I hate that field. It's a geographical oddity. The sun is in your eyes for hours and doesn't move, it's like it's some corner of the world that doesn't adhere to Newton's law. Either that or it's cold and windy as hell. Never had an enjoyable visit there. Plus I hate purple.
Leander (and the surrounding areas) have blown up population wise. I would suspect there's some attrition to other schools in the area: Rouse, Glenn, Chapparel, Lake Belton, 2 Georgetown schools. I think CP and Vandy are pretty much saturated at this point.
True but I'm comparing RR with the teams Westlake and LT should have joined in this 26-28 realignment: District 24-6A: Vandegrift, Cedar Park, Vista Ridge, Leander, Rouse
RRISD football is definitely the easier path, trust me. Vandegrift has won every GD year. McNeil is about to fall off a cliff with demographics. Westwood does robotics and rubik's cube. Stony Point and Cedar Ridge are asswater. The other tough teams Hutto and Vista Ridge are now gone. Literally your only tough game besides LT will be Round Rock. *farther
It's about bribes IMO. Vandegrift fled to RRISD years ago to get away from Westlake and LT to have an easier schedule. Now it's flipped. Like you said, none of those 3 schools in Round Rock makes a lick of sense geographically. But the UIL is not going to admit they got bought off. I know the McNeil coach (former) and he was told Vandegrift was finally leaving RRISD and the schedule would get easier. $omething changed last minute and now this bull happens. It's not that there's an agenda against RRISD, it's just that we don't have the money those marquee schools have to make their paths easier. It's rotten. Personally I hope all the Westlake and LT buses and fans have a horrible time the next 2 years in Austin traffic each and every time they come up north via Mopac/360/620 for Fri night games. 100%