Less than a week after announcing its plans to have shortened fall sports seasons, TAPPS added a couple of games back for football.

In an update released Thursday, TAPPS announced that it will allow its private schools to play an eight-game regular season for football instead of six games. TAPPS will allow games to start one week earlier (Sept. 24-26), and the regular season will end one week later (Nov. 12-14).

That will allow schools in eight-team districts to play all of their district games, which wasn’t going to be possible in the plan that TAPPS announced last week. Locally, that affects the eight-team Division I District I, which features Argyle Liberty Christian, Bishop Lynch, Fort Worth All Saints, Fort Worth Nolan, Midland Christian, defending TAPPS Division I state champion Parish Episcopal, Plano John Paul II and Plano Prestonwood Christian.

TAPPS also pushed back its football state championship games by one week, from Dec. 3-5 to Dec. 10-12.

All fall sports can begin school-based workouts one day earlier, on Sept. 7 (Labor Day) instead of Sept. 8, and football teams can now practice in pads and have full contact starting Sept. 11. Football teams will play their only scrimmage Sept. 17-19 instead of the week after that.

The first date for volleyball matches is now Sept. 10 — moved up from Sept. 21 — and the state finals were pushed back from Nov. 11-13 until Nov. 18-21. Competitions can begin earlier for fall golf (Sept. 7), team tennis (Sept. 7), cross country (Sept. 10) and fall soccer (Sept. 10) instead of having to wait until Sept. 21 (cross country, team tennis and fall golf) or Sept. 28 (fall soccer).

TAPPS did not announce any new changes for its winter sports — winter soccer (different from the fall season), basketball and wrestling. TAPPS previously delayed the start of those sports by two weeks and said that they can begin practices Nov. 2 and can start competitions Nov. 12.

Team tennis: Oct. 19-20

Cross country: Nov. 2

Fall soccer: Nov. 12-13

Volleyball: Nov. 18-21

Football: Dec. 10-12

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