2026-2027 UIL Realignment

[TexasStrangers]

3 hours ago, oddlynormal said:

Nothing should change in terms of advancement.  UIL MUST stay 5 for 1 at Area.  We do not need to make things harder.  

I fear with bands moving up to 6A in larger 5A areas dumb decisions may get made.  Back in 2019 UIL split Houston up and royally messed over a few groups in 5A across the city.  They recombined back to larger areas and things have been great since.  If anything all 5A/6A areas need to still be a minimum of 20-25 potential bands when possible.  

Bands that get first divisions will continue to do so.  However, messing with Area allotment can really hurt.  The process is already nuts in Texas.  I love it, but we need to keep our Areas on the larger side ESPECIALLY in 5A.

I kind of agree, yes I like to watch bands but I don't want to go to a state contest and watch 40 bands compete for a State Title where the start time is at 8 in the morning and goes into the late night. 

[TrenBS]

17 hours ago, oddlynormal said:

Nothing should change in terms of advancement.  UIL MUST stay 5 for 1 at Area.  We do not need to make things harder.  

I fear with bands moving up to 6A in larger 5A areas dumb decisions may get made.  Back in 2019 UIL split Houston up and royally messed over a few groups in 5A across the city.  They recombined back to larger areas and things have been great since.  If anything all 5A/6A areas need to still be a minimum of 20-25 potential bands when possible.  

Bands that get first divisions will continue to do so.  However, messing with Area allotment can really hurt.  The process is already nuts in Texas.  I love it, but we need to keep our Areas on the larger side ESPECIALLY in 5A.

We are actively SHRINKING areas right now... ALL of DFW has been broken down into barely 20 band areas and could dip below that if realignment continues to trend, which a lot of the other 6A areas are following this trend. I dont know why you are saying 20-25 bands is a bigger size for 6A when we had a bunch of areas in the 30s years prior to now, which changing the STATE QUALIFIER TO AREA RATIO TO ADD MORE STATE QUALIFIERS PER AMOUNT OF AREA PEOPLE would not affect allotment.

Areas are actively shrinking and are getting dominated by individual districts. I wouldnt be surprised if area H is all LeanderISD for state qualifiers, and if area J remains its going to be the exact same top 4 from the past 2 years. The A and G areas are also getting smaller barely taking 3 bands and about to have to start doing prelims only events if they continue to trend downwards.

All changing the ratio does is add more state slots, it doesn't make the area any bigger or smaller and I don't know what line of reasoning you followed to reach that point that making the ratio of state to area smaller would shrink any of the areas or lead to less qualifiers, cause that's wrong.

Area allotment is completely different from the state qualifier ratio, please read which is clearly posted on the UIL site, and if you aren't trying to argue that changing the ratio would lead to smaller areas or less qualifiers, which it DOESN'T, I genuinely have no idea what you are trying to say.

[oddlynormal]

53 minutes ago, TrenBS said:

We are actively SHRINKING areas right now... ALL of DFW has been broken down into barely 20 band areas and could dip below that if realignment continues to trend, which a lot of the other 6A areas are following this trend. I dont know why you are saying 20-25 bands is a bigger size for 6A when we had a bunch of areas in the 30s years prior to now, which changing the STATE QUALIFIER TO AREA RATIO TO ADD MORE STATE QUALIFIERS PER AMOUNT OF AREA PEOPLE would not affect allotment.

Areas are actively shrinking and are getting dominated by individual districts. I wouldnt be surprised if area H is all LeanderISD for state qualifiers, and if area J remains its going to be the exact same top 4 from the past 2 years. The A and G areas are also getting smaller barely taking 3 bands and about to have to start doing prelims only events if they continue to trend downwards.

All changing the ratio does is add more state slots, it doesn't make the area any bigger or smaller and I don't know what line of reasoning you followed to reach that point that making the ratio of state to area smaller would shrink any of the areas or lead to less qualifiers, cause that's wrong.

Area allotment is completely different from the state qualifier ratio, please read which is clearly posted on the UIL site, and if you aren't trying to argue that changing the ratio would lead to smaller areas or less qualifiers, which it DOESN'T, I genuinely have no idea what you are trying to say.

