UIL Realignment, Red River Basketball Sweep, and Welcome Back Bucky & BK!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to a brand new Monday and a brand new
week with a lot that is brand new. Good afternoon, everybody.
Welcome to the program here on Sports Radio AM thirteen
hundred the Zone and where you can always listen to
us for free on the iHeartRadio app. My name is
Craig Waite. Thanks very much for joining us. Glad to

(00:26):
be with you, and we're with you up until five
o'clock this afternoon. We've got a lot of things on
tap today, so I'll just jump right in and siye.
First of all, for those of you might have been
expecting a men's and or women's basketball highlight montage, as
Jay Carman, the producer, so frequently puts together after long

(00:49):
worn victories. You'll get that it's coming up in the
next segment, so you'll have that, but there's a reason
that we're pushing it back until the next segment. This
is a very busy day all across the state of Texas,
and especially, I would say for our high schools across

(01:14):
the state because of the biennial realignment released by the
University Unis Classicallygue at nine o'clock this morning, and Schools
File found out this morning what districts they were going
to be in in some cases which classifications where it was,
and so with that, it's always a very enormous project

(01:36):
that the UIL puts together, headed up by the executive director,
doctor Jamie Harrison, who joins us right now for a
few minutes, and that's why we wanted to jump right
in with it.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Jamie, I appreciate the time.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Have you been able to catch your breath yet, not
only because after all the hard work you and the
staff put together, but all of the feedback that you've
gotten from the member schools all across the state of
Texas following this morning's release.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Craig really appreciate you having me and spend a little
time talking about this. You know how important it is
to the entire state. It's really one of the few
things that visually any state agency can do that touches
every square inch of the two hundred and sixty five
thousand square miles that is Texas. And people are pretty
serious about trophies in our states, so this is a

(02:22):
big deal. We're working on catching our breaths. We have
received a lot of feedback, honestly, probably three to one,
maybe four to one positive to negative, but there are
some people who think we missed it on occasion, certainly
in the general public, but generally looking at the map
helps tell the story much better well, no.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Doubt about it.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
And for folks who may be tuning in, and I'm
familiar with the process, you know the questions you and
I always you know, I always ask have you every year?
Even before it and when we were doing the television
piece of it was folks are asked, why, why is
it necessary to do it? Why is it necessary to
do it every other year? Why not every year or

(03:06):
every three years? What is the rationale behind the biennial
piece of it? And you've always had a really good
explanation for it.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, So there's a number of factors that go into
that one. In a say like ours, schools grow and
get bigger, and some schools lose kids and get smaller,
and so doing it every two years accounts better for
those changes and enrollment than if we were to do
it in a on a longer basis than two years.

(03:37):
And then, of course football is pretty important in the
state of Texas, and it works out really well for
scheduling for football. If you do an every year thing,
you don't get the home and home return game that
you get on a two year basis, So you do
it on a two year basis. We play at my
place this year, we play at your place next year.
Now we're all square, it's time to do it again.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Let me get your thoughts on the challenges this year,
because you had, by my count I think it was
something like nineteen schools moving up from five A to
six A. You had about as many moving down somewhere
in that neighborhood. And then you had the ones who
elevated by request as well, those who wanted to remain
as six A schools rather than drop to five A.

(04:21):
Although I know across the state the ripples are going there.
Everybody sees the perennial giant. Desta accepted its five A
enrollment and decided not to opt up this year. But
how about your thoughts on the challenges this year, what
you faced with the schools, not only the ones that
were moving up five A to six A, but the
ripple effect that caused in districts.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
And regions and with these schools.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
So I'll give you a what I would call a
relative short answer, because we could talk for six hours
on this right. So you know each map, meaning it's
each conference kind of brings with it its own challenges.
But when you're looking at the largest conferen and to
six A and five A, because schools are so aggregated

(05:05):
in Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and WFW, any schools who
aren't in those areas become outliers, and so it becomes
a real challenge to try to get everybody into a
district and still try to balance the size of districts
in terms of numbers of teams that are in those districts.
You know, you know the geography of Texas as well

(05:27):
as anybody I've ever met because of all of your
travels with high school football. So just sink with me.
The four schools on the Permian Basin in Midland and Odessa,
and then out in the Concho Valley in San Angelo.
The remaining schools from what forever was known as the
Little Southwest Conference. There's those five to their north, there
are zero six A schools left in Texas. Zero to

(05:51):
their west. You go all the way to well Passo
before you get to a six A school. To their south,
you go all the way to Del Rio, and to
their east, you go all way to Grandburry and Weatherford.
So that creates some real challenges when trying to put
the map together. And then you know, there are some
other district options that create additional creativity opportunities on some maps,

(06:15):
but limit your chances at putting districts together on others.
For example, in five A and Division one, Houston DY
opted all their schools up to Division one. For Worked
ISD opted all their schools up to Division one. As
you know, on a division map you only have sixteen districts. Well,
that takes two districts off the board, right, those two
get their own districts because of how many schools they have,

(06:37):
But on the corresponding division two maps, it leaves no district.
Now for the first time, thinking anybody can remember on
the six A map there's not a Houston ISD district.
They just don't. They don't have enough school to have
Houston ID six A district. So it really changes things
trying to piece together what a lot of folks in
the general public don't know that. You know, schools in

(07:00):
the same ISD by rule, have to be put in
the same district, and so when you get into DFW
or Austin and you get you know, Leander now has
five six A schools in division I mean in six A,
round Rock, hass five. Those have to be together. Each
of those set the five, so we've got to find

(07:21):
two or three to go with them. So you've got
an IF with four and IF with three, and IF
with seven, and you're trying to piece that together to
make around eighteen districts. It gets a real challenge. And
with those schools coming up, I mean, I know you're
here in Austin, you're talking about the whole state, but
specific to Central Texas. The Central Texas landscape changed dramatically

(07:42):
with those Leander schools coming up to six A. That
changes the map quite a bit in six A, and
then that just trickles down into what happens with five A.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
That's where I was going next because of Cedar Park, Leander, Rals,
and East all moving up to six A. This I
looked at it and I said, Okay, there's a ripple effect.
Now the round Rock schools and the Leanders schools aren't
in the same district for the first time that I
remember in a while. Not only that, and maybe you

(08:13):
can answer this question for me Jamie. When is the
last time that the Greater Austin area had three full
six A districts. I'm racking my brain trying to remember this,
because here it is. In District twenty four, you got
Van der Griff, you got Cedar Park, you got Vista Ridge, East, Few, Huddo,
Leander and Rouse. And then you jump to twenty five
you got Lake Travis, Westlake and the five.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Round Rock schools.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
And then you have a separate district in twenty six
with the AISD schools Austin High, Aikins and Bowie, along
with Hayes moving up you to Johnsondale Valley and Dripping Springs.
I got to believe the AISD schools are dancing in
the streets today because of not having to begin with
Westlake and Lake Travis. But can you remember the last
time this area had six highest classification districts three high

(09:01):
classification districts?

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Honestly, I can't, And the answer is because I can't remember.
I mean, if you just go from Georgetown North down
to Vida South, there's twenty one schools in six A.
We've just not had that in Central Texas and quite
some time. With twenty one that can't be two districts, right,
I mean, we tried really hard to avoid making ten

(09:26):
team districts. We can by rule, but it's not a
good idea. We can't make more than ten by rule.
So when you get twenty one, that's going to be
three districts. And so again, when you look at the
puzzle pieces, with Brown Rock having this many and Leander
having that many that you can't split up. You got
to figure out how to make that work. So we

(09:46):
were able to find three sevens and balance that out.
But that extra district means one of those Central Texas
schools is going to Region three because you've got two
districts in the Rio Grand Valley eight in a region.
So Region four eight districts with two in the Rio
Grand Valley and then working your way up you get

(10:07):
to eight before you get to that northernmost Central Texas district.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
Which, by the way, for folks who want a little
more clarity on what that means, that means it is
now mathematically possible for say, Vandergrift to play Westlake for
a state championship or Vandergrift to play Lake Travis for
a state championship in football, depending on the enrollment in
which divisions they go. I'm always curious about about that cusp,

(10:34):
that separator between regions two and three and three and four,
and when we've had it in the greater Houston area
for a long long time, and obviously in the Dallas
for Worth area. But now I think Austin folks could
look at that and say, wow, if Vandergrift is as
good as they've been the last few years, and if
Lake Travis or Westlake is and Vandergriff goes Division one,

(10:54):
and you could actually have two Greater Austin schools play
for a football state championship.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Now you could, and you know the ripple effects. And
that's something I just want to touch on briefly for
the folks listening that don't know that. You know, you
start with District one, and you end with District thirty two,
and we start out west, well again, north of Ian
and west of the DFW area. There are only two

(11:21):
district or three districts. You've got two in l Paso,
I'm sorry, one in L Paso and one in what
used to be the little Southwest conference. That is a
huge swath of the state. I mean, that's easily a
quarter of the state in terms of geography, and it
only represents two districts. So to fill out Region four,

(11:42):
you get deep into the DFW area. Well, that takes
schools out of what traditionally would be Region two. Now
move to Region one. That ripple effect, as you've been
around the map, is going to bring in, you know,
the North Central Texas Waco Temple. Those guys are having
to go reach in two and then like I said,

(12:03):
you go south and work your way up to eight
and it leaves that northern district and Region three. So
the traditional regions are getting stretched and have been for
a few alignments now, but they continue to be stretched
a little bit more with each alignment because of the
relative depopulation of West Texas and how that ripple effect

(12:24):
impacts the rest of the map.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Jamie, let me get your thoughts on a couple of
headline grabbers, certainly for folks who are looking at it
across the Say, first of all, Aledo, a giant in five,
a Division one for so many years, finally now makes
the move up to six day and you have them
along with Grand Barry and Weatherford and kind of an
I twenty set up there where you're also having to
work with a northern part of Terran County where you

(12:48):
have the Northwest schools, you have South Lake Carrol and.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
That comes to mind.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
And then the other one that comes to mind for
me is what you have in eleven six A which
a lot of folks affectionately referred to in the past,
is the district of Doom with Duncanville, but De Sota's
dropping the walks at you still in there with them,
and now you have North Crowley in there.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
You have both Crowley schools in there for that.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
So again DFW becomes a Rubik's cube for to date
myself where you're trying to take. So all of those districts,
District four all the way through District eleven, all of
the df W districts are eighteen districts. So how do
you make all of them eight when you've got five

(13:34):
Arlington's two Crowleys that you can't split again by rule,
the two Crowleys have to be together, the Mansfields have
to be together. And so we try to take that,
throw it in with geography and still try to make
eighteen districts. So you end up with what we have, right,
You've got those West of fort Worth schools with Weatherford, Grandbury,

(13:55):
and Alito joining the five Arlington's, and then you stay
south of them and you've got some Singleton's that you know.
Duncanville's one high school, Dallas Skyline is the only six
A in Dallas ID that you can kind of move
any direction. But as you look at it, we had
to get what we had to really spend a lot
of time on putting those schools together. We feel like

(14:17):
they're pretty tight geographically. There's a couple of exceptions. You know,
District three and District eleven probably run east and west
further than the rest of them until you get into
Tyler and Longview. That's a whole different scenario. Nobody in
Northeast Texas except those two. So what is always the
case is six A DFW football is remarkably competitive, and

(14:39):
I'm not sure this won't be even losing some of
the powerhouses like De Soto and pedar Hill who dropped down.
This is going to be a loaded field when football season.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Rolled around, no doubt about it.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
Visiting with doctor Jamie Harrison, executive director, with you io
a couple more questions about these types of things in
five A Division two here's another headline grabber Solina for
a power for so long moves up there in five
A and in a really good district that doesn't require
a great deal of travel because it has Frisco schools
in it and Dennison in it and Prosper schools. And

(15:12):
then I look at Region four kind of over in
our neck of the woods, where new schools affect things
like not only is Liberty Hill in the district, but
the brand new Liberty Hill School Legacy ranches in it.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
And not only is new.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Bronfles in, but the brand new new Bromfil School Long
Creek is in. And the influx of the new schools,
I guess also shakes up the balance on some of that,
doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
It does. So again, what's different in five A is
when we're talking five A football, we're talking football only, right,
So when you get over the six A map that's
got Tuesday night travel involved. Yeah, to the very different scenario.
This is we can travel one trip every in the
two year period. But when you look at that, so
you look in the San Antonio area and you take

(15:57):
all those San Antonio schools that again by real half
to be together, then you have those schools just north
of San Antonio, there's only five of them. Well, you
don't want to give them a five team district. That
would be impossible for them to when there is another option.
You try to avoid giving them a five team district
because filling their nine district schedule becomes such a challenge.

(16:19):
So we've got District twelve in five A Division two
out there with six schools. You got the two Liberty Hills.
What do you do, right? Do you make an eight
team out of that and leave five down south? Well,
it's football only travel, so you leave the six and
you find two that you can bring down. You can't
split the Austins up. That would be bringing three down.

(16:40):
So the two Liberty Hill schools, and again you can't
split them. They've got to come together. So they're going
to have to come down to play those sort of
really Greater San Antonio area North San Antonio area schools,
and that is going to be a killer football district.
The new Liberty Hill High School, I'm sure is going
to be very competitive. Liberty Hill, of course, has a
great history, Burning and Alma Heights have been tremendous. That's

(17:03):
Memorial has had some great teams. Now you've got to
you know, the Broncos and the Broncos Long Creek. That
is going to be a bring your hat every night kind.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
Of a district, no doubt about it. Before I'll let
you go, we do this. We've done this every time
when we've done the TV show in the past. I
ask you because a lot of folks don't understand or
or maybe you're curious about the appeals process and what
you and the staff do, because while this realignment was
released this morning, it may not be one hundred percent

(17:34):
chiseled and granted depending on the amount of appeals you
get and what you undertake in the process that goes
from there.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, so that's great. This alignment doesn't become final until
those both levels of appeals have been completed. The first
level is a local level that we actually don't have
anything to do with. So you go to the district
that we put you in and get a majority vote
from those schools to let you out. The district you
think we should have put you in, you go to

(18:02):
them and get a majority vote to let you in,
and it's done. If you get both majority votes, your
district has changed. We don't We just make the change
if you're unable to get that dual majority vote. We
do at a state level of appeal. That's a committee
of superintendents who will hear from all of the appealing schools.
And really the driver there is travel, right is there

(18:27):
is your appeal based on mileage, not who you're going
to play when you get there, but how far you
have to travel to get there, and we'll make we'll
making the change avoid creating a competitive imbalance somewhere else.
You know, we're not going to put a ten team
district next to a six team district, for example. So
if you can keep that competitive balance in terms of

(18:47):
numbers of teams in the district and reduce your travel,
you've got a great appeal at the state level. So
you've got.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Both of those.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
By the end of the month, those will be completed
and the alignment will be finelyzed for football, basketball, and volleyball,
and then with that we have the information we need
to put the districts together for all the other sports.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
How often do you have what the first option that
you talked about, where it gets done at the local level,
Does that happen that I know obviously you have at
the state wide level, you have to have the appeals
process go through when they don't have that majority vote.
But do you get it very often where school districts,
like one school said yeah, wele and let you out
and the other one says, yeah, we'll let you in.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
We get it every alignment. It happens. Some alignments there's
three or four changes that come through that method, and
sometimes there's ten or twelve changes based on alignment. But
there's never been an alignment where there's been nine. Right,
there's no local level appeals granted, so we have both
those options. You know, we can run milage reports, we

(19:54):
can look at a map, but that doesn't mean we
know the travel conditions or traffic patterns and those kinds
of things. Those folks at the local level know much better,
and so we give them that local option, and at
least a handful of schools every alignment are able to
change their districts based on that.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Well, I know you've, like I said, got more on
your plate than you can say. Grace over right now,
but I really appreciate you blocking out a few minutes
for us this afternoon. Congratulations on getting another one done,
and good luck as you get on to that next
step of the appeals process.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Jamie, thanks so much for joining us today.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
Thanks for having me. Craig, appreciate you covering necessarily as
you do every alignment. You do a great job of
helping folks understand how it works.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Thank you, Jamie.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
All right, that's doctor Jamie Harrison, the executive director of
the UIL. And for those of you who are still a
little bit quizzical about, you know, who's winding up where,
we'll run it down specific districts. Like I pointed out,
there are three six A districts in the Greater Austin
area and that's the first time. It's the first time

(20:56):
I can remember it happening that way. And doctor Harrison
said the thing as well, and that's because of the
growth what's happened here in the area and schools moving
up from five A to six A. There's a trickle down.
So we'll run down the total alignments a little later on.
The Other thing we need to run down right now
is to let you know what's coming up up next.

(21:17):
I'll look back at both the Texas men's and women's
basketball victories. We'll have that courtesy of the highlight montage.
We do have inconceivable this hour, next hour, next hour,
brand new members of the iHeartRadio Zone team, but familiar

(21:38):
faces and voices. We'll tell you about that. And then
in the four o'clock hour, Greg Tepper, who is the
editor in chief of Dave Campbell's Texas Football Magazine, will
join us. And that's when we'll get also into some
more nuts and bolts. On realignment Day, it's also Groundhog Day.
The two kind of go hand in hand. It's a Monday.
Glad to have you with us here on sports Radio

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Now a Weaver in the corner, tend to shoot back
to Swain to Kenda will rise up for three and
he drops it in. Weaver hits the three and the
logworts have pulled it in seven sends it back out for.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Swain three to shoot.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
Daylon in the page has to put it up.

Speaker 13 (27:54):
He does.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
He scores.

Speaker 13 (27:56):
He got hit two with John Villison. If I can
he not call a foul.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
But Swain get to the basket. Holpo's lost the dribble
got it back. Now the heiding three to shoot. You
crank up a three.

Speaker 13 (28:04):
It's good.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Heidi knocks down his second three of the ball game.
The game is tied in thirty three out of Daylan
swayn I'm gonna retreat with the dribble down the five
to shooting split two defenders goes up strong and scores
head He's foul and a nice aggressive move to the bucket,
got the bucket and the foul of Darienried across the
poor Heidie's open. You'll fire up a three.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
It's good, That's what I'm talking about right.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
There, Damn Heidi left open, knocks down his third three.
Lawhorns back within three sixty one fifty eight.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Now a Pope circles round traffic, left side off to.

Speaker 13 (28:38):
Sway try through traffic with a slam dunk.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
A thunderous two handed flush from Dylan Swain and the
Lawhorns are back in front.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
He has it now.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Against foresighted off the Dayland Swain trying to go around
traffick in the corner.

Speaker 13 (28:50):
Wilcher shooting a three.

Speaker 17 (28:52):
Good.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
Simeon knocks down his second three, but Walnghorns have, if
you will, their largest lead of the day.

Speaker 13 (28:59):
They're up by two.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Jordan Pope across bidcourt the Daylan swayin now off from
on mark Cardebike Sagy Brown fact he goes to Pope.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Pope open a three pointer god Shordan knocks down his
first three. In the afternoon, Texas up five seventy sixty
five of.

Speaker 13 (29:14):
The four minute mark.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Back to Swayne lives left side of the lane down
the fight to shoot turns against Davis puts it up.

Speaker 13 (29:21):
He stars floats in him with the right hand.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Daylim with eighteen, Texas up eight seventy five sixty seven,
their largest lead.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Of the ball game.

Speaker 13 (29:30):
One twenty three to go.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Read off.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
The pack fires a long three off the rim. No
good remount, Pope, and that's gonna do it. The Texas
log warns, now have won seven straight games in Norman
and Sean Miller want to know as a head coach.
Here final score this afternoon from Norman, Oklaima to Texas
log warns seventy nine the Oklahma Sooners sixty nine.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Hooty Center in Austin.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
It's a top ten matchup in women's college basketball. The
fourth rank Texas log warns against the tenth rank Oklahoma Suoners.
Bounced past intercepted by Bray Cunningham, intended for Van on
the runout down the Carlton who lays it in in transition.
Here's Breed Preston onto the right side. He goes to
the left wing. Here's a Leah Crunk driving on a

(30:22):
Leah Chabez freshman out tools freshman there time out Oklahoma.

Speaker 13 (30:28):
Crump on the break puts it home.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
The log worn lead is fourteen at thirty to sixteen.
Here's breed into the front court. Now to the right side.
Try to drive on Chavez and the paint pulls up.

Speaker 13 (30:41):
Jump for good.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
It's she's wow.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
Well step back, fade away, got the bucket and one
the foul on Javed al front sa Haral Williams sends
a pass into the paint, broken up by Brian Cunningham,
intended for Reagan. Beers off to Preston into the front court.
Brianna driving through the fenders in the quarter. How about
a crump three?

Speaker 13 (30:59):
How about it?

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Alia knocks it down her second three of the period.
She has ten points here in the second quarter, the
log or lead is twenty with under a minute remaining
in the half. Rory Harmon with it out in front.
Jordan Lee measures up a straightaway three in Canects trying
to take her off the dribble into the paint stops,
shoots stores.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Yeah, that was a great job by Rory. She knew
she should get right in the middle of paint.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
A steal by Carlton still go up chill score just
as comes up with a steal. She has fifteen texas
up thirteen. Mad scrambled, saved in bowns by Booker and
picked up down the floor. Jordan Lee stores, how about
that transition?

