Aledo’s run as a Texas football power is due a heat check, and a move to 6A | Opinion
Every other year, one of the most successful football teams in Texas is the subject of rumors about its ability to stay exactly where it is, despite the visible population growth that surrounds the school.
The most entertaining rumor is Aledo ISD instructs a certain number of its high school students to stay home when the state takes an enrollment figure for the purposes of classification, even though the Texas UIL doesn’t come up with the numbers that way. (There is a formula, and it’s not a head count on a given day.)
Since 1998, the suburb 19.7 miles west of downtown Fort Worth has become a synonym for Texas high school football state titles. Whether it’s 3A, 4A and currently 5A, Aledo has built a community, and attracted countless families to move there, in part because of its ability to win high school football games.
Aledo is long overdue to move up to Class 6A, which is where it will be this time next year. Aledo’s football life is about to get harder, which it should embrace.
“I don’t know if we’re excited about it, but we expect it,” Aledo football coach Robby Jones said the day of his team’s 43-17 win over Denton Ryan in the 5A quarterfinals on Friday. “It will be an adjustment for the kids, and the parents.”
Aledo’s inevitable next step
The last time Aledo High School submitted its enrollment figure to the Texas UIL, in the fall of 2023, it was eight students shy of the cut line, and moving up from 5A to 6A. How ‘bout that? It is hardly the first time Aledo has been just under the line from having to move up a classification.
Within this growing suburb there are pockets of people who would prefer the school do whatever necessary to keep Aledo’s athletic programs, not to mention its band, in Class 5A. It was the same sentiment when Aledo was 4A. And 3A.
Unlike DeSoto, which once had the numbers to be a Class 5A team but preferred to be in 6A, Aledo had no interest in that route.
Although the population in Texas continues to increase, enrollment figures in public schools have decreased. That’s due to kids being home-schooled, an increase in private schools, charter schools, and a declining birth rate.
Regardless, Aledo administrators fully expect that when the Texas UIL announces its reclassification in February that it will be in 6A. That will put Aledo in the same neighborhood as North Crowley, Allen, Carroll, DeSoto, Duncanville, Lake Travis, Waxahachie, Katy and the rest of the monsters in the state.
A move to 6A is a threat, but not necessarily an end, to the success Aledo has enjoyed in every classification but the biggest.
Since 1998, all Aledo has known is winning state titles, and never losing a district game. Aledo is enjoying a district winning streak that has reached 135 straight games.
Aledo has outgrown 5A, and it belongs in a neighborhood where the game isn’t over by the end of the first quarter.
Too often in Aledo’s sustained run of success their starters are out by halftime. Seldom do the starters play all four quarters. In 6A, this team figures to be pushed before the fourth round of the playoffs.
“We will not be able to get all of the kids into the game; the starters will be playing most of the way,” Jones said. “The kids I think understand it. I’m not sure if the parents do, yet.”
Aledo is on a very Carroll path
Many moons ago, Carroll was a 3A team in a small suburb 19.1 miles north of downtown Fort Worth in an area that was formerly cow pastures and farm lands. Southlake was pretty much like Aledo was before developers turned acreage into big homes on bigger lots not too far from a high school that was a big draw for families looking to relocate.
Even as Carroll moved up in classification, the football team remained a top team. There was a period when Carroll had some internal issues that affected the results, but since Carroll hired Riley Dodge as the head coach those problems have faded.
Carroll won eight state titles between 1998 and 2011, across multiple classifications. The Dragons reached the finals in 2020 and 2024, and are still alive in these playoffs.
Aledo, like Carroll, has built its teams through the luxury of stability of homegrown kids who play in the same system beginning in middle school. Both Aledo and Carroll have tried to stay away from the increasingly popular, but seldom discussed, transfer game.
The similarities between the two areas, and schools, are numerous save for one major distinction. Carroll ISD sits in a square mile radius of 21 miles. If you combined the square mile radius of Carroll ISD, Allen ISD, Birdville ISD and HEB ISD you would get 130 miles, the exact same figure as Aledo ISD.
At some point, maybe in the next eight to 12 years, Aledo will require another high school. When that potential zoning line is drawn, it will kick off one of the nastiest fights Texas has seen since the Battle of Goliad. Hell hath no fury like a homeowner whose property value is threatened by a school rezoning.
That is coming, but it’s years away.
Until then, the next step in the evolution and story of Aledo’s beloved Bearcats is a move up to the highest classification in Texas high school football. It’s where they belong.
This story was originally published December 9, 2025 at 4:30 AM.
