War of the Woods Has Become South Montgomery County’s Army - Navy Game

Athletics

College Park and The Woodlands meet Friday at 1-0 in District 13-6A, with explosive offenses, Division I talent and two defenses carrying something to prove.

Friday, Oct. 2, 2026

THE WOODLANDS, Texas — Week one of the District 13-6A football schedule went about the way most expected.

The Woodlands won. College Park won. Grand Oaks won. Oak Ridge won.

Four teams emerged at 1-0.

And almost immediately, attention shifted to the game circled on calendars across The Woodlands.

College Park versus The Woodlands. The War of the Woods.

The Cavaliers and Highlanders meet Friday at 7 p.m. at Woodforest Bank Stadium in a game that has grown into South Montgomery County’s premier high school football rivalry.

Around here, it has become something close to an Army-Navy game — the matchup that divides friends, families and neighborhoods for one night.

And this year, there is more than bragging rights attached to it.

College Park opened district play by scoring 63 points in a 63-28 win at Willis. The Woodlands answered with 62 in a 62-13 victory over Caney Creek. Both arrive Friday 1-0 in district, and while nobody can win a seven-game district championship in Week 2, this is the type of game everyone may look back on when the final standings are settled.

It could be the district championship game being played five weeks early.

Before the War of the Woods, there was Conroe-The Woodlands

To understand how important College Park-The Woodlands has become, it helps to remember the rivalry it replaced.

For decades, Conroe against The Woodlands was one of the defining football games in Montgomery County.

The series began in 1978, when what is now The Woodlands High School was still McCullough High School. Conroe won the first three meetings, but the matchup soon became about much more than wins and losses. Houston Chronicle

During the 1980s, 1990s and into the early 2000s, it developed a distinct cultural personality.

Conroe was the long-established county seat — the traditional town center of Montgomery County.

The Woodlands was the rapidly growing master-planned community to the south.

It became country versus suburb.

Students played into the contrast. The Woodlands students teased Conroe about its rural roots. Conroe students embraced the image. The jokes, pranks and student-section exchanges became part of rivalry week.

And for years, the schedule made it even bigger.

Conroe-The Woodlands was traditionally played in the final week of the regular season, giving the game an opportunity to decide district championships, playoff positioning and sometimes entire seasons.

It became the local Super Bowl.

Then College Park opened.

And the football map changed.

College Park didn't create another opponent. It divided The Woodlands

College Park opened in 2005, and its arrival created something fundamentally different.

The Woodlands no longer had to look north to Conroe for its closest rival.

Its rival was suddenly right down the road.

Players who had grown up together could now attend different high schools. Former teammates became opponents. Friends sat in opposite student sections. Families and neighborhoods had ties to both schools.

The old rivalry pitted one community against another.

The War of the Woods divides the same community.

That distinction matters.

When College Park and The Woodlands began playing, the Highlanders controlled much of the early series. But as the Cavaliers program developed, the stakes grew with it.

Eventually College Park became more than the younger neighboring program trying to knock off The Woodlands.

It became a program capable of competing with The Woodlands for championships.

That is when the rivalry changed again.

Last season provided the clearest example.

College Park defeated The Woodlands 37-31 in double overtime and went on to complete an undefeated district season and capture the program’s first outright district championship.

Now the teams meet again.

College Park arrives as the defending district champion.

The Woodlands arrives with the memory of a double-overtime loss to its closest rival.

That is not a prediction about what happens Friday.

It is simply the backdrop to a game that did not need any additional motivation.

The old rivalry has history. This rivalry has the moment.

Conroe-The Woodlands still matters.

Its history reaches back almost half a century, and for generations of players and families, that game will always mean something.

But the competitive balance changed. As The Woodlands grew into one of the area's most established football programs, it increasingly controlled the series with Conroe.

At the same time, College Park was growing into a program capable of challenging the Highlanders directly.

The result was a natural transfer of intensity.

The Conroe game had tradition.

The College Park game had proximity.

Then it gained competitive balance.

Then it gained championship consequences.

Put those together, and the War of the Woods became the game.

College Park has Division I commitments leading the offense

If Friday turns into an offensive showcase, College Park has the personnel to participate.

Senior quarterback Camden Hughes is committed to Cincinnati, while senior wide receiver Julian Cromartie is committed to Clemson. On3

That gives the Cavaliers a Division I quarterback throwing to a Division I receiver in a rivalry game in which College Park just put 63 points on the board one week earlier.

Hughes and Cromartie will draw plenty of attention from The Woodlands secondary.

They should.

But College Park is not walking into a matchup against an anonymous offense on the other side.

