Era opens the 2026 season in a redrawn UIL district

KXII published a preseason preview of the Era Hornets on Aug. 22, looking at head coach Tanner Mann's program as it works toward a 2026 season in a district the University Interscholastic League redrew for the new alignment cycle. For anyone who plans Friday nights around the schedule, the plainest change is who shows up: three of the five district opponents were not in Era's district last cycle.

UIL's 2026-28 football alignment keeps Era in Conference 2A Division II and places the Hornets in District 9 with Celeste, Collinsville, Cumby, Lindsay and Quinlan Boles. The 2024-26 alignment had listed Era in District 8 with Chico, Collinsville, Lindsay, Muenster and Santo. Collinsville and Lindsay carry over. Chico, Muenster and Santo come off the district slate.

Era's 2A Division II placement rests on a headcount that barely moved. UIL's rank order for the new cycle lists the school at 156 students, four fewer than the figure that governed the last two years. The lines around that number moved more than the number did. UIL's published cutoffs lowered the top end of both Conference 2A and 2A Division II football for 2026-27 and 2027-28, narrowing the band Era falls in. Within District 9, the rank order puts the Hornets near the middle of the group. Quinlan Boles is the largest school in the district and Cumby the smallest, with fewer than 60 students between the two ends.

Era ISD's athletics page identifies Mann as head football coach. The district's own board record places him in an athletic role before this season as well. The agenda for the April 14, 2025 school board meeting listed an "Athletic Director Report: Tanner Mann."

The preview landed inside the state's preseason window for small schools. UIL set Aug. 3 as the first day of conditioning for 1A through 4A programs, opened full contact five days later and cleared scrimmages beginning Aug. 13.

Those August workouts now run under a new statewide standard. UIL made Wet Bulb Globe Temperature monitoring a requirement for all outdoor athletic and marching band activity starting with the 2026-27 school year, effective Aug. 1. The rule reaches a six-team 2A district the same way it reaches the biggest programs in Texas.

The count of who is playing has been going up. The National Federation of State High School Associations reported record participation of about 8.27 million high school athletes in 2024-25. More than a million of them played 11-player football, and Texas led every state with roughly 879,000 participants across all sports.

UIL's alignment runs through the 2027-28 school year, so the district Era opens in this fall is the one it will play next fall as well.