There’s going to be double the state champions in quite a few of Texas High School sports starting next year.

The University Interscholastic League’s Legislative Council passed a proposal on Tuesday that will change the postseason of a large number of team sports. Starting in this upcoming school year, there will be a split in divisions for volleyball, basketball, soccer, baseball and softball that will create two state championship brackets in the playoffs for every classification.

The playoff structure will be the same as it is for Class 6A football playoffs. For Katy ISD, all teams will compete in District 19-6A, at the start of the playoffs in each sport the two schools with highest enrollment will be sorted into Class 6A-Division I and the two schools with the lowest enrollment will be sorted into Class 6A-Division II. These will be two separate playoff and state championship brackets. This will affect every classification except for Class 1A volleyball, baseball and softball.

The change will likely impact the regional tournament’s in these sports as well as eliminate one round of the playoffs, either the area or regional quarterfinal round. In past years in volleyball, basketball and soccer the regional semifinals and finals were held on consecutive days but that will likely not be the case under the new format.

It will also alter state tournaments. For Class 2A-6A there will likely only be the state championship game played at the state tournament, not the state semifinals and state finals like it has been in previous years, which will eliminate some chances to compete in the state tournament despite there being more state champions overall.

UIL officials believe the two-division format will help promote competitiveness in divisions across the state and will give more opportunities for schools that wouldn’t have had a chance in the old format to win state champions. It will make smaller gaps between schools in the playoffs and try to emulate the success that the UIL has had with football playoffs and state championship games.

The UIL has considered the change since they made two divisions for football but felt this was the right time to move forward with the proposal. One big reason the legislative council went with the split once postseason begins instead of the beginning of the season was so district play would not be interrupted and there would not be any additional travel added to district play.

While the division split was the biggest news from the UIL Legislative Council there were more proposals considered. The committee authorized staff to study a proposal to add a shot clock. A survey shows that the majority of basketball coaches in Texas support implementing a shot clock but UIL Athletic Director Ray Zepeda said it probably would not be able to be implemented until 2026-27.

The UIL also authorized staff to monitor proposals that would add lacrosse as a sanctioned activity and that would remove Charter and STEM schools from the traditional classification system.

They rejected or took no action on a number of proposals, including placing mileage limitations on first round playoff games for football, allowing college students to volunteer as a coach, changing the run rule in softball and adding a mercy rule in soccer. They also took no action or rejected adding ice hockey, disc golf, boys volleyball, archery, 3A and below soccer and girls flag football as sanctioned activities or competitions.

The UIL also announced that their executive director, Dr. Charles Breithaupt, would retire following the 2024-25 school year. Breithaupt has been with the UIL since 1992 and has been the UIL’s executive director since 2009. He was previously a basketball coach for nearly 20 years before joining the UIL and is in the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame, the Texas High School Coaches Association Hall of Honor and the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame.