WAKE UP! ON ETBLITZ.COM | UIL sets baseball playoff format, tables shot clock & flag football; check out Cowboys’ mini-camp report (w/video)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Wake Up! Wednesday – and Wake Up! every day here on ETBlitz.com – is presented by Cozy Coffee Station, which you can find right here on the ol’ World Wide Web, Home | Cozy Coffee Station. How many of you remembered ‘www’ stood for that? Anyway, CCS is located in Kilgore, at 110 Midtown Plaza, and in Gilmer at 755 Highway 271 North, and they’re making great things as we speak. They’d love to make something great for you right now.

So, water polo.

Wrestling promoter Vince McMahon used to say that he knew what fans wanted better than they did.

The University Interscholastic League – the governing body of Texas high school extracurricular activities, from athletics to marching band competitions – might not actually verbalize that, but often seems like they’re saying that, to me, to our state.

The UIL approved water polo as an official high school sport a few days ago, so I guess it’s coming to a pool near you.

Apparently, the UIL already had been allowing water polo to be played the last three years as what it calls a “pilot” program, under a tryout basis, just not as an official sport.

But as of this moment, none of the 12 schools in the current ETBlitz.com coverage area actually have a swim team, much less a water polo team on the horizon, to my knowledge.

I’ll keep an eye out in case that changes. I guess we’ll see if the “water polo head coach” title gets added to Joey Pippen’s duties in the next few days there at Kilgore High School, or if White Oak’s Klint Blankenship is leading the Water’Necks anytime soon. Heck, Rylan Holleman at Overton already plays football, basketball and baseball – maybe Mustangs AD Scotty Laymance will add water polo, and Holleman will be out there flying on top of the water, too; who knows?

Baseball playoff format change

There was this from the UIL’s announcements. And it does greatly affect ETBlitz-area programs, and all baseball programs across the state.

From hereon out and forever more, the one-game playoff is done in classifications 3A and up.

Classes 5A and 6A already had been automatically playing best-of-three-game series in the playoffs, and the UIL made that mandatory for 3A and 4A now, as well. In a statement, the UIL said this: “According to the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association, there has been an increased number of instances of schools threatening to invoke a coin flip to determine whether the series will include the best of three games or a single game if other demands, such as requiring the opponent to play at their home field or to travel great distances, are not met,” the UIL statement read. “Requiring a best of three series unless both schools agree to a one game series eliminates that negotiating tactic.”

So, the most notable one-game playoff locally this past baseball season occurred between Overton and La Poynor in 2A. That could still happen next year, because the UIL didn’t touch 2A. Let’s hope they come back and re-visit this, and add 2A to this ruling, as well, and go ahead and make all classifications’ playoff series a best-of-three. I don’t know why they didn’t to begin with.

From now on, then, there will be no negotiating, as far as series formats. Say next season, Kilgore meets Bullard in round one. The negotiations, I guess, will be about where the best-of-three series will be played. That’ll be the extent of it, because it’ll definitely be a series, not a one-gamer.

Shot clock in basketball, girls flag football

There had been a proposal on the table for a shot clock in Texas high school basketball, rather than teams getting to hold onto the ball forever – you know, and milk the clock out. It happens.

But the upcoming 2025-26 season won’t have a shot clock, either, because the UIL Legislative Council – the one that just gave you water polo and made best-of-three-game baseball series mandatory – decided to table the shot clock issue, as well as a proposal that would make girls flag football an official high school sport in Texas. That one is backed, by the way, by the NFL, the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Texans.

The Cowboys

Speaking of “mandatory,” the Dallas Cowboys recently wrapped up their mandatory minicamp. And I thought you guys might want to take a look – even though it’s June – at how things are going early-on in the administration of first-year coach Brian Schottenheimer. This is The Blitz – not the ET version, but the Cowboys version. Now, it’s about 20 minutes long, but I thought you’d enjoy it.