The Woodlands has plenty of names of its own

The Highlanders have their own group of playmakers.

Junior quarterback Kaden Copelin directs an offense that enters Friday after scoring 62 points in its district opener. Copelin has already thrown 11 touchdown passes this season. MaxPreps.com

At receiver, junior Carter Cass has emerged as one of the Highlanders' scoring threats, while senior Bryson Bourn leads the team in receiving yards per game. Bourn is also a two-sport athlete who has committed to Oklahoma for baseball. MaxPreps.com

Senior running back Jason Haskins gives The Woodlands another option out of the backfield.

And when the conversation turns to defense, senior Magnus Herndon gives the Highlanders an experienced edge presence who has already established himself as a player opposing offenses have to account for. MaxPreps.com

This is not College Park's stars against The Woodlands' uniform.

There are players on both sides capable of taking over stretches of this game.

Both offenses should attack the secondary early and often

There is no reason to expect either offense to spend much time easing into this one.

College Park has Hughes throwing to Cromartie.

The Woodlands has Copelin distributing the ball to Cass, Bourn and the rest of an offense that has already demonstrated its ability to score quickly.

Both coaching staffs know where explosive plays come from in modern high school football.

They come from putting defensive backs in difficult situations.

Expect both offenses to test the secondary early and often.

Take the deep shot.

Force a cornerback to defend one-on-one.

Make safeties choose.

Create space underneath after stretching the defense vertically.

Then do it again.

The offensive players will get most of the attention entering Friday.

But that may place even more pressure on the other side of the ball.

The pressure is on the defensive staffs

Here is the uncomfortable question facing both defensive coaching staffs:

Can you keep the other team under 50?

That sounds ridiculous until you remember these teams scored a combined 125 points last week.

The Woodlands scored 62.

College Park scored 63.

Nobody should expect either defense to enjoy hearing all week about how difficult the opposing offense will be to stop.

Defensive players tend to remember those conversations.

In games like this, a defense can start feeling overlooked.

Slighted.

Maybe even a little insulted.

Everybody wants to talk about the quarterbacks. Everybody wants to talk about the receivers. Everybody wants to talk about how many points could go on the scoreboard.

A defensive unit can take that personally.

And sometimes that is exactly the chip on the shoulder a defense needs.

Three stops might win this game

Neither defense needs to pitch a shutout.

That isn't the assignment.

Against offenses with this much talent, the game may come down to which defense can manufacture a handful of possessions that don't end in touchdowns.

One third-down stop.

One turnover.

One sack that knocks an offense behind schedule.

One red-zone stand that turns seven points into three.

One punt when everyone in the stadium expected another touchdown.

Do that two or three times and it could completely change the game.

That is why the defensive coaches may face more pressure Friday than the offensive coaches.

The offenses have already demonstrated what they can do.

Now the defenses get their chance to answer.

Two head coaches arrive from very different places

The coaching matchup adds another layer.

Jim Rapp has spent decades inside The Woodlands football program. He played for the Highlanders, spent years as an assistant and offensive coordinator, and has been the program's head coach since 2018.

He has watched this rivalry grow from its early years into what it is today.

Across the field is Michael Buro, who took over College Park this year after the departure of Kyle Coats.

Buro inherited a program coming off the greatest season in its history.

Now, early in his first district season as the Cavaliers' head coach, he gets his first War of the Woods from the head coach's sideline.

One coach has lived this rivalry for years.

The other is stepping directly into it while defending the district championship College Park won last season.

Week 2 on the schedule. Much bigger everywhere else.

There are still five district games to play after Friday.

Grand Oaks and Oak Ridge entered the week undefeated in district play, and the District 13-6A race will not be settled in one night.

But one thing will be different when Friday is over.

Either College Park or The Woodlands will be 2-0.

One will own the head-to-head result.

And one of the district's leading contenders will already be chasing from behind.

That is a lot of weight for the second district game of the season.

It is also exactly what the War of the Woods has become.

The rivalry started because College Park split The Woodlands into two high-school communities.

It grew because friends and former teammates ended up on opposite sidelines.

It intensified because College Park developed into a program capable of competing with the Highlanders.

And now that both programs are capable of playing for district championships, the rivalry has overtaken the old Conroe-The Woodlands game as the area's premier matchup.

The expected crowd will come for the rivalry.

The quarterbacks and receivers will provide the star power.

The offenses will attack.

The secondaries will be tested.

And while everyone waits for another scoreboard full of points, two defensive units will walk onto the field with the opportunity to change the entire conversation.

South Montgomery County's Army-Navy game is here.

And this time, the War of the Woods may come down to which defense can make the other offense blink first.

By The Woodlands Student Center Staff