Speaker 17 (31:41):
Yeah, what a great, great save and passed five Booker
to throw the ball toward the Texas rebuckle.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
What's great awareness with ten seconds to go in down
to the harmon.

Speaker 13 (31:50):
That's gonna do it the Loghorns.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
We'll go to twenty one and two, six and two
in the Southeastern Conference, and it's a clean suite for
Texas basketball against the Oklahoma Sooners this weekend. The men
went on Saturday, the women make it a clean suite
of the Red River rivalry on Sunday. Finals score this
afternoon from Moody Center, Texas seventy eight, Oklahoma seventy. The

(32:16):
two final scores quite similar, the Long Worn Men winning
seventy nine sixty nine on Saturday, the women winning seventy
eight seventy yesterday, But two big wins for the Longhorn
basketball teams in different in different ways. For the Long
Worn Men, in need of a win to make sure
to draw closer to the five hundred mark in Southeastern

(32:38):
Conference play, I continue to say that if the Longhorns
can finish at nine and nine, maybe even eight and ten,
but nine and nine, with the four ranked wins they
have already, that's going to help them tremendously to have
a good shot to land in the d NCAAA tournament.
And for the Texas women, their goal, of course is

(33:00):
to be SEC champions, but even whether they are or not,
to be not only a top four seed where in
the women's bracket, unlike the men, you get to play
at home the first two rounds.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
But to be excuse me.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
One of those four number one seeds for the third
straight year, that would be big if they're able to
do that as well. So Texas men with a win,
Texas women with the victory, the long worn men with
that win up the record of thirteen to nine. They're
four and five in conference play, and with a win
tomorrow night against South Carolina, they draw even at five

(33:36):
hundred in conference play. If they can get the win
tomorrow night, what we're gonna do, by the way, we're
gonna give away tickets to this Texas South Carolina game.
We're gonna give away a couple of pairs each hour.
And so the way we'll do it here, I'll tell
you what we'll do. We'll give away three pairs right now.

(33:58):
The first three people who reaches on the text line
so I have to do is text the word Texas
follow by your question or comment to eight one five
three zero. So again, text the word Texas follow by
your question or comment to eight one five three zero
and just say, hey, I want the tickets.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
Do that. Standard messaging and data rates may apply. You
got to do one more thing. You got to give
us your name as well.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
Well, yeah, I started saying it goes without saying that,
it really doesn't.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
You do need to tell us your name.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
You do need to tell us, Hey, this is John
Smith and I and I'd like a pair of tickets
for the game. Do that when you text in, So
text in on the text line, text the word Texas
followed by your name and the fact that you want
those tickets, and the first three people to do it
this hour we'll get a pair of tickets. We'll give

(34:49):
away some more before we get done up next Inconceivable here,
I'm thirteen under the Zone.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Department of Rejected Dreams.

Speaker 15 (34:57):
If you had a dream rejected IKEA can make it possible.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
So I always the second hour of the program here
on Sports Radio AM thirteen under the Zone. Craig Way
with you alongside of the producer Jay Carman. We're glad

(35:19):
you're with us today. I'm glad you're with us every day,
you know, but certain days it's even cooler.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
So today is one of those days.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
In the first hour of the program, we talked about
the brand new UIL realignment that was released this morning.
Comes out every other year, and doctor Jamie Harrison, the
executive director of the UIL, was on to explain some
of it. If you missed it, you catch it on
a podcast page at sports at AM thirteen under the
Zone dot com.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
You can do that.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
We also gave away some basketball tickets. We've given away
the three pair for this hour, last hour. We've got
three more pair we'll give away coming up later on
this hour, so we'll do that. That's for the game
tomorrow night against the South Carolina game Cocks, as long
as try to get back to five hundred in sec play,
all right.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
I wanted to clear the deck of all of that because.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
What I set aside time for here in the three
o'clock hour was I don't know if ever reunion is
the right way to describe it a reunification all of
those kinds of things. But people know that two and
a half years ago when I came back August twenty
eighth of twenty twenty three, that was after I'd been
here for nineteen years, then went across town and I

(36:37):
was over there for about six and a half years,
and then the doors over there shuttered and I was
welcomed back over here.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
So I came back.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
There were those who also had been over there, and
it worked, and then moved on at various and sundry times,
and we're going to be very happy to welcome back
to former Zone team members who had done like myself,

(37:07):
had gone across town and are now more than happy
to be back in the iHeart family. There's gonna be
a program airing following this one, and you'll recognize the names,
but I want to make sure I get the name
of the show right, so in order to do that,
one of the co hosts of that show, the one
and only Brad Kellner, who we have known affectionately through

(37:30):
the years as b K, joins us, it's great to
see you again, welcome home.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 18 (37:35):
It's great to be home, Craig, and you took my
joke from me, which one was that, well, it's very
nice that the doors were unlocked and the lights.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Were on I walked in here.

Speaker 18 (37:45):
It hasn't always been the case for us in our
radio careers.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
Usually it's the other way around, and you get shown
to the door and somebody's carrying or you're carrying your.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Box of stuff with you. Right, Okay, give people background.
How long were you here or because you really made
a name for yourself Crosstown.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
But you started here, though I did.

Speaker 18 (38:04):
The very first job in radio I ever had was
at AM thirteen hundred The Zone. I started as an
intern for the old sports Buffet program back in the day.
And the first paying job I had as a senior
at the University of Texas was as the producer of
the bottom Line with Chip Brown in the late great
Shawn Adams. Yeah, spent my first internship and in my

(38:25):
first year at my professional career at the Zone, and
I am super excited to be back.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
All right, So then you got an opportunity, you went
across town, like several of us did. I went, of course,
to obligatory connected to the broadcast rights for the University
of Texas.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
But you went across town, and.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
That's where you really established yourself as an audior co
host a couple of different guys, right the ways that are, well,
I'm getting ahead of myself because this is going to
connect us to the president. You actually, if memory serves,
started off producing over there for.

Speaker 18 (38:57):
Another show, right, I did for Bucky and Aaron started producing.
Then hosted shows with Trey Elling and Kevin Dunn and
Rod Babers and the list goes on and on. Obviously
did some fill in work with you, And when Jeff
Howe and anybody who's ever been an on air personality
in Austin, Texas, I feel like I've had the chance.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
We had one big radio commune going on over there,
I like to think, and and so we had that
for a while.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
We all got to know each other very very well.
And then when the splintering started and all that happened,
you set out, you were very enterprising to start an
enterprise on what was it, Texas Sports Unlimited was which
she started, right.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yes, sir, So it actually went down to Houston for
a couple of years. That's right, that's right.

Speaker 18 (39:38):
You didn't do that, came back here to Austin with
Texas Sports Unfiltered and then, uh, yeah, man, it's been
It's quite a winding road to get here to this spot.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
But all roads lead back to home, is what they say. Yeah,
it is all right now.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
When you started with Texas Sports Unfiltered, when you started
doing that, was it the idea that you were going
to do a show with Bucky Godbolt. So we're telling
everybody that the show that's coming back here to the
Zone will be Bucky and BK.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Is that going to be the title? Very creative, Buy
and BK, And it's no less creative than the Craig
Way show, you know, figured out right right lazy?

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, yeah, exactly so, so Bucky god Bole, of course,
who actually started. I think Bucky started one month after
I did here about that in nineteen ninety seven. And
then and then Bucky uh did a show on our
as I like to say, more elephant teene sibling that
wears the straw hat that I got from our friend

(40:42):
Mike Grinder up in Dallas ninety eight point one, fmk vet.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
So we did that. He did a show with Bob
Cole on that.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
Then Bucky was across down and was reunited with Aaron
and they of course had done a long time show
here in the morning, then they were over there and
then Bucky links up with you.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
That's it. How did that all go?

Speaker 18 (41:01):
Yeah, you know, we mentioned it earlier. I produced Bucky
and Aaron show for a couple of years here in Austin,
and there's some guys, Craig, I mean, you've had this
where you start working with him and you just realize
there's something there.

Speaker 13 (41:12):
Right.

Speaker 18 (41:12):
Sometimes you don't get to pick your co host, you're
paired with whoever.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Sometimes it just happens to work.

Speaker 18 (41:17):
But sometimes it's another level where you can feel that
there's chemistry there and you get along off the air
and you just feel like, all right, we can really
make something happen when we're together. So as a producer,
you know, Jake knows this right, you get some some
back and forth with the host from time to time,
but obviously it's a different ballgame when you're co hosting
with him. But Bucky and I just when I was
producing that show, it always felt like we had good chemistry,

(41:39):
good rapport, and it was something in the back of
my mind for a long time that Okay, if there's
an opportunity to get to co host with the Buck,
I'd love the chance to do it, And sure enough
things started to unravel at the other place, and I
was down in Houston at the time with an itch
to get back to Austin. This is home and they say,
you never know what you got till it's gone. When
I left Austin, I didn't think I was coming back

(42:00):
and really went two years.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
When you went to Houston and for folctional on your
folks live in Galveston or.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Did they did?

Speaker 18 (42:08):
They're in Houston now, Okay, yeah, it's a lot. There's
no quiz on this, but yeah. So we're down in
Houston for a couple of years, but had the itch
to get back up to Central Texas and when the
opportunity presented itself to h to get to a co
host with Bucky, I jumped at it.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
It was an easy decision.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
Yeah, And I know what you mean about the chemistry thing.
When I first came back over here, they asked me, uh,
would you like to have a producer and I said absolutely,
And they said who would you like? And on what
you just said, which was very wise. There's there's a
connection with something, and mine was with Cameron Sir and
and Cam had just kind of had had it filled

(42:46):
in a little bit and was doing some other stuff
with other shows. But the more he worked with us
late in the time, with me and Jeff Howell, the
more I realized this guy's got a future. Jay Jury
still out. We'll find out about him as time goes forward.
Fair but fair, But but I said, yeah, there's a
guy in mine.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
So sure enough, Cameron comes over here.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
He becomes really the glue and and nerve center of
what's going on with us on the zone. And that's
why they promoted him, and that's why he is, as
I call him now, a middle management clown.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
But he's he is.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
He is inextricably linked to me as my engineer for
Long Worn Basketball co host obviously of our football game
day programming. And I can't not imagine that this fall
not involving you and Buck as well.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
So that it should be an awful lot of fun.

Speaker 18 (43:38):
You know, I wonder, Craig, it's my first day here.
If I go out and call Cam a clown, how
will that go?

Speaker 2 (43:45):
How does that well go? Yeah, Well, we have our show.

Speaker 18 (43:48):
At five o'clock when you're done, or will it be
something else?

