UIL Realignment
Article by Greg Jaklewicz
A Calm Realignment Day
There wasn’t much drama Monday for Wylie ISD Athletic Director Mike Fecci.
No, he wasn’t focused on whether a certain groundhog would see its shadow.
Rather, Fecci joined other ADs and coaches across Texas to learn how the University Interscholastic League, which governs public school athletic, academic and music competitions, would align schools for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 school years.
This happens every two years in early February.
In contrast, Wylie experienced considerable drama in 2018, when the UIL bumped the growing school district from Class 4A Division I to Class 5A Division II.
Most of the attention on UIL realignment years is on football.
(Wylie ISD Athletic Director, Mike Fecci)
Where Wylie Fits
This year, the Class 5A enrollment range used to determine classifications was 1,305 to 2,214.
According to the UIL enrollment rankings, Wylie came in at 1,580 students. WHS is the smallest school in the district.
Wylie football most recently has competed in District 2-5A, playing new local rival Abilene Cooper, the two new Wichita Falls schools (Memorial and Legacy), Lubbock-Cooper, Plainview and distant Amarillo Palo Duro in league play.
District Changes (and One Expected Swap)
The district remained largely intact Monday. It’s still a seven-team district, with Lubbock Coronado replacing Plainview.
That swap was expected.
“It went exactly like coach (Clay) Martin told me he thought it would. It made the most sense,” Fecci said. It was expected that if the district lost one team, it would get another.
Enrollments in the Amarillo and Lubbock ISDs have trended lower than the 6A minimum in recent years. Amarillo High (2,161) is the closest to Class 6A (2,215 minimum in 2026).
Plainview, often overmatched in athletics, moves down to 4A Division I. Plainview will be in 3-4A with Midland Greenwood, San Angelo Lake View and Andrews.
Coronado’s Move
Coronado, which not many years ago fielded teams that made deep playoff football runs, has fallen on hard times. The Mustangs were 0-10 this past season, losing 70-14 at Wylie.
Officially, Coronado posted a 1-9 record because Amarillo High forfeited a 79-6 win due to an ineligible player.
It was not unexpected that Coronado would drop. Its UIL number was 1,744.
Fecci said Wylie has played Coronado as a nondistrict game in anticipation of facing them in the future as a district opponent.
Enrollment Breakdown (UIL)
Here are the enrollment breakdowns, according to the UIL:
WF Legacy: 1,836
Amarillo Palo Duro: 1,812.5
Lubbock Coronado: 1,744
Abilene Cooper: 1,720.6
Lubbock-Cooper: 1,663
WF Memorial: 1,605
Wylie: 1,580
Hello, Frenship
Wylie will have roughly the same football schedule this fall, moving Coronado to its opening district game and only needed to replace the new open date in non-district play. That will be Frenship High, which dropped to 5A Division I.
The Frenship ISD now has two high schools; the other is the new Memorial High, a Division I school.
Fecci said there was an earlier UIL plan to move WF Legacy to 5A Division I. Losing two teams could have meant adding two teams.
“There were a number of weeks there where that threw a wrench into things,” Fecci said. The UIL juggled its cutoff numbers and Legacy remained in Division II.
“It came out pretty clean,” he said.
Perspective From Experience
Fecci, who worked through his first UIL realignment in the WISD, said this wasn't always the case over his 27 years in athletics. He was the coach at McKinney North for 13 years, then the associate AD for a year in the McKinney ISD before moving west.
Growing urban areas in Texas have seen more volatile change in recent years.
The UIL currently is hearing any appeals; football schedules can be finalized Feb. 23 this year.
Non-District Football Outlook
The Bulldogs, for now, will face Brownwood (7-5), Lubbock Monterey (7-5), Frenship and defending Class 4A Division I champion Stephenville (16-0) in non-district play. The Coronado game is next, with Wylie’s open week to follow, Fecci said. Thus, Wylie will play five games, get a break, then play its final five games.
Frenship was 4-7 overall and fourth last year in District 2-6A, losing in the first round of the playoffs. Frenship also lost 33-26 to WF Memorial and 57-56 to Lubbock-Cooper, two playoff teams from District 2-5A.
The two schools have never played in football.
“I know we will finish with Abilene Cooper,” Fecci said of the upcoming season. That game will be at Wylie again, he said.
Fecci said finding games in West Texas, especially if your program is highly regarded, isn’t always easy. The Bulldogs’ four non-district opponents next fall all made the playoffs.
“Clay said, ‘That’s what we do. That’s who we play.’”
Small Round Ball
For basketball and volleyball, the UIL realignment did not change Wylie’s districts.
The Bulldogs still will play in a small District 4-5A with the two Abilene (Cooper and AHS) and Wichita Falls schools (Legacy and Memorial).
That means four of the five schools make the playoffs.
The district is the smallest in Class 5A; Districts 1 and 2, in the El Paso area, have six teams each.
That contrasts with a huge District 3-5A, which will be composed of Amarillo High, Amarillo Caprock, Palo Duro, Amarillo Tascosa, Frenship Memorial, Lubbock High, Lubbock-Cooper, Coronado, Lubbock Monterey, and Frenship.
When the playoffs begin, 3-5A and 4-5A teams meet in the first round.
A Tough Road Through 3-5A
Fecci was quick to note that even the fourth-place team in a 10-team district will be a salty, battle-tested first-round opponent.
“The competition level in that district above us is immense,” he said. “One through four there … if you make it out of that, you’ve done something. Those are some really good teams.”
Currently, Amarillo Tascosa leads the nine-team boys’ basketball race with an 11-1 record, is 22-5 overall and ranked No. 22 in Class 5A.
Amarillo High (23-7) is second at 11-2 and Palo Duro (21-5) third. In fifth place and currently out of the playoffs is Lubbock Monterey, which is 21-9 overall. That’s three 20-win teams.
That district will be similar beginning next year, losing Plainview but adding Frenship Memorial (currently 17-12) and Frenship High (9-18 as a 6A), which could make 3-5A even tougher.
Early Talk, Final Decision
Fecci said there was early buzz that the two Frenship schools would be put in 4-5A with Wylie.
There also was early talk of adding the three Lubbock ISD schools to Wylie’s district.
It just depended, Fecci said, on who was talking. Ultimately, none of those plans panned out.
Scheduling Challenges and Familiar Faces
Wylie plays at the Division II level in the playoffs, meaning the Bulldogs would face one of the two smallest playoff schools in the opposing mega district.
The teams coming out of 3-5A will have played an 18-game district schedule compared to just eight games for those in 4-5A.
That creates more scheduling challenges for Wylie, both to fill dates and to keep the competition level as high as possible.
On its bye week this season, the Wylie girls played Lubbock Christian “just to get another game in,” Fecci said.
“Scheduling becomes tough. We have the room to schedule games, but now you’ve got to go find them. And they’re hard to find.
“Sometimes you have to stretch out there … to get the competition you need.”
The basketball-volleyball alignment holds for the other sports — baseball, softball, tennis, cross country and track. Only swimming is not affected.
“That is our non-football district for everything,” Fecci said.
On the upside, he said there is a lot of familiarity in the district and with only three school districts involved — WISD, Abilene ISD and Wichita Falls ISD — any decisions that arise are more easily worked out.
He heard enough loud voices when he was back east.