Last Tuesday, the University Interscholastic League (UIL) announced it will extend the relaxed Friday Night Rule that allows video broadcasts of high school football games on Friday nights for the 2021 season.

Teams can still decide whether or not to broadcast their home games on a video streaming service like NFHS Network, where many games were hosted last year through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Locally, Sealy Head Football Coach/Athletic Director Shane Mobley said the school is still exploring its options. With the alreadyexisting internet radio station of the Sealy Tiger Sports Network (STSN) that has carried audio broadcasts of football – and other sports – games, Mobley was putting that relationship high on the priority list.

“Since I’ve got here, and for years prior, Jim Turnbull and STSN has done a great job of getting broadcasts out on the air,” Mobley said. “Last year kind of came upon us pretty quick as far as us being allowed by UIL to broadcast the game so one thing that we didn’t have a huge opportunity or a huge chance to do is get with STSN and talk about, ‘Hey, do y’all want to do this as you broadcast the game over the internet?’”

Because the two bigger classifications of UIL competitors started their football seasons a month after the smaller four, Mobley said the bigger schools took advantage of the extra downtime to get their ducks in a row.

“We didn’t know all the details about it all – and we hit it running, 5A and 6A had a little bit more time to get some stuff organized – so that’s something that we’ll be looking at the next couple of weeks and to see if that’s what we want to do,” the head coach said.

Turnbull, as he explained after he retired from Austin County EMS, and STSN has been a staple of sports coverage on the airwaves for fans who might not have always been able to make it to the games, especially when capacity restrictions were put in place for last season. Still, Mobley sees the overall benefit of broadcasting football games visually also.

“I think it benefits the family, grandparents, parents that work out of town,” Mobley said. “I think it’s great for friends or even anybody that’s interested in watching a high school football game.”

Of course, as Mobley says, any new invention or creation will also present a new set of challenges not seen before.

“I know UIL has got a couple of things that we’re able to do, the question is, can we tie that in with STSN. That’s just something Jim and I will have to sit down and look at,” he said. “The first thing in my mind, is I’m going to make sure that we can take care of this group that’s always taking care of us, understand what direction they want to go, and how we can unify this opportunity from UIL and STSN.”