My argument is specifically for 5A in the Houston area.  In 2019 some great bands got hosed by super small area contests.  This could be why you don't get what I am trying to say.  The Leander's and DFW 5A bands will always get their due.  However, the Houston area has been diced up before and I fear an attempt to do the same for next year is coming.  I hope I am wrong.

[TenLostDogs]

Enrollment numbers are listed on UIL website now.

[TexasStrangers]

Enrollment numbers have been released

 

https://www.uiltexas.org/files/alignments/Submitted_Enrollments_10_31_128.pdf?fbclid=IwY2xjawOlahNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFyREx0MWxVZGE4WVNRaG1Gc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHoheLEeLP_szBo5dEOotxp1pBGhe1YJjXrumakYCxqrmJiilEDKHl8Lrjep6_aem_Mq1HvneHsfSodr-SCLOnng

[TrenBS]

19 hours ago, TexasStrangers said:

I kind of agree, yes I like to watch bands but I don't want to go to a state contest and watch 40 bands compete for a State Title where the start time is at 8 in the morning and goes into the late night. 

I mean its always hovered around 40-43 as of late, but I get that. we dont want to inflate the numbers so logistics can exist, so its a difficult area to touch in regards to rule changing

 

Edit: and if people want to find what the top 250 bands are roster wise to find the 6A cutoff, be my guest lol

[TrenBS]

4 hours ago, oddlynormal said:

My argument is specifically for 5A in the Houston area.  In 2019 some great bands got hosed by super small area contests.  This could be why you don't get what I am trying to say.  The Leander's and DFW 5A bands will always get their due.  However, the Houston area has been diced up before and I fear an attempt to do the same for next year is coming.  I hope I am wrong.

I agree frankly with having larger areas, it keeps 5A and 6A pretty consistent with the pipeline roster wise, I just want to see the monopolies at the 6A level addressed without butchering lower divisions, and a medalist rule/ratio change would address that without affecting zoning

 

All I really want to see is to not have district monopolies in the areas that leave no room for the 20-30 bubble bands to be represented, unless they wanted only the elite programs to go to state. If that was the priority, we wouldve seen A and G get dissolved into  other areas to boost the more affluent districts/bands ability to qualify and compete, which would be terrible and is obvious that its not the priority.

[BugWub24]

I have been in the process of making spreadsheets for conferences 4A through 6A, giving an outlook for this next cycle of realignment under the current area alignment. When the cutoff numbers are released, I will make some final adjustments and post the sheets here.

[BugWub24]

37 minutes ago, TexasStrangers said:

Enrollment numbers have been released

 

https://www.uiltexas.org/files/alignments/Submitted_Enrollments_10_31_128.pdf?fbclid=IwY2xjawOlahNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFyREx0MWxVZGE4WVNRaG1Gc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHoheLEeLP_szBo5dEOotxp1pBGhe1YJjXrumakYCxqrmJiilEDKHl8Lrjep6_aem_Mq1HvneHsfSodr-SCLOnng

McKinney High and Boyd each come out to 2500, and North came out to 1800 after rezoning.

[TrenBS]

1 hour ago, BugWub24 said:

McKinney High and Boyd each come out to 2500, and North came out to 1800 after rezoning.

Surprisingly lower than what I was expecting, and McKinney Boyd being the biggest was interesting…

I also heard they may take 220 bands instead of 250 into 6A, which could dramatically change the rosters

[dfwhorn]

Not important to band at all but the smallest school recorded is San Vicente at the grand total of 3 students, just a little fun fact

[BugWub24]

2 hours ago, TrenBS said:

Surprisingly lower than what I was expecting, and McKinney Boyd being the biggest was interesting…

I also heard they may take 220 bands instead of 250 into 6A, which could dramatically change the rosters

That's insane, that would keep the 6A/5A cutoff at 2,275. They might as well keep the same cutoffs as last time. In my opinion, that would make 5A pretty overcrowded.

[dfwhorn]

The cutoff if we did top 250 without any opts and etc would be 2199, with Mansfield legacy being the 250th largest enrollment wise. This would mean that Melissa and Wakeland would both be 6A.

If top 200, 2345 would probably be enrollment, Dekaney (spring) has that enrollment as the 200th.

