Playoff Chapter Tracker

[dammitbobby]

Howdy folks, it's that time of year! Feels like Christmas Eve!

Doing things a bit differently this year - there isn't a PDF file with all the chapters and games. (GASP)!

I think I made something better: a website that holds all the assignments, plus game information, plus locations, plus a searchable map... plus ALL the previous years of data that I have.

Go check out https://texasplayoffs.com and let me know what you think! There are most definitely still bugs, so if something is off, or incorrect, let me know and I will get it corrected.

It is definitely a work in progress., I have reached out to assigners/secretaries requesting that they send me their games; most will, some will refuse, so I still need people to help fill in the gaps. I am currently waiting on San Antonio, Austin, College Station, and a few chapters; there's a lot of games out there that haven't been claimed yet. So, if you know of one that's not assigned to a chapter, you can message me, or submit it through the website.

Here's a quick rundown of the features:

texasplayoffs.com: Texas High School Football Playoff Officiating Tracker

texasplayoffs.com tracks which TASO chapter officiates each UIL football playoff game, across all 12 classifications (1A–6A, Divisions 1 and 2), round by round.

Full brackets. Every matchup comes in automatically from the UIL/Maxpreps brackets, with scores as games are played.

Chapter assignments. These are added as they come in, with a running count of how many games are assigned in each round.
Game sites, dates and kickoff times. Sites without an announcement yet show “TBD”.

This Week’s Game Sites map. It has a pin for every game location, and you can show any mix of chapters, plus unassigned games, in their own colors to see who is working nearby. (Note: Not all games are on the map as not all games have locations published yet, even though there may be a chapter already assigned. As soon as the location is updated, the map updates. Also, some pins may be incorrectly placed on the map, let me know if one doesn’t look right, AI and automation and all that.)

Chapter Stats: Games per chapter by week, classification and season total. Click any chapter to see every game it is working.
Historical data (2010–2025):Nine seasons of playoff games with chapter assignments: 2010, 2013, 2015, 2018 and 2021–2025, about 6,000 games in all.

Chapter Stats for any season: weekly and cumulative totals by chapter and classification, with each chapter’s full game list.
Brackets by season and week, with scores and winners.

Multi-Year History. Chapter trends compared across seasons.

Teams. Each school’s playoff appearances, games and the chapters that have worked its games, plus its home stadium where known.

Chapter Regulars. The teams each chapter has worked most often.

Championships. State championship games by chapter, 2000–2025.

Submit Assignment. Anyone can send in a chapter assignment for review.

Stadium information is courtesy of Robert McSpadden, TexasBob.com.

[BlindZebra13]

This is great! The championships tab is perfect!

Who knew that a few chapters are putting out the best crews in the state…not even close by a country mile! (This is sarcasm FYI).

[dammitbobby]

I’ll add to the sarcasm, El Paso officials are so terrible they can’t get selected for even ONE of the EIGHT playoff games being played in their back yard.

(YES this is sarcasm. YES it HACKS me off)

The current system is so dumb. And shame on TASO for enabling it and not standing up for its officials on this.

[Reffan13]

I saw the new site and it looks great but i always liked the pdf brackets as it allowed me to track not only the chapters who got games but also teams advancing. The pdf brackets made it easy to track weekly.

[dammitbobby]

You can find the brackets here: https://www.uiltexas.org/football/playoff-brackets but obviously it won't have the chapters. I'll look  and see if I can maybe put one in.

It's just not practical or feasible to try to do brackets in excel, on top of keeping them in the site. The excel sheet was extraordinarily time consuming, to build the brackets from scratch, and then having to input scores every week, and fix bugs (there was a weird one, where if the top seeded team got blanked, the bracket wouldn't advance correctly.) All of that, on top of tracking down the chapters. This is definitely the future of how this is done, as long as I'm  doing it, at least.

[BlindZebra13]

I’ll add to the sarcasm, El Paso officials are so terrible they can’t get selected for even ONE of the EIGHT playoff games being played in their back yard.

(YES this is sarcasm. YES it HACKS me off)

The current system is so dumb. And shame on TASO for enabling it and not standing up for its officials on this.

It’s crazy that El Paso has multiple teams in the playoff and not one selected the El Paso chapter. If we have San Antonio and Ft. Worth going all the way to El Paso, clearly mileage isn’t a factor for these schools.


