Daniel Youngblood

The tin foil crowd may have to find a new knock on Wylie because the conspiracy theories that have existed for decades about doctored enrollment numbers are starting to look silly. Or maybe I should say sillier, since the insinuation has never held any water.

But looking at the numbers turned in for Monday's UIL realignment, Wylie's reported enrollment of 940 puts the Bulldogs 50 students below the new 4A requirement of 990. And if that's not evidence enough, Wylie won't even be the biggest school in its new district. Big Spring, which dropped from 4A and was placed in District 5-3A with Wylie, Brownwood, Snyder and Sweetwater, turned in an enrollment of 974.

To put that in perspective, were Wylie and Big Spring to make the football playoffs next fall, Wylie would play in the Division II playoffs for the first time ever. And while you can argue about the logic of a school with 940 students playing in the "small school division," it may be time stop arguing that Wylie's hiding kids to stay 3A. Because it would take one heck of a big broom closet to fit 50 students.

On now to a lighter topic, District 5-3A may not cause the same reaction (dropping jaws and gasps) that the announcement of 2-3A did in 2009, but it should prove to be just as tough for the its football teams.

In Wylie, Brownwood and Snyder, you have what should be three quality playoff teams. Now add Big Spring, which won 10 games at the 4A level last season, and an improved Sweetwater club and whoever makes it out of district and into the playoffs will have certainly earned it.

Some of the coaches were frustrated that a five-team district will make things tough with scheduling non-district games, and they certainly have a point. But it could actually work out well for fans.

If the only teams willing to play our area 3A schools in the non-district are other successful 3A's struggling to find opponents and 4A schools, then we'll all have some great games to watch over the next two seasons. Of course, that's a moot point until the schools get their six nondistrict slots filled.

"Our district's going to be tough just like it always is," said Wylie coach Hugh Sandifer, who already secured a game with former district mate Graham. "I just hope we have more than one game to get ready for it."