Speaker 2 (43:50):
I'm gonna get fired before getting hired, he knows.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
I say it with all affection in mind as well,
made fun of the middle management piece. So so, when
you and Bucky started on the Texas Sports on Unfiltered thing,
what did you expect and did it fulfill me exceed
come up to the expectation that you hoped for and

(44:15):
envision when you first started.

Speaker 18 (44:16):
Yeah, it's a great question, Craig. Honestly, I wasn't sure
what to expect, right. We were trying something that hadn't
really been done, sort of a concept of a fully
digital sports radio station. Yeah, and we were able to
get a pretty good team together. Proud of what we
were able to accomplish, but dope boys, just to grow
the show and just to bring people to a place
where they could get great sports talk content from some
of their favorite Austin area personalities. And you know, Bucky

(44:38):
has been in this business for a long time. You
said nineteen ninety seven. I feel like he was born
in eighteen ninety seven.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
I think a lot of people feel that way.

Speaker 18 (44:46):
Being very nice to him by doing that, But yeah,
I mean getting again to work with the Buck and
just bringing a bunch of people together talented folks in
central Texas were kind of without a place to work.
That was sort of the goal early on, and obviously
we're out of growing it to the point to get
this opportunity with the zone and with iHeart. I mean again,
it's a place that means a lot to the both
of us. Both of us got our radio starts here

(45:08):
at this place. I can't say in this building obviously
there's been a few buildings. Yeah, yeah, years, but on
these airwaves, so yeah, I can't say this was the
original expectation, but super happy that our path has taken
us right here.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Now.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
You were way too young to have been in the
old building on back on seventh and Lamar, right. You
never made it in that building, never made it. Yeah, yeah,
we were there, Buck and I were.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
In there, so that it said something about age off
of that.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
But then but obviously we were all down at penn
Field together when it started off like that, and I
found out I think when I came here again, it's
been two and a half years. I think I was
told that they had been in these quarters about two
and a half years, so I think they're around five
years or so thereabouts. In the in these digs here,
as I say, hard by the Colorado River in Lake Travis.

Speaker 18 (45:55):
So it's a great lake as Yeah, it's a grave view. Yeah,
and it is a super nice new building. And I'm
happy to be.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
Here estride the Pennybacker Bridge. All right, So Brad Kellner's
with us here, b K. Can you hang for another
second here?

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (46:07):
When we come back, we need to give people a
sampling of your views on things and your thoughts on things.
We'll do that and we'll continue right here, BK with
us here, and the.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Show is, well, what time is it right now? It's
almost three.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
Fifteen, So your premiere show with Bucky is going to
start in an hour and forty seven minutes?

Speaker 2 (46:33):
Is that correct?

Speaker 7 (46:34):
Sir?

Speaker 1 (46:34):
Team minus at one hour and forty seven minutes. Bucky
and BK coming up at five o'clock. That'll follow this program.
I can get it out of my head now and
not say Conveno and Rich Fox Sports Radio up next
when I get done, so I can say it's Bucky
and BK coming up.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
We'll continue with Brad counter here on thirteen under the Zone.
J here on this funny.

Speaker 13 (47:01):
Afternoon you have.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
The boys are back in town.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
That'll be uh bucking BK coming up at five o'clock
this afternoon. Brad Kellner, he of the b K Thane,
is joining us here during this portion of the program.
And uh and our man see passes. It's great to
hear hearing that on the text line, letting us know

(47:23):
he's excited about it as well. So somebody said, yes,
I love Bucky. I got here latest Brad coming back. Yeah,
that's why he's here in the studio.

Speaker 18 (47:32):
Buckis hype man. I'm his pr guy show by himself.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
That's it. Don't worry on YouTube. We just got to comment.
Bucky is back. That's it.

Speaker 18 (47:40):
That's yeah, he's more important. You know, he's the face,
he's the voice. It's look age before beauty Jake. So
I'll give Bucky his flowers.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Okay, what the chemistry that you guys developed when you
were working together, obviously it makes it a natural when
you're since you're coming back over here, what did you
find and I guess this coach all the way back
to your producing days when he was doing the show
with Aaron, But what did you find that you really

(48:10):
liked and what were the things that you immediately knew?

Speaker 18 (48:12):
Oh, we're going to be on different sides of this.
That's a great question. Yeah, I think neither of us
take things too seriously, right. I mean, we're in the
entertainment business, after all. We know sports are very important.
They're important to us, they're important to a lot of
people out there, and folks take their fan hood very seriously.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Yeah, and we do too.

Speaker 18 (48:27):
But ultimately, this is the entertainment business. At the end
of the day, we're trying to have a good time.
We're trying to make the audience have a good time
when they're tuning in to us. And I think that's
one of those things that we both had early on.
And then look, Bucky's the football king and former running
backs coach at the University of Texas, obviously recruited Ricky
Williams here helped coach him up at the start of
his longhorned career. That guy knows football like the back

(48:49):
of his hand. But sometimes baseball and basketball and these
other sports, it's like, hey, they matter too. I know
you didn't coast them. No, Football's king, we know how
it works around here. But these other long sports and
these other sports in general matter too. But now we'll
be up to speed on everything going on around here
and around the entire world of sports.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
Well, listen, I can't wait to see him again and
start giving him grief about the fact. Man, he sit
there and brag about the Yankees. I'm like, yeah, my
teams won back to back World Series. When's your group
going to get it together again? That sort of thing.
So we still loves his baseball. He loves his New York.

Speaker 18 (49:21):
Yankees, and they'll occasionally wear a full on Yankees uniform,
ass and stripes and all. I think he's rocking the
jockstrap crew, which he'll show a little more than anybody
needs to see. Maybe it's good that we're back on
the radio for that far, but yeah, we do disagree
on some of the teams we root for. And look
me as a Texas Rangers fan, Craig, there's not a
lot of history I can brag about, but both of

(49:43):
our teams have won a World Series more recently than
the New York Games.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
No doubt, you and Cam, I think have some very
similar things. And Cameron did not live in the Metroplex.
You grew up in the Metroplex. You went to the
Piers High School. Richardson, Bob Alui Kai shot out there.
He went there as well. And so you've always been
a real died in the wool Rangers fan and also

(50:07):
Dallas Stars fan.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Are you also with Cowboys? Unfortunately?

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Okay, I was trying to make you Cameron. Cameron tried
to disassociate himself from that. It's hard for him to
quit them. But even so a Mavericks Avers two yeah,
okay see, and that even though I'm a Rams and
Dodgers fan, I am a Mavericks fan. I worked their
expansion season and selling merch. You know, when I was
putting myself through school.

Speaker 18 (50:30):
Well three hundred and sixty six days ago, the MAVs
ownership did somebody to try to kick us all out.
You know, it seemed like they didn't want their fans
anymore when they traded Luka Doncic. But I am loyal
to the Laundry Craig to a fault, so you can't
question my loyalty. I'll root for the same teams until
the day I die. And unfortunately, as a Cowboys fan
and as a MAVs fan in recent years hasn't been

(50:50):
very fun.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
Well, and Cooper Flag makes it a little more digestible.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
These days, he's very good. Yeah, it definitely helps.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yeah with let's talk long warns because we all get
steeped in and as the flagship station, we talk a
lot of long on football. You and I haven't had
a chance really to discuss in great detail how you
feel about the progress of the program has been under start.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
Yeah, really good.

Speaker 18 (51:12):
I mean I just think about what it was from
twenty ten to twenty twenty two, and I know two
of those seasons are with Steve Sarkisan as the head coach,
but from where this program was from the time that
I was in school and starting my career covering the
team to where things have gone the last three seasons,
it's been fun to watch and I love the direction
of things. I love what they've done this offseason, bringing
another top ten recruiting class, bringing in a top five

(51:35):
transfer portal class, bringing coach Boom back to run the defense.
It's impossible not to be excited, and I hate that
we have to wait until September fifth before we get
to actually watch this team play another game.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Yeah. Absolutely, And.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
I tip my hat to you for not immediately mentioning
arch Manning, because that's what that's the.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Usual fan go to to start.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
Having said that his upward tick has been fun to follow,
especially in the second half of the season.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
Through the ballgame, I'm sure your job calling games was
a lot more fun. This makes a little more enjoyable. Yeah,
the last eight games of the season.

Speaker 18 (52:12):
I mean, I don't know if there's a quarterback in
the country who was playing as well as arch Manning
was in the last two months of the year. I mean,
twenty one total touchdowns to just three turnovers, completion percentage
over sixty two percent.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
He was carrying this longhorned team.

Speaker 18 (52:23):
Inconsistencies in the run game, offensive line struggled to find
its footing at times, the defense was a little bit
up and down. Arch Manning was the best player on
the field in the back half of the Texas season. Obviously,
we all saw that on full display in Orlando the
final day of twenty twenty five, where he literally willed
Texas to that two touchdown win over Michigan.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
So it starts with him.

Speaker 18 (52:42):
I mean, having a quarterback talking about twenty ten to
twenty twenty two, some inconsistencies at the most important position
on the field, Having a guy like arch Manning that
you can rely upon feels like he's still scratching the
surface too. It feels like there's chances for him to
be even better in twenty twenty six. That's where most
of my excitement comes for where.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
This Yeah, no doubt about it.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
With regard to basketball, I have to tell you, and
I think you probably have kind of seen bits and
pieces of it. I have been as impressed with the
teaching element of a head coach with Sean Miller as
much as just about any coach that ever ever been
associated with the University of Texas. Hogey Gurito comes to

(53:23):
mind in terms of the teaching of the game the
way and sitting in practice and watching how he and
his staff teach this group. Look, hands were a little
bit tied behind the back when he came in, and
it's going to be a little bit of time.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
He's got to get his guys in.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
But he's helped some guys really elevate their play of
late and I think that's been a big part of it.
And they have a chance, legitimate shot to get on
a little bit of a run here to where they
at least try to fight their way into the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
I'm hoping they found a cure to that virus. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
or he'll say it again.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
It'll say it again, and we'll foul a living bleep
out of you.

Speaker 13 (54:00):
That's you know.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
I don't like Texas losing right right.

