UIL Realignment: Jacksonville Football to join familiar cast in District 7-5A-II

Feb. 1—The University Interscholastic League realignment for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school terms was unveiled Thursday morning and while it produced a significant change for Jacksonville, the change was a familiar one.

The Indian football team will be moving up to District 7-5A-II, after competing at the Class 4A, Division I for the past two years.

The old-familiar foes joining the Indians in the circuit include Hallsville, Marshall, Mount Pleasant, Nacogdoches, Texarkana-Texas High and Whitehouse.

"We are back in our previous district, minus Pine Tree," Jacksonville athletic director and head football coach Jason Holman said. "The familiarity that these schools bring is is good for our kids, but we are in a tough district, with Texas High and Marshall included."

District 7-5A-II is included in Region 2

Class 5A, Division II includes schools with enrollments between 1,315 and 1,902 students.

Jacksonville's snapshot day enrollment figure was 1,394, which was a gain of 116 students from two years ago.

With Jacksonville being one of the smaller schools in Class 5A in terms of enrollment, Holman said that it is a concern when the opposing schools have many more student-athletes to draw from compared to Jacksonville.

Holman said that he hopes to have the Tribe's non-district scheduled finalized by early next week.

Jacksonville's basketball and volleyball teams will be competing in Region 2, District 10-5A.

Other members of the league are Hallsville, Lufkin, Marshall, Mount Pleasant, Nacogdoches, Texarkana-Texas High, Tyler High and Whitehouse.

Lufkin, Tyler, Nacogdoches and Whitehouse were district rivals of Jacksonville in the previous realignment period.

With nine teams battling for four playoff berths, the Indian and Maiden hoopsters will have their work cut out for them in their new conference home.

"As much as realignment has affected our football program, (the new districts) that our winter and spring sports will be competing in are ultra competitive," Holman said. "Top to bottom, there are some strong teams in those districts."

Class 5A for basketball and volleyball contains schools with enrollments of 1,315 to 2,274.