[BugWub24]

4 hours ago, dfwhorn said:

The cutoff if we did top 250 without any opts and etc would be 2199, with Mansfield legacy being the 250th largest enrollment wise. This would mean that Melissa and Wakeland would both be 6A.

If top 200, 2345 would probably be enrollment, Dekaney (spring) has that enrollment as the 200th.

I would say they could go with 249 for 6A and 251 for 5A. This would get a 6A/5A cutoff of 2200, and a 5A/4A cutoff of 1295 (or 1290 if we wanted to get a nice number lol).

I definitely see the 4A/3A cutoff going up. The current one (545) would get you 241 schools in 4A compared to 218 last cycle.
Same for the 3A/2A cutoff (254) - a whopping 89 additional schools would be in the 3A count compared to last cycle.

The 2A/1A cutoff hasn't changed since 2014, when 6A was created. If it were to stay the same this year, that would be an additional 22 schools in the 1A count (238 compared to 216 last cycle).

 

[BugWub24]

4 hours ago, BugWub24 said:

I would say they could go with 249 for 6A and 251 for 5A. This would get a 6A/5A cutoff of 2200, and a 5A/4A cutoff of 1295 (or 1290 if we wanted to get a nice number lol).

I forgor that realignment is tailored to football. The cutoff is likely to be somewhere close to 2,225, with a few opt ups to 6A (but those schools' bands would compete in 5A).

[dullbanddad]

12 hours ago, dfwhorn said:

The cutoff if we did top 250 without any opts and etc would be 2199, with Mansfield legacy being the 250th largest enrollment wise. This would mean that Melissa and Wakeland would both be 6A.

If top 200, 2345 would probably be enrollment, Dekaney (spring) has that enrollment as the 200th.

As far as Leander ISD only Leander HS is on the edge. They could end up on either side of the equation at 2263. Glenn is the only solidly 5A school now

[lambow93]

6A state truly turns into battle of the LISDs!!!

[lambow93]

20 minutes ago, lambow93 said:

6A state truly turns into battle of the LISDs!!!

5A state however, turns into a completely new contest with 3/4 LISD schools possibly leaving and Wakeland also maybe moving up leaving only 6 of the finalists from this year's contest to remain in the classification (Buda Hays is also going up with 2.3k enrollment)

[TexasStrangers]

I am looking at some of these numbers and they are wild to the point where I think they might lower cutoffs in some places. I am seeing a ton of 4A schools that have dropped 150,100,50 students to get under the current cutoff of 545 from two years ago. 

[lambow93]

10 minutes ago, TexasStrangers said:

I am looking at some of these numbers and they are wild to the point where I think they might lower cutoffs in some places. I am seeing a ton of 4A schools that have dropped 150,100,50 students to get under the current cutoff of 545 from two years ago. 

not 4A, but schools like New Braunfels dropping from 2179 to 1409 in 2 years, as well as Homer Hanna going from 2300 to 1800...

[dfwhorn]

6A Area B newcomers/bubble
Aledo 2404
Granbury 2264
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chisholm 2199
Mansf. Legacy 2198
Azle 2177.5 (only if cutoff is low enough, doubtful right now though.

I think as of now the cut will be near 2200, so Chisholm and Legacy will be RIGHT on the bubble. If Chisholm is out though so will Legacy who was 6A. (frenship memorial too) Interesting scenario right there. I'd say Granbury is pretty safely in there though.

[dullbanddad]

UIL should change how they do this. Using this year's senior class in the calculation is flawed. For example Vista Ridge's actual enrollment next year will be about 200 kids less than the snapshot, putting them in 5A 

[RoRogg]

2 hours ago, dullbanddad said:

UIL should change how they do this. Using this year's senior class in the calculation is flawed. For example Vista Ridge's actual enrollment next year will be about 200 kids less than the snapshot, putting them in 5A 

what about the freshman class coming in?

[dullbanddad]

9 hours ago, RoRogg said:

what about the freshman class coming in?

It's much smaller because of redistricting two years ago. It's why you're seeing Cedar Park move up.

[BugWub24]

MOCK CUTOFFS (not official):
Based on the mock realignments from the Dave Campbell website, these were the cutoffs that they used to make those mock-ups. They do account for opt-ups:

6A: 2225+
5A: 1295 - 2224
4A: 540 - 1294

(only 4A-6A have been covered so far on the website)