BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – With UIL realignment, football teams across the state of Texas are scrambling to figure out who’s in their new district and familiarizing themselves with the new landscape for the next two years. It’s an important day, because these district opponents and how things are zoned will determine the path to a state championship.
Finding out your district opponents is just a piece of the puzzle. Some teams are left with more holes to fill in the pre-district portion of the schedule to fill. For Bryan and Rudder, that vacant space on the schedule made sense to both teams: play at Merrill Green Stadium.
For the first time since 2017 and just the fifth time in history, Bryan and Rudder will play each other on the gridiron.
It’s a rivalry that makes sense. They both share the same stadium and geographically couldn’t be any closer.
“I think it’ll be great,” Bryan head coach Blake Joseph said. “All these kids grow up here in the same town, and I think it’ll bring a lot of hype, and I think the kids will have a really good time because they grew up with a lot of these kids playing either Boys and Girls Club or youth sports.”
Rudder head coach Eric Ezar surprised his players with their 2026 Week 4 opponent.
“There’s a trophy (with this game),” Ezar explained. “I uncovered a towel over the trophy, and my kids said, ‘oh God! We’re going to play Bryan!’”
The Rangers have wanted to play this game their entire high school careers. The community has only seen this rivalry play out when the two squads were forced to play each other as district foes from 2014 to 2017. Bryan holds the all-time series edge 3-1, but Rudder won the most recent matchup in 2017, hence why Ezar has the trophy.
This will be the first time the two Bryan ISD schools meet in pre-district play, and it will be the final tune-up before Joseph begins district play in his first year with the Vikings.
“We both were looking for Week 4’s, so it just kind of lined up,” Joseph said. “It makes sense because we’re both here in the same town, and we’ll hopefully have a good crowd that day.”
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