Speaker 18 (54:03):
The one silver lining whenever Texas men's basketball loses is
we have a very good chance to get an epic
Sean Miller Best Conference rant. I'm a big fan of his,
have been for a long time. I was really excited
about the Higher, old school Big East basketball player. He
just doesn't take any you know what, He's gonna call
it like he sees it. He's not going to overly
coddle anybody on this day and age. It feels like

(54:24):
we talk about these athletes you got to massage egos
and you can't coach him like he used to stop him.
That's not him at all, and he's been doing it
a long time. Obviously, Saturday's win was number five hundred
of his illustrious career. So I'm excited about him. A
big fan of the Higher. He clearly still has that energy. Yeah,
he's been doing it a long time, but he clearly
has a lot of goodness left ahead of him, and

(54:44):
I think he's the right man for this bro.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
He also has a great appreciation for the history of
the game because he played it at a high level
as a point guard with Pitt. A lot of people
didn't realize the famous send it in jerrealm the lobb
in the the lobking Sean Miller in the Jerome Lane
when it's shattered the backboard on that deal. The other night,

(55:06):
we're a practice on the floor at Lloyd Noble Center
and I'm just standing there and I'm standing next to
him and he and all of a sudden, he looks
and I said, I said to him, you've been in
this building before, and he goes, once, we came in
here eighty seven, eighty eight, and he was a starting
point guard to play that Oklahoma team that went to
the National Championship Game and lost to Danny and the

(55:28):
miracles of Danny Manning and Kansas. He said, we came
in there and we were competitive, we lost. He goes,
we got him the next year when they came back
to Pitt. But he remembered going up against Mookie Blaylock.
And then of course they had the great players that
went their Harvey Grant and and you know, all of
the other great Oklahoma players that went through there.

Speaker 18 (55:47):
I see what you guys get along. You both have
ridiculous sports memories.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Like Yeah, and he is, by the way, just so
you'll know, a to the death Pittsburgh Steelers fan because
he grew up in Pittsburgh and he knows every iota
of history about the Steeler football.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Have you asked him about the Mike McCarthy.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
Hire, I we won't talk about that, right. And then,
obviously you've been acquainted with what Vic Shaffer's done with
the women's basketball program, and they continue to be very
exciting and continue to be a serious, serious national championship threat.

Speaker 18 (56:21):
I speaking of hard nosed coaches, My goodness, I mean,
I love a Vic Shaffer postgame press conference. He's never satisfied,
and you can tell with what he gets out of
his players each and every day. They are so fun
to watch. That first half yesterday was sensational. Second half.
That's the beauty of Vic Shaffer. Right, that's a big
win over Arrival. It's a top ten win, you'd think, God,
there's plenty to be happy about. Vic Shaefer clearly not

(56:43):
thrilled with the performance of his ladies in the second half.
But I mean the fact that Texas is making another
push for a one seat in the tournament. They've got
a chance to compete for another SEC title and make
a deep run in the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
Now, Vic Shaeffer.

Speaker 18 (56:55):
Another guy, plenty of skins on the wall when Texas
hired him, and he's done a tremendous amended shop.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
And then in baseball, I know that you were out
at the far field a lot in the last year
during Jim Slasnagles first season. They're a preseason number three
in one poll, number eight and one pole number six.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
There's a lot of college baseball polls.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
But he's got another really good team to be back
and be a contender in the SEC.

Speaker 18 (57:17):
Not the pitching staff, right, I mean, my goodness, there
are some years where you know this better than I do.
If you have seven or eight pitchers you feel good about, right,
that's fine, Like that's a win. Yeah, this team might
have thirteen, fourteen to fifteen pitchers. They feel good about
by it.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
And he'll tell you the whole thing is fighting the roles,
right exactly.

Speaker 18 (57:36):
And he's got a lot to work with too, So
obviously Max Wiener, the pitching coach did a great job.
In year one, Texas a top ten era in the country.
It's funny, you know, Steve Sarkisian five and seven in
his first year. Sean Miller right fighting to get Texas
in the tournament in year one, Vick Schaeffer took him
a little bit of time to get things going with
the women's basketball team. It feels normal for a coach
to take a little bit of time to get their

(57:57):
legs under them and build a competitor. Here's Jim Schlasnagel
in his first year, just winning the toughest conference in
the sport. So no pressure, s loss on what you're
gonna do for an score here in year two?

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Yeah, yeah, that'll be an awful lot of fun. Okay,
So you and Bucky we'll be on five to seven. Now,
there will be days like tomorrow with a six o'clock
game that your show will be twin heated. I guess right.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
They didn't tell you. No, we're going back and forth.

Speaker 18 (58:25):
You're gonna be calling the game while Bucky and I
are providing some commentary, or.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
I'll I'll just step aside and you can have the
whole damn afternoon.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
You know, on some of those days. I'm fine with that. Yeah,
so'll be thrilled with fast, have a lot of fun
with that.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
So but then you guys will really hit your stride
and really the ones we get to later start times
on basketball and then the baseball and things like that.

Speaker 18 (58:46):
Right now, very excited five to seven every weekday. It's
an honor to follow you and Jake and we love
you all show and obviously love the team here at
the Zone and uh yeah, man, very very fortunate to
be a part of this great team and looking forward
to interacting with Longhorn fans in Central Texans every afternoon.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
It's Team minus one hour and twenty nine minutes. You'll
hear bk And yes you will hear Bucky. He will
emerge from his.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
Blank at his shawl that he is scary. I can't
even get him out on Groundhog Days. Amazing.

Speaker 18 (59:19):
It's fitting, though, that we're back on the radio on
Groundhog Day.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Yeah, it is is. It's very conceivable. I love it.
I love it.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
Hey, I appreciate you coming by and we wish you
the best of luck and.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Glad to have you back. Thanks Greg. All right, that's
Brad Keller.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Bucky and BK begin this afternoon at five o'clock right
here on Sports Radio AM thirteen hundred the Zone.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
I'll give you a winter prediction.

Speaker 19 (59:41):
It's going to be cold, it's going to be great,
and that's going to last you for the rest of
your life.

Speaker 4 (59:53):
It's The Craig Way Show with the voice of the
Texas Longhorns and Hall of Fame broadcaster.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
It was a little harsh from Bill Murray there, but
that famous line from Groundhog Day because today is Groundhog
Day afterwards and.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
The uh and maybe, like Brad Kellner and I were
just saying a moment ago, maybe it is this is
Winter by the Rolling Stones, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Yep? I think it's off the Angie LP there. Yeah.
I also heard for the first time yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Maybe we can bump back with it later a John
Denver song about winter. I'd never heard him before. Really,
I'm nem a real big John Dinver fingerwing up.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
I've I've grown to appreciate his music a little bit
more of it anyway.

Speaker 5 (01:00:46):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
Yeah, on the Groundhog Day with Bucky and b K,
starting this afternoon at five o'clock from five to seven
here on the Zone on you Know again tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
It'll be only a brief edition of it because we.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Have long worn basketball tomorrow at six o'clock the long
run n back in action early tip off time as
dictated by television networks. So it's a five point thirty
year and a six o'clock tip tomorrow. And I gave
away three pairs of tickets last hour, and I'm going

(01:01:23):
to do the same thing right now the next three.
To reach us on the text line, you have to
do is text the word Texas then your name, full name, please,
first and last name, John Smith, you know, no alias no,
because you're going to need your real name to get
the tickets. But just text the word Texas first then

(01:01:47):
your name and say yes, I'd like a pair of
tickets to eight one five three zero. So text the
word Texas follow by your name, full name, first and
last name, and just say yes like the tickets to
eight one five three zero. Standard messaging and data rates
may apply. Some folks just want to text the program

(01:02:09):
to ask questions or whatever. And for example, somebody said
the Taco Shack Bowl will now be a district game,
talking about McCallum and Anderson both being in five A
Division one except it's not the Taco Shack Bowl anymore.
Remember they changed last year. It's now called the Shoal
Creek Showdown, so that's what it is. But yes, it

(01:02:33):
will be a district game now, so they're not going
to be opening up the season against one another. Roger Wilson,
we're talking about that because they televised it on KPVO
I think the last twelve years or thirteen years.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
Something like that. I'd worked it a couple of times
with him.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
But anyway, are our friend Ryan as he likes to
call himself, a completely blind friend Ryan, he said, Kyle Oldacre.
Are her parents at tall? Because she's pretty tall for
a girl sixty six? Let me tell you something, uh
Leavisa asprink Hose. Who is who is red shirting this

(01:03:10):
year from Sweden on the team? I think it's six seven.
So there's there's a mint out there for sure. And
and Kylo is a big part of it in uh
in defending the post for Texas also, uh, he said.
Kirk Bowles was on Paul Finebaum Show today. He says

(01:03:35):
he doesn't trust the Longhorns. Okay, you know, I'm not
sure when Kirk has trusted them, so I think it
matters that much on that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
And uh, who's he's picking to win the national championship
in Georgia?

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
Okay, because it was spilled George. Okay, yeah, Georgia, George,
I got you, Okay. Uh. And then I think you've
got your three text winners right there. Yeah, that was fast.
It was.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
We'll give away some more next hour, so we will
do that as well. Let's hear from long worn women's
head coach Vic Schaeffer following the Texas win over tenth
ranked Oklahoma. Another top ten win for Texas this season,
and here's big talking about yesterday's victory.

Speaker 17 (01:04:27):
First, want to say how proud I am of my team.
I thought our kids were really tough today most of
the day, winnings really hard, y'all. I mean, we're going
to give God to glory for number twenty one on
the year for us. And you know, that's a really

(01:04:49):
good team over there. I thought, Oklahoma, they're just relentless.
They just never stopped coming at you. Great great stat
just to prove that is they had fifteen fifteen d
eight in fast break points in the second half after
we were up at halftime seven to two. In fast
break points. So what we tried to do really worked

(01:05:12):
the first half, and then the second half it kind
of got away from us a little bit, but I
thought we had some people really step up and make
some big plays. I'd like to see us finish a
game better. I'd like to see us make free throws
down the stretch. We're going to need to do that.
We obviously didn't do that today. But that first half, defensively,

(01:05:35):
it's pretty special, y'all how hard these kids played and
the execution that we had on that end. And then offensively,
you know, we had forty points, but y'all saw some
of the things that I talk about, not finishing plays,
not finishing that play at the end of the half.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
You just hope that that play didn't come back and
bite you. But we didn't finish the play.

Speaker 17 (01:05:58):
And maybe we took shot too soon, too quick, but
we didn't finish the play, and then they throw one
in to cut it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
From nineteen to sixteen.

Speaker 17 (01:06:08):
But I thought in the second half, when we had
to have an answer, we had one, and we knew
they were going to make a run. They're a great team,
and when they did, it seemed like we could keep
them at nine to fifteen. We kind of kept it
in there. So you don't win today without a lot
of people. But Eliah Crump coming off the bench and

(01:06:28):
the making those shots in the first half were obviously
really big. And Booker was very solid at seven for ten,
and Justice gave us a lot of juice, eight rebounds,
sixteen points, two steals, and she was battling in there.
So Rory ran our team six assists and Booker had

(01:06:54):
five assists and only one turnover, so she's probably excited
about that. So you know it if you watch the game,
there's so many people made so many big plays throughout
the course of the game. Bookers saved out of bounds.
That's a little thing. She throws it to our end.

(01:07:15):
I can't tell you how many kids I've had in
my day. They're going out of bounds underneath their own
goal or their own sideline, and they throw it to
the opponent's goal.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
She throws it to the other end.

