Erenia Gonzalez

Following a forced turnover, senior linebacker Larry Boykin celebrates with the defense. The Wildcats beat Cy Creek 42-10. Starting this fall, Creek will be an one of the football, basketball and volleyball teams’ in-district opponents.

On Monday, UIL released the 2026-2028 reclassification and realignment, ending rivalries and bringing in five new district opponents for the Wildcats.

Starting in the fall, Cypress Woods will be in Region II District 16, which will be made up of the eight most eastern schools in CFISD: Cy-Fair, Cypress Creek, Cypress Falls, Cypress Lakes, Cypress Ridge, Cypress Woods, Jersey Village, and Langham Creek. These teams will reunite in one district for the first time since 2018.

This breaks this year’s alignment apart, as just Woods, Lakes, and Langham Creek return to District 16, while the five other schools that completed the group (Bridgeland, Cypress Park, Cypress Ranch, Cypress Springs, and Waller) will move to District 23, where three Lamar CISD schools round out the group.

This will be the first time since Cypress Ranch’s inaugural season in 2009 that the Wildcats and Mustangs will not be in the same district. This also marks the first time in Bridgeland and Cypress Park’s short histories that they won’t be in the same district as Woods.

Although ending the Woods-Ranch or Woods-Bridgeland rivalry feels like a mistake, UIL is very intentional about alignments, stating in the official Reclassification and Realignment Policies that “There shall be no attempt to perpetuate or avoid ‘old rivalries.’”

Head boys basketball coach Chris Draudt has been at Woods since its opening in 2006. Having lived the school’s history for two decades now, he knows better than anybody what these “old rivalries” mean for school culture.

“Losing Cy-Ranch and losing Bridgeland; you’re losing some pretty good rivalries,” Draught said. “A lot of our kids come from Spillane, and some of them go to Ranch. Or some of our kids come from Salyards, and some of them go to Bridgeland. When you lose those connections, that’s not good for the overall competitive spirit of the communities.”

Just last night, the basketball team hosted its last district game against Ranch for the foreseeable future, and the rivalry game lived up to all of the hype.

“It was packed,” Draudt said. “It had a great turnout from the student body and they had a really good turnout. … I don’t love to lose that connection for our school and those schools.”

However, when one door closes, another opens. Or in this case, another reopens.

“Going all the way back when this school opened, almost all of our kids came from Cy-Fair,” Draudt said. “The rivalry we feel like we have with Cy-Ranch right now is the rivalry that we used to have with Cy-Fair… I think it’s like a rivalry renewed.”

The UIL academic coordinator Stacey Armstrong has also been at the Woods since its inaugural year, so as the new district brings back old foes, he’s just as excited to be back with some old friends.

“I think it’ll be fun,” Armstrong said. “Mr. [Dirk] Heath, who used to be here at Woods, is at Cy-Fair now, and we haven’t seen Falls in a long time and we’ve got friends over there. I’m very excited to bring back some old people that we haven’t seen in awhile.”

At the same time though, Armstrong knows that Woods is losing a lot with the new realignment. The pure competition that comes with going up against other top schools is a privilege that Woods has taken advantage of over the years.

“It’s kinda sad to see your Bridgeland and Ranch and Waller going different directions,” Armstrong said. “Iron sharpens iron, so competing against those people all year makes us better.”

No longer competing with Bridgeland, Ranch, and Waller, Woods will be the biggest school in their district by almost 400 students. This — along with the Wildcats’ recent performance across academics, basketball, football, and volleyball — indicates that Woods is in position to excel in the upcoming years.

In academics, football, and volleyball, Woods’ new district opponents performed notably worse this season than Woods’ current competition. For UIL Academics specifically, the 49-point gap between their current opponents and new opponents could mean that students have a better chance at winning scholarships and awards.

“From my students’ side, it gives them more opportunities to compete at the next level because some really, really good statewide competition just shifted into a different region,” Armstrong said. “It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t put in any less time, but it just means there’s going to be less competition.”

However, the basketball team’s competition won’t be getting much easier. Every year, there are always six to seven teams competing for just four playoff spots, and this new realignment brings similarly competitive district play.

“What we’re in right now is extremely competitive, so for us we’re trading competitive and difficult teams, and picking up competitive and difficult teams,” Draudt said. “I try to look at it as like, we don’t control it. Just tell us who we’re going to play and then we’ll try to prepare to do that.”

And similar to Armstrong’s remarks on not letting the academic team take their foot off of the gas, Draudt warned against taking the new competition lightly. Though the competition may seem easier, winning will still be just as hard as it always has been.

“I’d caution people that say, ‘Oh wow, football just got a lot easier,’” Draudt said. “You still have to go and win games. Winning is hard.”

As Woods heads into a new era of UIL competition, there’s a lot that will be left behind, but much more to discover with new rivals, more opportunities, and the same hard work.

“Selfishly, I would love to play Cy-Fair, Cy-Ranch, and Bridgeland all the time because I think that’s good for our community,” Draudt said. “But if you’re in this business, that’s what happens, and you adjust and you kind of move on. … Let’s look at it as an exciting thing with some new challenges.”