Change My Mind 2.0

The kids don’t want a change
Parents don’t want a change
Coaches don’t want a change
School officials don’t want a change

If the division split bothers you that much then go watch something else, otherwise stop beating this long dead horse, it’s practically dust at this point.
 
CoachLumpkin said:
What would the cutoff numbers be if you had 3 divisions? Every 35 kids maybe? 1-35, 36-70, 71-105?
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TAIAO has a pretty elegant solution:

TAIAO has three football divisions (DI, DII & DIII) which are separated by the number of players on a team. Each year the Football Committee sets the divisions based upon the roster numbers for each division. in 2024, the divisions were Div III (6-14 players), Div II (15-20 players) and DI (21+ players).

link: https://taiao.org/2024/08/taiao-2024-football-divisions/

Before doing away with divisions I would rather see the existing 12 just be called something else aside from divisions. 12A down to 1A or some other moniker...doesn't matter.

The way we do it now is LOADS better than having wide population gaps...3A back in the bad old days had teams with ~470 playing teams with close to 1000 in the same district.

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sberry2023 said:
TAIAO has a pretty elegant solution:

TAIAO has three football divisions (DI, DII & DIII) which are separated by the number of players on a team. Each year the Football Committee sets the divisions based upon the roster numbers for each division. in 2024, the divisions were Div III (6-14 players), Div II (15-20 players) and DI (21+ players).
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Correct me if I’m wrong, all or partial. TAIAO is home school and these kids have to pay out of pocket to play on these teams? Uil is, attend school and be eligible. There is money from students involved but nothing like TAIAO or private schools. It might be an advantage to have large teams in TAIAO because that means more money. If it was number of players on team in UIL, a lot, most, or all coaches would keep number of players to play in DIII and put everyone else on JV. Some of the UIL teams only have 7 or 8 total players on team now so they sure couldn’t compete with a school with 104 in high school but only carrying small numbers on varsity to stay DIII. 21+ is a lot of players on varsity for 6man anyway. My opinion, it’s ok in UIL as is.
 
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How many of the approximately 60 schools that don't play football might opt to play if we had roster based alignments like TAIAO or something similar?

It is home school/charter schools. I agree 21 kids is a lot on a six man squad. It would require some integrity on the part of the coaches to follow something like this in public schools.

I have seen others advocating for returning to the 99.9/100-199 number for six man, similar to the 6 man/11 man 1A split from way back.

I am not in favor of anything in particular, except similar population schools playing each other in district and play offs. A school with 20 kids may opt out of football altogether in a district filled with 60 kid DII schools...I believe we would have LESS if we were required to play schools that are all the way up to 104.5 as district matchups. 46 in our school at the moment -- I would think hard about the value of the experience if we had to play a DI district schedule.
 
I think it is counter productive to have a division split based on number of football players (or kids on the team). In the last three years I have had teams with 41 and 42 kids on them. Only three kids in athletics didn't play football. Now that isn't saying I had 41 or 42 football players, 15 or more of these kids just wanted to be part of something. I loved having them join the team (how can I impact their lives if they aren't in the program.) So I want every kid that can, to be part of our team (even if they are not athletic at all and rarely see the field.)

So if we split divisions based on number of players we will see less and less of this. Obviously with those numbers we would have been big school anyway. What happens when we have a school that is on the bubble of a division? Will those coaches want kids on the team that they know will not help them ever? I am not questioning any coaches integrity at all, but to pretend like this wouldn't cross all of our minds isn't being realistic.

The beauty of 1A is that our kids, that couldn't join a team in bigger schools due to cuts and budgets, get to be a part of something greater than themselves. They get to experience being on the team. I would hate to see that go away due to divisions based on number of players. When the divisions are based on students in school, I believe it encourages coaches to try and get everyone involved.
 
CoachMatlock said:
I think it is counter productive to have a division split based on number of football players (or kids on the team). In the last three years I have had teams with 41 and 42 kids on them. Only three kids in athletics didn't play football. Now that isn't saying I had 41 or 42 football players, 15 or more of these kids just wanted to be part of something. I loved having them join the team (how can I impact their lives if they aren't in the program.) So I want every kid that can, to be part of our team (even if they are not athletic at all and rarely see the field.)

