Tom Duncan
Six-man fan
TAIAO is not limited to home school teams. A big difference is that TAIAO does not provide district alignments, so scheduling during the regular season can be challenging. From their FAQs: TAIAO is open to Charter Schools, Private Schools and Homeschool Organizations. We currently have representation from all of these types of organizations.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.
I would like to add to this discussion the fact that many 2A schools just above the 105 number have trouble fielding 11 man teams and some like Fruitvale opt to play outlaw ball when they barely miss the number and have less that 15 boys playing football each year.
Also, some of the top Division I Sixman schools will often have 30 or 40 boys out for Sixman football. Perhaps a possible course of action would be to lower the Sixman number back to 95 where it once was and go back to having an Eightman division from 95.5 up to 135 or so. Eightman football is a better fit for a number of reasons especially when schools have so many players coming out each year and for the larger offensive and defensive lineman that often get left off the field in Sixman football. Many of the current smaller 2A programs could benefit with adding an Eightman division as well.