Jeff Fleener knew Forney athletics would graduate from Class 5A in 2024.
Forney turned in an enrollment of 2,482 — a figure above the Class 5A Division I cutoff — for the 2024-26 UIL reclassification and realignment cycle. That means Forney, just east of Dallas along Highway 80, will move up to Class 6A, Texas’ largest classification for high school athletics.
The football coach said Forney had 125 freshmen football players across two teams and 90 players on junior varsity in 2023. Forney’s varsity team, a 5A Division I state semifinalist, had 70 players.
As schools have scaled the ranks, growth has tended to coincide with prosperity. Anna’s booming population, in part, helped the high school win its first football state championship in program history. Now, Anna is moving up to 5A Division II.
In nearby Melissa, which moved up to 5A Division II last cycle, growth has resulted in state-ranked football teams and brand new athletic facilities.
But in 6A, it could be harder for teams to stand out.
While competing in Texas’ top classification is exclusive to about 18% of the high schools in the state, membership in 6A isn’t always glamorous. History shows that growth eventually slows, and having a 6A population doesn’t necessarily equate to 6A success as far as deep playoff runs and state titles are concerned.
“We have great numbers to compete in 6A,” Fleener said. “Now, it’s still going to come down to how many of those numbers are ball-playing dudes.”
Even the most elite programs have gotten lost in the sea of championship-caliber 6A teams once they moved up to the top classification.
Highland Park, a six-time state champion in football, has won just one state title in a team sport during its tenures in 6A (2014-15, 2015-16 and 2022-23, 2023-24). Football didn’t bring home that title — team tennis did.
Aledo, a 12-time UIL state football champion that recently won a second consecutive title in 5A Division I, could find the road to a 6A championship challenging if it had to face juggernauts like Duncanville, Galena Park North Shore, Southlake Carroll, Austin Westlake or DeSoto, which turned in 5A Division I numbers but may opt up to 6A for the 2024-26 reclassification and realignment cycle.
But Fleener said the difference between a 5A Division I team and a 6A team isn’t always that wide.
“There’s a lot of people that [say] ‘Aren’t you worried or aren’t you nervous about moving up to 6A?’”said Fleener, who coached in 6A during tenures at Allen and Mesquite.
He reminds them Forney played fellow 6A-bound teams in Longview and Lancaster. Forney also played Aledo.
“It’s not like there’s a whole bunch of teams that can just show up in 6A that are going to be shockingly better than those teams,” Fleener said.
The talent differential
In 2022, Forney’s sister school North Forney moved up from Class 5A Division II to Class 6A.
“As a coach, you get into it to play at the highest level,” North Forney football coach Eric Luster said. “So to realize that you’re about to be a 6A coach, you’re like ‘Ok, let’s go.’”
But when Luster assessed his new competition, he knew his team wasn’t 6A-ready yet.
“You see a video of a guy that you’re in the district with and he’s a D-lineman and he looks like a Greek god,” Luster said. “And he’s squatting 500 pounds and you look at your offensive line that’s squatting 285.”
During North Forney’s first year in 6A, it finished 3–7 with no district wins. In 2023, North Forney finished 8–2 in the regular season and won a playoff game. But against 6A area powers like Rockwall, North Forney struggled.
Now North Forney may have to worry about new district additions in Forney and potentially state power Longview. Luster is sure those programs will do well, but he said when a team moves up, there’s still a learning curve.
“[Maybe] you didn’t move up by a lot,” Luster said. “You barely made it in by 100 kids and those 100 kids might have given you two more football players.”
The floor and the ceiling
This cycle, schools needed an enrollment of 2,275 students and above to qualify for 6A. But there is no cutoff at the top. A Class 7A doesn’t exist yet.
A school like Allen, which turned in an enrollment of 6,947, could face a fellow 6A school with only about 2,500 students.
That’s why Frisco Emerson football coach Kendall Miller doesn’t mind being a perpetual 5A team. Frisco ISD prefers to keep all of its high schools at 5A populations.
“In 5A, there’s a floor and a ceiling,” Miller told The Dallas Morning News in November. “I played in a 6A district in Garland and it was easy to play a school that was twice as big as you in the playoffs, or three times, because there’s no ceiling.”
That numbers disparity is taken into consideration when the postseason arrives. Each year, the UIL crowns a 6A Division I and 6A Division II champion.
But that distinction doesn’t exist during district play, which determines a team’s playoff chances.
Fleener sees the impact of numbers in 4A and 5A, but not necessarily in 6A, where the state’s largest school in Allen has thrived in football, but other big schools like those in Plano ISD have struggled.
In some cases, schools with smaller populations have topped those with greater ones.
This past season, DeSoto football, which turned in an enrollment of 2,127, beat Duncanville, which turned in an enrollment of 4,711. If DeSoto does opt up to 6A, it will certainly remain a title contender. DeSoto routed Humble Summer Creek 74-14 to repeat as the Class 6A Division II state champion. The back-to-back champ also set the UIL record for most points scored in a state title game by a 6A team.
Moving to a new classification will likely have at least some growing pains, but Fleener is glad that in 6A, the sports landscape at Forney will be more uniform.
“I always get confused in 5A that our football district is different than our district for all our other sports,” Fleener said. “One thing that will be easier for me is I’ll remember who all we’re playing in our district.”
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