basketball and soccer and the area round in volleyball, softball and baseball.
“For years, coaches and other stakeholders have requested a more equitable competitive structure for UIL sports other than football. This general concept is not new,” UIL deputy director Jamey Harrison wrote in a March 5 email to Legislative Council members. “For the last two years, UIL staff has communicated that we would evaluate multiple alternative alignment options once the 2024-2026 alignment was released. We have been true to our word.”
Through a spokesperson, the UIL declined to comment for this story.
“We prefer not to comment on potential changes to avoid confusion from the public and our member schools,” UIL spokesperson Julia Zachary said in an email.
Quickly adopted changes
Some coaches said the process seems rushed compared with, for example, an ongoing, yearslong effort to add a shot clock in basketball
“I don’t like it at all,” South Grand Prairie girls basketball coach Brion Raven said. “The fact that the regional tournament is going away … that’s just an experience for the kids that is gone without any feedback, vote, communication to discuss this.
“There have been years and years and years of back and forth and research and votes done on the shot clock, but this is the quickest I’ve ever heard of a change happening.”
DeSoto girls basketball coach Jeffery Chatman said he thinks the proposed format would benefit schools and athletes.
“We have the greatest state with the greatest sports, and so many teams,” Chatman said. “So we pretty much have the hardest path to win a state championship in the state of Texas. [There] really probably should be more state champions.”
Without the two-division format in football, DeSoto and Duncanville could have faced each other in the playoffs, so one of the two football powers wouldn’t have repeated as state champions in Class 6A Division II and Class 6A Division I, respectively. DeSoto defeated Duncanville in the regular season.
“If they do it in football, they might as well do it in all other sports. Having it is great,” DeSoto football coach Claude Mathis said. “We are supposed to be about the kids. I think the UIL is about the kids. It gives kids in another division an opportunity to win state and experience that. I think it’s awesome.”
In his March email, Harrison said the split conference format could not go into effect until the 2026-2028 alignment because the alignments have already been released under the current rules.
But UIL executive director Charles Breithaupt challenged staff to find a way to adopt the change quicker because he is “passionate about finding solutions that could be implemented sooner given how many years this topic has been a point of discussion,” Harrison said in the email.
As a result, the UIL has worked on an option that would alter the postseason format without changing the current alignment structure or adding any additional travel for district play, Harrison said.
He added in the email that UIL staff analyzed playoff data for team sports that have six conferences for playoffs and found that 57% of the playoff teams are Division I schools and 43% are Division II. Harrison said this shows the plan would create a more level playing field for Division II schools competing for state championships.
Classifications vs. enrollment size
Colleyville Heritage volleyball coach Josh McKinney initially liked the idea of keeping the playoff structure the same.
“But when you take a step back and you look at the size of our state and the difference in enrollment between the biggest and smallest schools in each classification, I think it starts to make sense,” McKinney said.
In last year’s Class 5A volleyball playoffs, Colleyville Heritage played Aledo, which had an enrollment of 2,090 students based on the 2022-2024 realignment. But it also played Argyle and Midlothian Heritage, which had enrollments of 1,342 and 1,512 respectively. Despite the enrollment gaps, the schools all competed in the same championship bracket.
But a lower enrollment didn’t stop Lovejoy volleyball from defeating Liberty Hill last year in the 5A state final for the program’s 10th state championship. Lovejoy had an enrollment of 1,637 based on the last realignment cycle and Liberty Hill had 1,778 students.
“I know with the upper classifications, each round is a bigger and bigger beast, but that’s playoffs,” Lovejoy volleyball coach Natalie Puckett said. “That’s what makes a state championship so incredibly special. We coaches keep coming back year after year, but the athletes wave through each year. I would hate for our sport to be watered down with too many trophies, so it’ll be interesting to see how many classifications get a D1 and D2.”
While many coaches told The News they had heard of these potential changes — either from UIL members or coaches associations — others said they were unaware of them until around the state basketball tournaments in March.
That’s when Raven started hearing the rumors. Three months later, he’s still puzzled about the speed at which the UIL plans to implement these massive changes.
“Have [you] ever seen the UIL move this quickly on anything? The answer is no,” Raven said. “Not anywhere close.”
Possible playoff changes
Here are the possible consequences of splitting the postseason into two divisions, according to the emails and draft proposals.
For all five sports
The top four teams from each district would advance to the playoffs. The two schools with the largest enrollments as of October 2023, when enrollment figures were submitted for the 2024-2026 reclassification and realignment process, would compete in the Division I bracket and the other two in the Division II bracket. Both divisions would play for separate state championships.
For basketball and soccer
For all classifications, the changes could decrease the number of games and eliminate the regional quarterfinal round.
State tournaments could include only state finals and not state semifinals.
If the state tournament continued to include state semifinals, 48 teams would participate in 36 games over a week for soccer, Saturday to Saturday, and from Monday to Saturday for basketball.
Under the current single-division format that includes state semifinals in the state tournament, 24 teams participate in 18 games over three days from Thursday through Saturday.
For softball, baseball and volleyball
The playoff structure would remain the same for Class 1A, with the top two teams (for softball and baseball) and top three teams (for volleyball) from each district making the postseason and competing for one state title.
For Classes 2A to 6A, the proposed changes could decrease the number of games and eliminate the area round.
For baseball and softball, the state semifinals could change from a one-game playoff to a best-of-3 series the week before the state tournament. For all three sports, the state tournament would then include only 11 games from Thursday through Saturday.
If the state tournament continued to include the state semifinals, 33 games would be scheduled over a week for baseball and softball, Saturday to Saturday, and from Monday to Saturday for volleyball.
The current state tournaments each have 18 games, scheduled from Tuesday to Saturday for softball and Wednesday to Saturday for baseball and volleyball.
Greg Riddle contributed to this story.
Find more high school sports coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