Speaker 17 (01:07:26):
And we end up getting a layup out of it
with Jordan, and then I think in two separate cases
during the game, Rory gets a steal on the press
and we turn a two into a four just really quick.
You know, And that's the thing when you're relentless like
we are and like Rory is in a press, I mean,

(01:07:47):
you think you got it sometimes, but you don't. And
we forced twenty one turnovers today. We still are turning
the ball over way too many times, y'all. We had
a stretch where we turned it over quite a bit.
But they're hard to guard, you know, They're really hard
to guard. They shoot it well. We did a good
job defending the three point line for the most part.

(01:08:09):
They shot twenty eight percent out there, six for twenty one.
But man, Peyton Burholst, that kid's a player. That kid's
got ice in her veins, and she is a player,
and she's one that going in I was very concerned
about because she's done it before.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
And so we you.

Speaker 17 (01:08:33):
Know, I think we did a good job on several
of them, but a couple of them we didn't do
a very good job on. So we'll learn from it.
We're excited about to win. I'm proud of these kids.
It's a tough, tough win. What a great environment today,
ten thousand over ten thousand people. What a great atmosphere
that they provided both these teams, and it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
Was great for TV.

Speaker 17 (01:08:57):
I'm sure, so I really appreciate all that, and again
proud of my kids.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
Man. They earned a tough, tough victory.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
Today absolutely and went to twenty one and two overall,
six and two in SEC play. They're halfway through the
conference race and they've got eight more to go, and
what a game. Thursday night six ranked LSU coming in.
LSU was handed Texas one of its two losses. The
first he handed the long Horns their first loss of

(01:09:24):
the season. Then Texas went to South Carolina four days
after that and lost to the game Cock. So one
of the two losses handed the long Worns was by
LSU and the Tigers come to town on Thursday night. All
we have our winners for this hour, FOURTIGA. We'll give
away some more next hour, so stay tuned for that.

(01:09:45):
We'll be back to wrap up hour number two of
the program right here on sports Radio AM thirteen under
the zone of the iHeartRadio app that will never make
long Worn fans unhappy. A clean sweep of the Sooners
and as such, Texas improves its positioning in both the
men's and women's standing. Third hour of the program here
on Sports Radio AM thirteen under the zone things to

(01:10:05):
Jay Carman, the producer there with that montage to Texas
men getting the thirteen to nine overall, but more importantly
four and five at the halfway mark of conference play,
so they have nine games remaining, and when I was
looking at it on back, I was looking at games
that offered, let me put it this way, offered the

(01:10:28):
best opportunity for victory as opposed to the ones that
are going to be going to be a.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
Supreme challenge to get wins.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
And there is a pathway to get Texas to five
and four in the second half of conference play, maybe
even six and three, But all of it included a
win Saturday over Oklahoma. So that's still in play now,

(01:10:59):
and I think it includes protecting your home court and
meeting South Carolina tomorrow night, so we'll see how that goes.
We've given away several pairs of tickets to that game,
will give away a couple more pairs before we're done
this afternoon. The Texas women, by virtue of that, win

(01:11:20):
six and two. If their midway markets, they play sixteen
in the conference, and the Texas women have an opportunity
to still compete for the SEC regular season championship.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
Or one game out of first right or a game
and a half technically.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
But they have a game in hand, the one they
haven't played yet against Arkansas, who is winless in the
league right now. They have to go up to Fayetteville
for that game coming up on February nineteen. But there
is a pathway, but there are all as always difficult
games to come. If you look at the games that
are around the corner for the Texas women. The game

(01:11:58):
on Thursday night, it's against six ranked LSU at eight
o'clock tip off at Moody Center. They're off on Sunday,
that Super Bowl Sunday, but Monday they host Kentucky and
it's three straight games at home that will be followed
by three straight road games. The wrinkling that was the
ree scheduled Arkansas game that wasn't originally designed to be

(01:12:18):
three straight on the road, but.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
It will be.

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
And those three straight on the road at Vanderbilt number
five in the country, and really really good at Tennessee,
who was on top of the conference standings by themselves
on being in conference play until they lost last Thursday
to Mississippi State, but still a very formidable opponent. And
then they have that game at Arkansas, then they come home,

(01:12:43):
a couple of games at home Mississippi State in Georgia,
and they finish on the road at Alabama, So there
are some challenges there. If they are able to run
the table, they have a decent I say decent shot
to share the league title again. The reason why I
say decent is South Carolina's only lost one time and
it's difficult to imagine the game Cocks losing another game.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
But the good we'll see they play LSU.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
That's coming up in Baton Rouge on Sunday, so we'll
see how all of this unfolds as Texas gets ready
to turn the corner round the far turn in SEC play.
All right, coming up. The other big topic of the
day around the state of Texas is UIL biennial realignment,

(01:13:29):
where all the schools have been realigned in the different
districts and in some cases including the Greater Austin Central
Texas area with its six A schools different regions. So
there's some unprecedented stuff that's happened with this year's realignment.
In the two o'clock hour, doctor Jamie Harrison, the executive
director of the UIL, joined us to kind of give

(01:13:50):
us the overview on how they came.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
To what they at, the conclusions they had to come to.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
Coming up next, we're going to visit with Greg Tapper,
the editor in chief Dave Campbell's Texas Football Magazine, who
is a realign nerd like I am, and we'll kind
of pour over what could happen. Will zero in certainly
on the greater Asslin, Central Texas area, but also some
of the big headline grabbing news of realignment across the
state of Texas. Will do that when we continue here

(01:14:16):
on this Monday afternoon on Sports Radio AM thirteen under
the zone of the iHeartRadio app Here on a Monday
afternoon on Sports Radio AM thirteen under the Zone, this
is groundog day, It's realignment day, and so sometimes the
two seem to go hand in hand. With that, we
are always pleased to be joined the editor in chief
of Dave Campbell's Texas Football Magazine, Greg Tepper, who joins

(01:14:38):
us and we like to really be able to pick
TAP's brain at the most crazy hypnotic times of year,
and this one certainly counts as one of those, except
we only get.

Speaker 11 (01:14:52):
It every other year, right, Tim, Yeah, today is a
real sickos holiday.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 11 (01:15:00):
If you're if you're like me and you're like, I'm
just gonna speak for Craig. If you're like Craig, today
is a holiday. Today is a big day because you've
got u I L realignment and it's it's I think
one of the things that I love about UIL realignment.
It is one of the very very very few days
on the Texas high school football calendar and the Texas

(01:15:22):
high school athletic calendar that impacts every single ui L
team every single time.

Speaker 2 (01:15:29):
Now, you know, some of these teams not a whole
lot to.

Speaker 11 (01:15:32):
Say, you know, we we didn't didn't move all that much,
but you had so many different changes and so many
teams impacted by today that you just don't have that
Like even when the playoffs roll around, that's only about
you know, a little more than half the teams that
are that that that are involved. This is every single
team is waiting until nine am. And but yeah, those

(01:15:54):
final five minutes, I think those final five minutes, you
can bottle that anxiety in those rooms and people it
gets kind of quiet among the you know, normally coaches
are shooting the breeze and then suddenly kind of the
volume lowers because everybody knows Hoji's it's coming. And so yeah,
I love relignment. Relignment is manna from heaven as far
as I'm concerned.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
Yeah, and uh, down in these parts, and for folks
who want to see, I always equate this scene to
the one if you've ever seen the moving trading places
with the stock exchange thing where they're going back and forth.
Uh that that the coaches once the packets, the boxes

(01:16:35):
are broken open and it's on the screens and the
packets are are are presented, the guys starts seeing what
districts they're in, and then the mad scramble ensues for
non district play and what opponents for schedules. And what
I was heard was the common phrase that was repeated
around here down in these parts was a comment to

(01:16:58):
Galen Zimmerman, the head coach, dripping springs, don't look at us.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
We're not playing you.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
And I would imagine, uh, you know, for schools like
Gunk and Villain to Soto and some of the else
how Lake Carrol, it's probably the same kind of challenge.

Speaker 11 (01:17:12):
We a lot of a lot of guys with not
a lot of eye contact made with them today. You
know what I mean, You don't you don't want to
catch you don't want to catch the wrong guy looking
at you, because otherwise, you know, you're you're gonna you know,
you're gonna end up playing a Week three game against
a team that might kick your tail. But yeah, that's
what I think is one of the things that is
really remarkable about today is for every team, literally every team,

(01:17:35):
some of them have a pretty good idea based on geography,
but for every team, they're waiting to see what that
number is, which is how many teams are in your district,
and that can vary wildly. And there's some teams that
I think have every reason to be excited about their
their number, and there's some teams that I think have
reason to be upset.

Speaker 2 (01:17:54):
Like, for example, uh, you go out.

Speaker 11 (01:17:56):
I think one of the headlines in Class six A
is in the Little Southwest Conference Distort two six A, where,
if you didn't know, Wolford's friendship out of the Lubbock
area is no longer a six A program.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
They're dropping down. They open up a new school friendship memorial.

Speaker 11 (01:18:08):
So as a result, there's only five teams out there
Midland Midland Legs seemed to be Midland LEAGUEA in Odessa,
Osessa Premian, San Angelo Central. The UIL opted instead of
drawing one or two other teams into that district, decide
to leave that alone and say, okay, you guys get
a five team district. That seems well and good. Oh hey, cool,
you get four. You know, the four teams make the playoffs.
I got an eighty percent shot to make the playoffs.

(01:18:30):
Basically have to win one district game to get in.
But then you consider these guys have to go out
and find six non district games, including theoretically a week
six non district game win. Nobody's looking for that, and
certainly nobody in that neck of the woods around their
size is looking for it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
So that's one of the things I think is interesting.

Speaker 11 (01:18:50):
The other thing on the other side of it, you
take a look at South Oacliff, South Oakcliff.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
I'm slowly over my shoulder here.

Speaker 11 (01:18:57):
They play in a kind of famous there. They overmatch
their district. I don't think it's really, you know, unfair
to say that. And so that is why South Okcliffe
really relish. Is scheduling not tough non district games. You
may remember they beat North Shore in the opener and
then they lost to Duncanville by a touchdown later that
week later in the non district. They like that because

(01:19:17):
it battle tests them well. The UIL threw an extra
team in there in Mesquite po Tit which functionally costs
them a non district game, And so there's always That's
one thing that every team is looking for is just
the number of non district games they've got to find.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
And I know we've had some games that were kind
of written.

Speaker 11 (01:19:35):
In pencil that had to get scratched off because we're
not the district alignment didn't line up.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
Uh bigger, bigger story statewide, statewide, the Sodo's dropped to
five A or Alitos move up to six A.

