Gainesville forfeits Friday varsity football game against Van Alstyne

There will be no varsity football at Leopard Stadium on Friday night. The Gainesville Leopards have forfeited their home game against the Van Alstyne Panthers, and Van Alstyne ISD announced that Gainesville did not have enough available players to take the field safely.

Gainesville's official football schedule had the game set for Oct. 30 at 7 p.m. Losing it takes one of the Leopards' home dates off the fall calendar.

Van Alstyne ISD said the sub-varsity games set for Thursday, Oct. 29, would be played as planned.

The Leopards' published schedule lists their next varsity game at Lake Worth on Nov. 6 at 7 p.m. That listing does not show whether Gainesville will have enough players to make the trip. Van Alstyne hosts Sanger at Panther Stadium on Thursday, Nov. 5, at 7 p.m. for Senior Night, the district said.

The Van Alstyne district's statement does not say why the players are unavailable. It makes no mention of injuries. GvilleTX could not confirm an injury explanation through any accessible primary source.

Under UIL rules, a school that pulls out of a contracted game generally takes the forfeit. The exception is a cancellation both schools agree to. Van Alstyne's announcement does not describe any agreement of that kind.

The game also counted in district play. UIL's 2026-28 alignment places Gainesville and Van Alstyne in District 6 of Conference 4A Division II, along with Krum, Lake Worth, Ponder and Sanger. The top four teams from each district in that division move on to the playoffs, according to UIL. The two schools are close in size. UIL classification records show Gainesville enrolling slightly more students than Van Alstyne. Those figures count the whole school and say nothing about how many players are on either roster.

The Leopards started the season under penalties from the state. On Aug. 6, UIL's State Executive Committee suspended head coach Neil Searcy from football for one season and put him on three years of probation, with a public reprimand and additional training. That decision also took four preseason practices and one scrimmage away from the football program and put Gainesville's athletic program on three years of probation with a public reprimand. A later UIL official notice named off-season practice violations under Section 1206(f) as the grounds for the program sanctions. Neither the UIL records nor Van Alstyne's announcement ties those penalties to this week's forfeit.

Gainesville is not the only Texas school to come up short on players this month. On Oct. 21, West ISD announced that Keene had called off its game against West that Friday because Keene did not have enough players available. Nationally, the National Federation of State High School Associations reported that boys' 11-player football participation went up in 2025-26.

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