Pottsboro beats Callisburg 33–12; Wildcats fall to 0–4 as Cardinals win third straight

Callisburg lost at home to Pottsboro 33–12 on Friday, Sept. 18, leaving the Wildcats winless at 0–4 while the Cardinals took a third straight win and moved to 3–1. Both records come from the schools' varsity football pages on MaxPreps, the score-reporting partner the University Interscholastic League uses to populate its Texas Scoreboard.

MaxPreps lists the game as non-district, leaving Callisburg 0–0 in district play. UIL sends the top four teams from each Class 3A district to the playoffs, and its 2026–28 alignment places Callisburg in District 7-3A Division II with Bells, Blue Ridge, Howe, Leonard, Sadler S&S Consolidated and Valley View. The league's 2026 calendar allows schools at most 10 regular-season games across 11 weeks, sets district certification for Nov. 7 and opens the playoffs Nov. 12–14.

Callisburg's earlier losses this season came against Bowie, Millsap and Tioga, its MaxPreps page shows. Pottsboro opened the year with a 27–21 loss to Bells, then beat Farmersville and Leonard by three touchdowns or more, according to its schedule page.

That same page lists a road game at Bonham on Sept. 25 for the Cardinals, followed by their district opener at Pilot Point on Oct. 9.

The two programs sit in different divisions of the same class. UIL's 2026–28 classification records put Pottsboro at about 420 students in Class 3A Division I and Callisburg at roughly 330 in Division II, and the league awards a separate championship in each.

UIL's alignment records also show the map around both teams changed with this cycle. Gunter spent the 2024–26 alignment in Callisburg's District 7-3A Division II and now plays in Pottsboro's District 5-3A Division I, alongside Pilot Point, Whitesboro, Dallas A+ and Dallas Life Oak Cliff. Valley View moved into Callisburg's district from District 6.

UIL's football archive records Pottsboro's run to the 2019 Class 3A Division I state championship game, which the Cardinals lost 42–35 to Grandview. Gunter won the Division II title that same season, beating Omaha Pewitt.

Nationally, the National Federation of State High School Associations counted about 1.03 million boys playing 11-player football in 2024–25 and reported in a September 2025 analysis that participation had risen in three of the four preceding years, after six consecutive annual declines.

UIL says coaches and schools file results to MaxPreps and that submissions from the public can post after verification. The entry for Friday's game at Callisburg does not identify who filed it.