Speaker 11 (01:19:50):
It's probably Alito's moves to six A, just because it's
kind of been one of the things we've been waiting for.
They've been such a powerhouse there in the five A
ranks to finally move up from an enrollment perspective, not
the least of which reason is that the six A
number drops, the six A cutoff number drops, and so
as a result, you know, Aledo now moving up to

(01:20:12):
class six A for the first time. How do they fare?
I think that's kind of always been the If you
want to say, if there's any knock on the most
decorated uil love a Man program, I would be, oh, well, yeah,
you're playing in a five A. Well, now they're moving
up to six A. I would say, I think they
got a fairly decent draw. It could have been a
lot worse for them. They land with the Arlington ISSD
schools instead of with potentially North Crowley, potentially you know,

(01:20:34):
other outstanding programs out there in THEFW metroplex. The DeSoto
one is obviously big news because you have a six
A state champ dropping down to five A.

Speaker 2 (01:20:42):
But remember this was one of the things we've been
through the past couple of years.

Speaker 11 (01:20:46):
You know, last year the Sota turned into five A number,
but they opted up.

Speaker 2 (01:20:51):
I think that we had Claude.

Speaker 11 (01:20:53):
Mathis on our show, on our relignment show today, the
head coach at De Soto, and he kind of thinks
what I think, which is like, I don't know if
it's gonna a whole lot easier for them.

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
I mean, they're in a difficult district.

Speaker 11 (01:21:03):
They're bringing Cedar Hill in Lancaster with them, they're gonna
be draping it loath In and Mansfield schools.

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
It's a it's a tough district.

Speaker 3 (01:21:10):
So I don't know.

Speaker 11 (01:21:11):
I think that that for Aledo to be doing it
for the first time, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
Is big news.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
You know, one thing is going to be really interesting
is down here, the big the big water cooler topic
down here.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
No doubt is that. I think it's the first time ever.

Speaker 1 (01:21:32):
Uh, there are three six A districts in the Greater
Austin Central Texas area. I had doctor Jamie Harrison on
I said, when was the last time the largest classification?
I mean, if you go back to pre nomenclature changing days,
when they just started calling five A six A, uh,
the largest classification. When's the last time that you had
three five A school districts in the Greater Austin Central

(01:21:54):
Texas area. And he says, I'm inclined to say never.
I don't think he's ever had because of the enrollment.

Speaker 3 (01:21:59):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
But like all things that start from a trickle down,
it starts with Rause, Leander, Cedar Park, and Eastview all
moving up to six A. Also, I can't remember the
last time the Leander ID and the Round Rock isd
were not in the same district, but the math doesn't
work that way. So the trickle down from that is

(01:22:21):
you've got the round Rock schools in with Westlake Lake
Travis there with those five and then it creates a
third district. And I'm here to tell you the AID
six A coaches have to be dancing in the streets
because you've got Austin, You've got Akins, you got Bowie
Hayes moving up to six A, you to Johnson Dell
Valley and Dripping Springs all in twenty six six A,

(01:22:43):
and as a bonus tap, you've got twenty four and
twenty five are in different regions, so it's mathematically possible
for Vandergrit to play Westlake first state championship.

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
You hit the nail on the head.

Speaker 11 (01:22:57):
I think Austin is actually the chaos central of six
A alignment this year because of what you what exactly you
just laid out. Obviously there's so many trickle down effects.
Obviously you you mentioned leander Ic and their growth. They're
all those teams moving up there. But what I think
is absolutely fascinating is let's go back and trickle down

(01:23:19):
even farther because you're right. Suddenly there's an Austin An
Austin area district in Region three, which is functionally the
Houston region, right that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
It's the way And by the way I said I
said state champions, I meant say State semi final.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
It could be in in regions three and four.

Speaker 11 (01:23:38):
And and so you can have you will now have
an austin An Austin district in the essentially the Houston region.
Is the way that I would think about it. That's
absolutely fascinating. And the reason it happened is because and
this is the kind of stuff I love because of
Houston i SD. Because Houston i SD, for the first

(01:23:58):
time in what may be for ever, doesn't have a
six A district.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
They don't.

Speaker 11 (01:24:04):
So as a result, well a spot opened up in
Region three. Somebody's got to fill it, and so that
ended up going to Leander I S. And so, yeah,
you're exactly right. Suddenly Vandergrift and Drew S Sanders is
going to be playing, you know, potentially a first round
playoff game. Not potentially, he will be playing for a
first round playoff game against SI Fair ISD, you know,

(01:24:26):
in the Houston area. And so it is a absolutely
fascinating drawing. And again, I think it's a perfect manifestation
of that trickle down that it all has to fit together.
And when you have a team like Houston Lamar being
one of the most consequential teams in class in Texas
high school football, that's how you get the team in Austin

(01:24:46):
Area District in Region four and I think you're three
or other and I think you're absolutely right, by the way.
Among the biggest winners in realignment, I would say would
be the entirety of District twenty six to sixth a
Dripping Springs chief money them, but Austin ID as well.

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
It's got to feel really good about this draw.

Speaker 1 (01:25:01):
Yeah, you know it's gonna be interesting with west Lake
and Lake Travis in with the five round rock schools
again and in visiting with Hank Carter, what that means
is for him, it's twofold.

Speaker 2 (01:25:14):
One.

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
He doesn't have a district game against Ripping Springs. Two,
he doesn't have to travel to the Metroplex as he's
done the past few years to play schools like Rock
Wall and Arlington Martin. So guess who's playing non district
Week one, Lake Travis and Drip How about that.

Speaker 11 (01:25:29):
Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean why not now now
you can sign it up. It's kind of like I
believe South Oacliff and Richmond Randall are going to play
in non district play because which is a rematch in
the title game, Because why not? I mean, you know,
you're not necessarily relevant to each other, at least as
relevant to each other as you would be. And obviously
that is a perfect example of we'd love to meet again.

(01:25:49):
That would mean that things have gone pretty well for
us if we were to play again. But I think
that you're right. That is why this realignment, and it
goes even deeper. We've tried to call people like, whenever
you pull out the realignment, of course, you're gonna look
for where your team is. You look at your district,
but zoom out, zoom out and look at the by
district matchup is zoom out and look at what region

(01:26:12):
you're in, because you know, go ask some of these
teams the difference between District sixteen and District seventeen. I
mean the go ask some of these teams marked the
difference between eight, District eight and District nine as they
sew today. Go ask Stevensville the raigning four a Division
one state champs. What the difference is between what their
district was last year, which I think was District five.

(01:26:33):
Now they're in District twelve. They will be playing on
the They will play be playing potentially a first round
playoff game against El Campo.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
Okay, like, go draw that out.

Speaker 11 (01:26:45):
There were some geographic wackiness, certainly, and obviously a lot
of it centralized on the central part of the of
the state because they can kind of go every which way.
You know, it's hard to put a team in Alpaso
anywhere other than Region one. But this this was certainly,
from a regional perspective, a pretty remarkable, uh realignment.

Speaker 1 (01:27:06):
Uh wrap your mind around the prospect of a district
game between Steven Villa and Gerald Oh my gosh, yeah.
I mean there's there's a couple I'll tell you the
other one and my my coworker, Ashley Pickele is not
none too pleased about this. If you saw their draw,
Lano is heading out to play Wall in the Concho Valley,
I mean, go.

Speaker 11 (01:27:26):
Basically like go go draw that out. There's a couple
of them, and again, you know, if you take a
look at the maps, they actually do you got to
look at the maps. Uh, kind of in totality. That's
I think the biggest thing is that if you the
more you zoom in, the less sense it will make.
But the more you zoom out, you see. Okay, well
these things fit together. Not to hear tell you that
the ui EL is perfect, and the UIL won't claim

(01:27:48):
to be perfect. But I will say that some of these,
some of these kind of strange bedfellows, I think is
one of them.

Speaker 2 (01:27:55):
I'll give you another example.

Speaker 11 (01:27:56):
Maybe the longest travel in a three eight is going
to be a chief among them. Sweetwater is playing Kermit
in district play. Go go throw that into Google Maps.
Sweetwater to Kermit. Kermit is basically in New Mexico. It
is gonna be There's gonna be some little travel going on.
But I think these especially West Sextus three folks are
used to it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:28:18):
Talking re alignment, Greg Tepper of Dave Campbell's Texas Football Magazine,
I want to roll back to five A Division one again.
You got another one of those, as I call it
cusp situations there the dividing line between regions three and four,
and you got another deal where you theoretically for the
Greater Austin area could have a state semi final. Georgetown

(01:28:38):
is in District traub but also College Station's in there
a and m Kinsola is in there. You got those
in there. And in thirteen, what's sending shockwaves around the
area the Taco Shack Bowl, which is now of course
the Shoal Creek Showdown is now a district game again
as it was for many years. And so no more
season opener at How's Park for Anderson McCallum.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
That'll come in district play.

Speaker 11 (01:28:59):
Well and and respectfully that's the way it should be.

Speaker 2 (01:29:02):
Should be a district game.

Speaker 11 (01:29:03):
That's my That's that's my if if I my drothers,
and I know that's not how the UIL draws it up,
but I think that should be a district game. But
I think that that is absolutely remarkable. Now, look, uh,
you know you mentioned District thirteen. It's no picnic for
them to be lumped in with San Antonio teams, most
notably two time defending five as talent state champs, Missing
Valley in there. But you know, as a small token

(01:29:27):
of appreciation, you know, of getting thrown into that district,
you do get to have a district game.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
That'll be a lot of fun.

Speaker 11 (01:29:33):
And I do think you're right people should pay attention
to that kind of College Station Georgetown Slugerville killing District
there in District twelve because if you're right, that's right
on the cusp and you could easily easily just kind
of snap your fingers and see them flowing floating over
to Region four. I think that there's there was a
lot of consternation there as far as where that line.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
Was going to be. But I think that you know,
the UIL's got.

Speaker 11 (01:29:57):
To draw lines somewhere, and College Station, at least in
the five A and four A levels, tends to be
where you get these cuts. Tends to be like someone's
got to be on this side of the line and
someone's got to be on the other side of the line.
I'll give you another example of it is if you
take a look at at Marlin. Marlin is in a
reason for there in uh In in two A Division one.

(01:30:18):
If you were to scroll up and look on the
other side of it, I mean you've got teams that
are pretty near there, like Reesel is in this Region two.

Speaker 2 (01:30:27):
You know, like there's if you start.

Speaker 11 (01:30:29):
Digging into it, you'll see some a little bit of
geographic whackiness here, just because the un travel line somewhere,
and and and in the end, some teams are gonna
be on one side and some teams are gonna be
the other, even if they are relatively local.

Speaker 2 (01:30:40):
To each other.

Speaker 1 (01:30:41):
I've always said the Brian College stationary I meant to
sincerely kind of falls on the fault line, as I'd
like to say. Now long worn fans will take that
to mean something entirely different, But that's another story. The
the UH and then and then the other thing I
was gonna ask you about, you know, with with all
of this happening, and you mentioned UH clearly in five

(01:31:02):
A Division one as we're talking about the two time
defending state champion Smithson Valley in the district of Anderson
McCallum and Cedar Creek and Berdie Champion and Layman and
Lockhart and Maynor and Sageine Maynor dropping down from six
A is Yeah, Maynor was in a tough district and
so they dropped five A and and look who they're
staring at in district play. But then you could you

(01:31:23):
could visualize, couldn't you a semi final between Weiss and
and Uh in Smithson Valley or am Consolidated or Georgetown
and Smithson Valley in the state semifinal.

Speaker 2 (01:31:36):
Oh, I think you absolutely could. I think you absolutely could.

Speaker 11 (01:31:38):
I've I've had people tell me Austin area coaches tell
me they think Slugerville Weiss is the is the is
the most talented Austin team uh in state regardless of classification.
And I think you take a look at the playmakers
they've got, they're gonna be a real problem. And you're
exactly right that district there, you know, you add in
a Georgetown into what was already kind of a loaded
triumvirate there of College Station, Flagerville, Wess and A and Consolidated.

(01:32:02):
That's gonna be fun. And what I think is going
to be absolutely fascinating. Again, the more you zoom out,
the more interesting it gets. Go look at their by
district matchup in District eleven, where you've got Richmond, Randall,
Iowa Colony, Engleton, A good friends would program Victoria East
had to go.

Speaker 2 (01:32:19):
It's going to be traveled.

Speaker 11 (01:32:20):
I mean, this is a that's a fun region that
is going to have some really that eleven and twelve
by district matchup, I think it's going to be a
lot of fun. And I'll throw in one more team
kind of from that Greater Austin area that I think
is looking at a realignment and say, well, what do
we do wrong? Take a look at what happened to
Liberty Hill. Liberty Hill swings over to Region four, okay,

(01:32:43):
over in the district thirteen and their reward, their reward. Now,
I think this is my opinion right here from the jump,
I would say that Region four is probably a little
more manageable than Region three.

Speaker 2 (01:32:54):
That's that's part where I sit right here on February second.

Speaker 11 (01:32:57):
Yeah, but your reward is you're gonna get alimalights Bernie
and New bron Folds in district play.

Speaker 2 (01:33:04):
New bron Folds was a ten.

Speaker 11 (01:33:06):
It was a team that was a regional semi finalist
last year in five a D one dropping down and
there's suddenly, I mean, Liberty Hill caught the brunt of this.
In my opinion, I think they got a pretty you know, regionally,
a little bit more improved, but brutal district draw.

Speaker 2 (01:33:24):
It's going to be a dog fight there in thirteen
five eighty two.

Speaker 1 (01:33:27):
Yeah, some folks might point to the fact that there
were quote unquote expansion teams in there in Long Creek
from New bron Fols and the new Legacy Ranch school
in there. But you got to but in mentioning, Okay,
give you those two, but you're gonna be stuck with Berniing,
New bron Fils and Alamo Heights. And that's Memorial as well.

Speaker 11 (01:33:43):
Best Memorials had great Best Memorials sent a kid to
Ohio State as a running back at one point not
too long ago. The other thing is, you know, you
mentioned those two new programs there that they're gonna be
drawing with with Legacy Ranch there in Liberty Hill and
New Bronfls Long Creek, it'll be easy to say, okay,
well those are easy wins.

Speaker 2 (01:33:59):
I don't know.

Speaker 11 (01:34:01):
I think that we have entered an era here in
Texas high school football where you can necessarily rule out
some of these new kind of burgeoning programs up and
getting some teams because we've now seen it enough across
the state of Texas that those young programs come hungry
and they come ready to play.

Speaker 13 (01:34:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:34:20):
I mean, think about when Brock started up football. Two
years into it, they're a state titleist. And then and
then obviously you mentioned Richmond Randall. That's another quick starter
type thing. So Katie Pete Katie won a state championship
in their early days. Yep, yep, absolutely final thought here.
How about in five eighty two in Region one District four,

(01:34:41):
Solina moving up? Uh, it's all it makes for quick
road trips when you've you've got the Frisco id kind
of splintering up for the first time in a while,
and you've got the you've got those four schools there,
but the new Prosper School Richland in there with UH
and UH five Frisco schools, and then the line is
there with Anna and Dennison, and.

Speaker 11 (01:35:02):
It's a nineteen district, so you got to be ready
right out of shoot. Basically, you're playing, you know, your
third game of the year is a game that matters,
And you're right, you've got some box office games there
between Salina and a Panther Creek, Frisco who had a really,
really nice year last year. You know, Frisco Emerson who
he's seen play deep at times. I'm pretty high on

(01:35:23):
Dennison there kind of coming down from Texoma. And then
you're right, Prosper Richland is a program that you know,
the last new Proftber team Prosper Walnut Grove was a
quick starter, and so we know that's a talent rich
part of the state.

Speaker 2 (01:35:37):
It is.

Speaker 11 (01:35:37):
It is going to be really fascinating to see a
lot of those some kind of some of these new
new blood, right you know, Frisco, Panther Creek, Frisco, Emerson, Prosper, Richland,
you know. And then you've got some old old blood
like like Salina and Frisco and Dennison. You've kind of
got an interesting kind of pedigree mix there, which I
think will make for a fun, uh kind of jaunt
through District four or five Envision two.

Speaker 1 (01:35:58):
And here's the final make my head explode facts for
an og Here for me. When I was in college
in North Texas, UH, where I cut my teeth on
doing play by play was doing pilot Point football in
their glory days in the early eighties, and then in

(01:36:19):
basketball for one year I was the voice of both
the Crumb Bobcats and the Ponder Lions. Now they were
both Back then one A schools had no football, tiny
little schools who had a bloodthirst just incredible rivalry six
miles apart on farm to market one P fifty six,
they both grew, they went their separate race. Well guess

(01:36:39):
what they're both for a Division two schools and they're
both in the same district. Crumb and ponder the rivalries
back baby.

Speaker 11 (01:36:48):
Yeah, yeah, there's been a little bit of growth there,
I'll say that much. Yeah, you're you're exactly right. You know,
who would have thought that back then? You know, you
look at some of the teams, think about them being
in the district with games. That is a crazy thought
for for folks who've covered high school football you know
long enough. But this is a yeah, it's it's a

(01:37:09):
it's always fun because one of the other things that
you get if you cover Texas high school football as
nerdily as we do, is you get to learn like
the demographic shifts across the state. You get to learn
like where the state is growing, where the state is shrinking,
where you know these things, And it's one of those
it's one of those byproducts of covering the sport like
this that you get to understand like, oh, actually, like
that that west side of Houston's actually growing really significantly.

(01:37:31):
Oh yeah, by the way, the the DFW Metroplex suburbs
are really grown. Lander Lander is a perfect example of like,
that's an example of understanding where the growth is and
it makes for a fun realignment day like.

Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
Today, no doubt about it.

Speaker 1 (01:37:44):
Hey, I appreciate you doing it, and we're we're both
in for a lot of fun in the in the
months to come.

Speaker 2 (01:37:50):
So have fun sorting all this out. Oh yeah, I've
I'm gonna go. I need to stop looking at it now.

Speaker 11 (01:37:57):
I've looked at it like all day and I need to, like,
i mean, get my brain to break.

Speaker 2 (01:38:02):
But I know what I'm gonna be dreaming about tonight.
I know that. There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:38:04):
Thanks Taphi guys. All right, that's Greg Tapper, editor in
chief of Dave Campbell's Texas Football magazine.

Speaker 2 (01:38:11):
Yeah, we both know down on this.

Speaker 1 (01:38:12):
I did a television show every realignment, So that's every
other year on the even years, from nineteen ninety four
all the way through two years ago. This first time.
I haven't done one since nineteen ninety because the television
component went away. Now Victory Plus may bring it back
now that they're new to the game. But so it

(01:38:34):
was different for me, but it was interesting looking at
it from the outside end. All right, we'll be back
to some more basketball talk here on thirteen hunderd the Zone.

Speaker 20 (01:38:46):
She's got a ticket, she's got a jeez, got a
TV and geo.

Speaker 2 (01:38:58):
Okay, we're doing this winter sing all day today.

Speaker 1 (01:39:01):
Is the reason why he's nitting back with a ticket
to ride is because in the movie Help, when they're
doing this, they're in the middle of a snow scene
in Austria.

Speaker 2 (01:39:09):
Is that the deal? Haven't seen the movie? I really
wish that that was the reason. That would have been cool.

Speaker 1 (01:39:14):
Yeah, they're they're right, they're skiing, is falling down and
doing all kinds of weird stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:39:20):
And then they're like singing during it. There's pianos there
and all that stuff and Help all right.

Speaker 1 (01:39:27):
H Thanks aging to Greg Tepper joining us. H some
thoughts from Sean Miller, the Texas basketball coach, earlier today,
uh and getting ready coming off the wind at Oklahom
and getting ready for South Carolina at home tomorrow night.

Speaker 2 (01:39:42):
Yeah, this is obviously a big week for us.

Speaker 6 (01:39:45):
You know, we're entering the month of February for the
first time, and uh, you know, as as everybody knows,
this is a month that is significant in uh in
that it leads into uh, you know that final month
of Arch. So we have five home games in the
SEC left in four road games. I know they go

(01:40:08):
by really quickly in the month of February, and this
week with two home games, you know, certainly we have
to be at our best, and my hope is that
we have a great home crowd in both games and
in fact we can be play at the highest level
that we're capable of playing.

Speaker 1 (01:40:25):
All right, and that'll be at six o'clock tomorrow for that.
And we said we had some more tickets to give away, right.

Speaker 2 (01:40:32):
That we do. I think we have four more pairs.

Speaker 1 (01:40:35):
Or three, three more pairs three, it's three. So the
next three folks who tap in on the text line
just for asking, give us your full name, first name,
last name, and tell us you text the word Texas
followed by your first name, your last name and see
and say yes, I'd like a pair of tickets tomorrow
night's game and you'll get them. So the first three

(01:41:00):
to do that on our text line.

Speaker 2 (01:41:02):
Hey.

Speaker 1 (01:41:02):
Also, congratulations to Austin Gooseby, the men's basketball signee named
the McDonald's All American today, one of the twenty four
players selected to compete in the forty ninth annual McDonald's
All American Game later this spring. It'll be in Glendale, Arizona,
on Tuesday, March thirty. First, all right, we'll be back
to wrap up today's program here on thirteen under the Zone.

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