A North Texas high school is canceling not only the remainder of its 2026 varsity football season, but also the 2027 varsity season.
Keene ISD (Keene, TX) announced in a social media post on Facebook on Tuesday, Sept. 22, that it was canceling the remainder of the 2026 high school varsity football season as well as the 2027 season due to a lack of healthy players.
"Effective immediately, we are canceling the remainder of our varsity district football schedule due to a high number of injuries and a shortage of healthy players," the Facebook message read. "We know how much this impacts our school, coaches, players, and community, and we are truly sorry for the disruption this causes.
"Canceling games that affect our district partners was not an easy
choice, and we deeply regret putting those teams in this position. Looking ahead, we have also decided not to field a varsity team for the 2027 season. Given our current roster numbers, we are afraid we would run into this exact same situation next fall."
The Chargers finished their first season playing in the University Interscholastic League (UIL) with a 1-3 overall record.
Keene is located approximately 44 miles southwest of downtown Dallas. The school first established a football program in 2021 at the junior high level. It played an outlaw varsity schedule in 2025, according to Dave Campbell's Texas Football.
The Chargers opened the season with a 28-8 victory over Riesel (Riesel, TX), but dropped its last three games, with each coming by at least three touchdown margins.
For the healthy players left for Keene ISD, the district did announce other plans for the rest of the schedule:
- Junior High: We will honor all of our remaining Junior High games as scheduled.
- JV & Sub-Varsity: For our remaining healthy high school players, we are actively looking to schedule games against JV teams or smaller private school programs so their season doesn't have to end early.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas high school cancels football for two full seasons
