RISON - The Rison Wildcat football team will see a lot of familiar faces in conference play for the next two seasons while the Woodlawn Bears see a mixture of old and new opponents in an expanded field of eight-man teams.The Arkansas Activities Association (AAA) released their new conference assignments for football on Dec. 18 for the upcoming two-year athletic cycle that will span the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years.The Rison Wildcats will remain in the 8-3A conference and the league will have just one change from the past two seasons: Helena- West Helena will replace Palestine-Wheatley in the eightteam league. Palestine-Wheatley was moved to the 3-3A conference in Northeast Arkansas.In addition to Rison, the new 8-3A will include Barton, Drew Central, Dumas, Fordyce, Helena- West Helena Central, Lake Village and McGehee.Helena was one of five new schools to join the Class 3A ranks in the new cycle and previously competing in Class 4A as part of the 8-4A conference.The Cougars seem to be a program on the rise over the past two seasons.Helena went a combined 1-37 in the 2020 through 2023 seasons. However, they went a surprising 6-4 in 2024 to earn a playoff bid and then this past season went 5-6, with their final loss coming in a narrow 40-38 to highly-respect Little Rock Mills in the first round of the playoffs.In addition to Helena, Riverview, Conway Christian, Cossatot and Marshall join the Class 3A ranks while Booneville, Mayflower and Fouke move up to Class 4A while Episcopal and Magnet Cove fall to Class 2A.Eight-ManThe eight-man ranks saw an influx of seven new sanctioned teams for the new 2026-28 cycle: Izard County, Johnson County Westside, Magazine, Rose Bud, Coming, Blevins and Lafayette County.Of those, Coming and Rose Bud have previously played eight-man as a club sport since they were not eligible for the sanctioned division due to being a Class 3A school or high...
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