By GvilleTX Newsroom
Legacy Ranch High School, a Liberty Hill campus in Williamson County rather than Cooke County, said the Wranglers began varsity football at their new home Friday night with a 59-0 win over Manor New Tech at Wrangler Stadium. For Gainesville-area readers, the record matters less as a local score than as a Texas school-growth marker: official records tie the game to bond-funded construction and a planned climb from freshman football to varsity play.
The Legacy Ranch calendar listed the Aug. 28 game for 7 p.m. at Wrangler Stadium. Afterward, the school's Facebook post reported the shutout and said it was the Wranglers' first home win at the new Legacy Ranch Stadium.
The football program followed a three-step launch, according to a 2024 Legacy Ranch athletics report: freshman teams first, junior varsity the next year and varsity football in 2026. Liberty Hill ISD records show Tim Knicky was announced as campus athletic coordinator and head football coach on Jan. 22, 2024, giving the program more than two years to build toward Friday's opener.
School records list Legacy Ranch High School at 1277 Legacy Ranch Drive in Liberty Hill. The campus is in Williamson County, not Gainesville or Cooke County, so no Cooke County district records or Gainesville ISD schedules are tied to the game.
The Wrangler name was in place before the football program reached varsity level. Liberty Hill ISD said trustees voted on Dec. 11, 2023, to use Wranglers as the mascot and Columbia blue and navy as school colors.
District bond records show the Legacy Ranch stadium came from the 2021 bond, which included building a new football stadium for the high school. Liberty Hill ISD's 2023 bond page says a later facilities proposition, part of a roughly $471 million package, passed with about 77 percent support; Williamson County's election summary recorded 1,849 votes for and 566 against. The district's records also show the 2023 stadium-facilities proposition was for concession and restroom work at Liberty Hill High School and turf replacement at Panther Stadium, not for the Legacy Ranch stadium.
The Wranglers enter UIL play in Conference 5A Division II, Region 4, District 13, according to UIL alignment records for 2026-28. Their district includes Boerne, Liberty Hill, New Braunfels, New Braunfels Long Creek, San Antonio Alamo Heights and San Antonio Veterans Memorial. UIL cutoff records put 5A Division II football schools in an enrollment band from 1,305 to 1,869 students.
New Braunfels ISD's Long Creek High School gives a nearby comparison inside the same UIL district. NBISD said Long Creek and Legacy Ranch both opened two years earlier and had already met in football, with Legacy Ranch winning in 2025 and Long Creek winning in 2024. The district also said Long Creek's 2026 season is its first varsity district season, its first with a senior class and its first year eligible for UIL football playoffs. NBISD separately said voters approved a bond package that included a Long Creek stadium planned for competition use in fall 2026.
Williamson County's growth supplies the larger setting. Census QuickFacts estimated the county at about 753,000 residents in mid-2025, up roughly 24 percent from the April 2020 estimates base. Texas Education Agency records also list Liberty Hill ISD among districts qualifying for a high-enrollment-growth instructional-materials adjustment credited in 2025-26.
_Editor's note: Everyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law._
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