SAN ANTONIO – The UIL received generally positive reviews from its split-playoff formula in sports other than football.

The format, which divides teams into two divisions based on enrollment after the season, led to 38 teams winning a state championship for the first time.

“There have been some programs that have not had success that have said this new playoff pathway absolutely led to this new level of success,” UIL Director of Athletics Ray Zepeda said Sunday during the UIL’s annual coaching school press conference. “If you talk to enough people, there are a lot of opinions out there. There have been some concerns about seeding with that being in the early round or the latter round of the playoffs. There have been some concerns about those semifinals maybe not being what they seemed to be in the past.”

The UIL has tried to address concerns by instituting a pilot program for volleyball in the upcoming school year. The semifinal games for Division I and Division II in each classification will be played at a single site.

“This is not perfect, this is a living, breathing thing that will continue to evolve,” UIL Executive Director Jamey Harrison said. “We will learn and improve as we go along.”

Harrison emphasized that it’s too early to consider implementing split divisions before the season.

“We just tried this for one year,” Harrison said. “We’ve seen a considerable improvement in competitive equity in the postseason for those schools on the smaller end of the brackets. We need to live with this for a little while before we throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak, and implement an entirely new model. I think it would cost our schools quite a bit more for travel.”

Playoff format

Harrison said the UIL’s Legislative Council will take a close look at giving district champions in classifications below Class 5A homefield advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

“It’s one thing to get a home-field advantage, it’s another thing to get a home-field advantage plus a six-hour travel on the other team advantage,” Harrison said. “I think we will see it happen as soon as we can get some common-sense language in there that says you’re going to have home-field advantage unless it does not make common sense.”

Advanced technology

The UIL wants Texas high school football to keep up with the latest trends in technology.

Teams were allowed to use in-game technology last season that was limited to the press box and dressing room.

Teams will now be able to utilize technology on the field.

“Wearable technology was something that THSCA football advisory committee was really pushing for, for a number of reasons including sign stealing and things of that nature,” Zepeda said. “There’s always a balance between trying to be on the cutting edge and also pricing out some schools and creating a competitive disadvantage.”

Football state championship games

State championship games in football will again be played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

Harrison said this is the final year of the contract with AT&T Stadium. 

Harrison admitted the UIL noticed the decline in attendance at last year’s state championship games.

“It’s always got our attention, but we need to find out if that’s an anomaly or is that a trend,” he said. “If it’s a pattern, we’ll get our heads together with really smart people and see if we can get our attendance back to where it was.”

Rule changes

The UIL has increased the number of weight divisions in girls wrestling from 12 to 14 – the same as boys wrestling.

The UIL will expand the baseball playoff pilot program for Class 6A/5A to Class 4A/3A. The rule mandates teams to play a best-of-three series unless both teams agree to play one game.