The football season may have ended last month, but Guyer is already making plans for next year.

    The Wildcats – who are fully expecting to be moved up to Class 5A – will take on Cedar Hill on Labor Day in the annual Kirk Herbstreit Classic at Cowboys Stadium.

    “I knew at midseason that we were going to play in this and I told them that we’d play whomever they wanted us to play,” Guyer head coach John Walsh said. “If you were asked to go pick an opponent, I wouldn’t be going out to pick a power like Cedar Hill. But once the game was set, the excitement is there.”

    Walsh said the match up gives Guyer – which has suffered consecutive losses to Longview in the Class 4A Division I state semifinals the last two seasons – a good measuring stick should they jump to 5A. The Classic is regarded as the nation’s premier high school football showcase as it pits teams from the states of Ohio and Texas against prep football powerhouses from across the nation.

    Guyer was listed as the No. 1 team in Class 4A this past year while Cedar Hill spent the entire regular season at the top of the 5A Associated Press state poll. They were eventually beaten in the in the playoffs by eventual state champion Abilene.

    The game does not have a start time yet.

    Walsh gives his program a 50/50 shot of being bumped up to 5A before the start of the next school year. The realignment meetings begin on Feb. 1.

    “We are right at the mark in terms of enrollment numbers,” Walsh said. “We’ve known it was a big possibility, so much so that our approach this whole time is to assume we will be 5A. It’s going to happen, and I can tell you Guyer will be just fine. We will get ready for it and we will hopefully make another long run in the playoffs.”

    Guyer is used to challenges. The program itself is only heading into its fifth season, and totaled just one win it its first two seasons. Since then, however, the Wildcats have become one of the perennial playoff favorites in 4A and shared its first District 5-4A title with Denton Ryan and Lake Dallas in 2009.     

    “It doesn’t matter how many “A’s” we have in front of us, we are going to go out and play like we always do,” Walsh said. “We have a great group of kids coming back and we are confident.”