Is the NFL friendly to High School football?

This Saturday, Fox Sports SW will air the class 5A football championships from the Alamodome in San Antonio. Euless Trinity will meet Austin Westlake at 2 pm for the Division I final, and the Abilene Eagles meet Katy for the Division II title at 7 pm.

7pm also happens to be the time that the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints play on the NFL Network (a game that will air in the DFW market on KTXA-21).

This is the second year in a row that the NFL has put a Dallas Cowboys game on the Saturday night of the UIL football championships.

I don't understand why the NFL has to do this. It's not like the UIL dates aren't known when the NFL schedule is put together. Jerry Jones (owner of the Dallas Cowboys) has always been friendly to high schools, as evidenced by the hundreds of high school playoff games at Texas Stadium, and the games played so far this year at his new palace in Arlington.

Here in Texas, high school football is big. The two games Saturday in San Antonio will likely draw over 30,000 fans, possibly even into the 40,000 range. There will also be a fairly large television audience for both games, although probably smaller for the 7 pm game, since many fans who have NFL network will probably switch over.

I just don't understand why the NFL has done this to the UIL for the last two years, especially when a game of the stature of Dallas at New Orleans would be an easy fit for Sunday night, or even the Fox nationwide game on Sunday afternoon, but yet, the NFL network rules.

I guess the NFL is saying Bah Humbug! to the Abilene and Katy fans.