El Paso’s season ends every year at the beginning of November and frankly that’s just not right.

[dammitbobby]

It’s crazy that El Paso has multiple teams in the playoff and not one selected the El Paso chapter. If we have San Antonio and Ft. Worth going all the way to El Paso, clearly mileage isn’t a factor for these schools.


El Paso’s season ends every year at the beginning of November and frankly that’s just not right.

Austin chapter has three of those games. I don't know if its's two crews and one doubling up, or three independent crews. Either way it's embarrassing for TASO and the schools, what they are spending to have outside officials. I ran the numbers and not even counting hotel rooms, the 8 games will cost at least 18k in game fees and mileage for two drivers for each game, rider fees, and meal fees. It would cost them less than 6k to have local El Paso officials (game fee and band one travel fee.)

[dammitbobby]

Proof is in the pudding... but feel free to check my math: (this does not include hotel rooms)

El Paso-Area Bi-District Games: Officiating Cost Estimate

2026 UIL Football Playoffs · Crew of 7 · Based on the 2026 TASO Football Pay Sheet (Crew of 7)

Summary

Assuming the lowest gate band ($100 game fee), a crew of 7, and round-trip mileage, the 8 El Paso-area games would cost about $18,871 with two drivers per crew. With everyone driving, it would be $22,667 at the sheet's lowest mileage rate, or $45,749 if each official got the full $0.725 a mile.

Rates and assumptions
•   Game fee: $100 per official (lowest gross-gate band, $150–$4,000).
•   Meal: $30 per official (playoffs), since every trip is more than 91 miles one way.
•   Rider fee: $15 per passenger.
•   Mileage: $0.725 a mile for 1–2 cars; $0.29 a mile is the sheet's lowest rate (5 cars). Mileage is counted round trip.
•   Crews start from the middle of their chapter's area: Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Lubbock (South Plains) and Midland (Permian Basin).

Scenario 1: 2 drivers, 5 riders
•   Game fees: 7 × $100 × 8 games = $5,600
•   Meals: 7 × $30 × 8 = $1,680
•   Rider fees: 5 × $15 × 8 = $600
•   Mileage: 2 drivers × 7,580 round-trip miles × $0.725 = $10,991
Total: $18,871

Scenario 2: Local (El Paso Chapter) officials are used
•   Game fees: 56 × $100 × 8 games = $5,600
•   Travel Band 1 fees: 56 x 20 = $1,120

Total: $6,720

Total Cost Savings, for most likely scenario: $12,151

[Reffan13]

You can find the brackets here: https://www.uiltexas.org/football/playoff-brackets but obviously it won't have the chapters. I'll look  and see if I can maybe put one in.

It's just not practical or feasible to try to do brackets in excel, on top of keeping them in the site. The excel sheet was extraordinarily time consuming, to build the brackets from scratch, and then having to input scores every week, and fix bugs (there was a weird one, where if the top seeded team got blanked, the bracket wouldn't advance correctly.) All of that, on top of tracking down the chapters. This is definitely the future of how this is done, as long as I'm  doing it, at least.

I prefer the brackets with the chapters in it like years past as I can look along and see who got what. plus they were downloadable and I could save them.

[dammitbobby]

Brackets are up - working to see if I can get them to export to PDF. It's not exactly like the way it was, but this is so, so much better, for me, and everyone else, and provides so much more data. I've thought of at least 5 different things I'm going to try to develop insights around, based on the data and other visuals, and TASO is interested in certain aspects of this data, as well (I'll post more about that later, when the season is complete and we have a full picture)

[FWREF]

Bobby, this is awesome! thanks for the effort you put into this.

[dammitbobby]

A LOT more interesting things/features got added today!

Map pins color-coded by chapter
Roundtrip miles driven by each chapter (Houston chapter is driving approximately 11,881 miles to and from games this week)
Games where both teams share the same home chapter, but different chapter picked for playoff game (4 found so far, trying to get complete listings from each chapter as to what schools they cover)
Most expensive games to officiate (I estimate schools will spend at least $409k on officiating fees this round, with an average of $1,163/game, with the highest being 5 of the 8 El Paso games)
Top Teams per chapter button now shows which chapter's top teams are schools they cover during regular season
Schedule changes now appear as a notice on the front page
Brackets button added (no PDF export yet, I have a real day job too ), similar to the old Excel sheets

If you can think of anything else I can add, please let me know!