So if we split divisions based on number of players we will see less and less of this. Obviously with those numbers we would have been big school anyway. What happens when we have a school that is on the bubble of a division? Will those coaches want kids on the team that they know will not help them ever? I am not questioning any coaches integrity at all, but to pretend like this wouldn't cross all of our minds isn't being realistic.

The beauty of 1A is that our kids, that couldn't join a team in bigger schools due to cuts and budgets, get to be a part of something greater than themselves. They get to experience being on the team. I would hate to see that go away due to divisions based on number of players. When the divisions are based on students in school, I believe it encourages coaches to try and get everyone involved.
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Varsity roster and JV roster.

Lots of kids on JV and developing is not a terrible thing. Roster certification before the season starts and again come district and/or playoffs so you can move kids around who improve or will get reps on Friday nights. What happens NOW when a school is on the bubble of a division? I imagine the numbers for each division are not announced until attendance is turned in on snapshot day--same deal with a roster based system.

I am not actually arguing for a roster based system, just showing it's possible to have great participation and that system.

I don't know the best solution, but I do know that the worst possible change would be lumping everyone together, which is the original point of the thread.
 
sberry2023 said:
Varsity roster and JV roster.

Lots of kids on JV and developing is not a terrible thing. Roster certification before the season starts and again come district and/or playoffs so you can move kids around who improve or will get reps on Friday nights. What happens NOW when a school is on the bubble of a division? I imagine the numbers for each division are not announced until attendance is turned in on snapshot day--same deal with a roster based system.

I am not actually arguing for a roster based system, just showing it's possible to have great participation and that system.

I don't know the best solution, but I do know that the worst possible change would be lumping everyone together, which is the original point of the thread.
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So what happens when every sixman school in the state has 10-12 kids on varsity and everyone else on jv? Do the jv kids count to the alignment number? If the jv kids count then now we'll just have tryouts and only the best 10-12 kids are on the football team and everyone else doesn't get to play. So now all the teams are playing each other because every team in the state has 10-12 football players.

This idea won't work how you think it will.
 
TheJoker said:
This idea won't work how you think it will.
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You are probably right.

Let me reiterate: I am NOT arguing for that, just talking about how it seems to work with an organization in Texas.

What we do now is better than the old days, but still imperfect.

Definitely don't want all sixman lumped into one division -- there is talk out there of doing away with all divisions and/or only doing divisions in play offs like BB did this season. Don't know if it's all rumour or if that's being leaked or told to people on the inside...?
 
oldfolks said:
Correct me if I’m wrong, all or partial. TAIAO is home school and these kids have to pay out of pocket to play on these teams? Uil is, attend school and be eligible. There is money from students involved but nothing like TAIAO or private schools. It might be an advantage to have large teams in TAIAO because that means more money. If it was number of players on team in UIL, a lot, most, or all coaches would keep number of players to play in DIII and put everyone else on JV. Some of the UIL teams only have 7 or 8 total players on team now so they sure couldn’t compete with a school with 104 in high school but only carrying small numbers on varsity to stay DIII. 21+ is a lot of players on varsity for 6man anyway. My opinion, it’s ok in UIL as is.
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TAIAO actually has more private/charter schools than homeschool programs now due to our growth. One of the reasons We use the number on the whole high school roster instead of school enrollment is one we do have homeschool teams but two some private schools are mainly academic and use sports to retain the kids that want to do athletics. We have a small fee paid to play in our conference but the actual fees kids pay vary and is paid to the team they play on
 
TheJoker said:
So what happens when every sixman school in the state has 10-12 kids on varsity and everyone else on jv? Do the jv kids count to the alignment number? If the jv kids count then now we'll just have tryouts and only the best 10-12 kids are on the football team and everyone else doesn't get to play. So now all the teams are playing each other because every team in the state has 10-12 football players.

This idea won't work how you think it will.
Click to expand...
TAIAO counts all high school players regardless of JV or V. Probably wouldn’t work for UIL but for our mix of private/charter and homeschool teams it makes it as level as we can.
 

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