The Road to AT&T Starts Thursday: Allen and South Oak Cliff Open at Home, North Crowley Leads Friday's Bi-District Slate
The UIL brackets are out and the six-week race to the Dec. 16-19 state finals at AT&T Stadium begins Thursday — with three 10-0 teams in the Metroplex, a defending champion at Kincaide Stadium, and Duncanville on the road at 9-1 Waco Midway.
The brackets are set, and the math is simple now: win, and play next week; lose, and turn in the pads. The University Interscholastic League has released its brackets in all classifications for the 2026 Texas high school football playoffs — the six-week race that begins Thursday, Nov. 12, and runs through the state finals Dec. 16–19 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, where 12 champions will be crowned across six conferences, per MaxPreps' bracket release. Thirty-eight Texas teams ranked in the High School Football America 300 begin their run this weekend; a remarkable share of them are here.
Thursday night belongs to the headliners. Allen (10-0) opens at Eagle Stadium against Lewisville Hebron (5-5) at 7 p.m.; defending 5A Division II champion Dallas South Oak Cliff (8-2) starts its defense at Kincaide Stadium against Whitehouse (5-5) at 7:30; Denton Ryan (8-1) hosts Fort Worth Paschal at Collins Stadium; Frisco Lone Star (10-0) meets North Richland Hills Birdville at the Ford Center; and DeSoto (8-2) — a defending champion itself in 6A Division II — hosts North Mesquite at Eagle Stadium. Friday adds the rest of the unbeaten: Arlington Martin (10-0) at home against Trophy Club Nelson, and North Crowley (10-0) at Crowley ISD Stadium against Lake Belton.
Friday's undercard is where the season turns for everybody else: Euless Trinity (9-1) against Plano East at Pennington Field in Bedford; Highland Park (8-2) at home against McKinney North; Aledo against Keller Central at Fort Worth's Knight Stadium; Lake Highlands against Haltom at Wildcat-Ram Stadium; Southlake Carroll hosting a Weatherford team (6-4) making its first playoff trip since 2021; and Duncanville (6-4) — the name brand with the misleading record — on the road at 9-1 Waco Midway, the hardest assignment any Metroplex team drew. The desk's roundup follows Friday's finals on the standing cadence.
