Each week here at Big Country Preps, we’ll post our picks for all of that week’s 11-man games and select six-man games, in addition to the results of Evan Ren’s Twitter polls for each matchup.
For those interested in voting, polls go up on Monday night each week.
Disagree with our picks or the Twitter consensus? Let us know in the comments section below.
LAST WEEK: 11-2, .846
SEASON TOTAL: 546-110, .832
Week 15, if you can believe it, has arrived, with regional championship games dotting the landscape in the 11-man ranks and state semifinals deciding which six-man teams will go to Arlington.
As one may expect, there are tossups all over the board, so picking these things has become all the more difficult.
Why waste time?
Let’s dive in.
TUSCOLA — Hosting a Brownwood squad that entered Tuesday’s nondistrict matchup with six wins in its first eight games, the Jim Ned Lady Indians showed why they’re the second-ranked team in Class 3A, riding a dominant all-around performance to a 61-13 victory at Bill Thornton Arena.
Coach Hunter Cooley’s team took control early and never relinquished it, following a 16-4 run through the first quarter with a 13-1 surge through the second to take a commanding 29-5 advantage. And the Lady Indians would only grow that lead after halftime.
The thorough victory improved Jim Ned to 7-1 on the year with its only loss coming by six points to Class 4A No. 2 Glen Rose at the Pug Parris Classic in Abilene.
WALL — Ask any Big Country high school football fan what he or she remembers about Craig Slaughter and the teams he coached and you’re likely to hear one of two words: intense and/or physical.
Slaughter wasn’t the winningest head coach in area history — not by a long shot. But two things one could always count on when facing a Slaughter team were high levels of emotion, backed by some serious hitting.
With head coaching stops at Hearne, Clyde, Sweetwater and Llano, Slaughter is now working as the defensive coordinator at Wall under head coach Houston Guy, where he has turned an already solid WHS defense into one of the best in the area.
“We played great defense before, but he’s elevated that to a higher level,” said Guy, whose Hawks (11-2) face Canadian (13-0) for the Region I-3A DII championship on Friday in Lubbock. “The intensity he brings to our staff on any given day whether it’s practice or on a Friday night is invaluable.”
We freely admit that more offensive players take our Big Country Preps Player of the Week than do defenders.
But a great defensive performance can, indeed, take the top spot and that is the case with this week’s award winner: Stephenville sophomore linebacker, Hudson Butchee.
With the Yellow Jackets squaring off with perennial power Celina in the Region II-4A DI semifinals, Butchee played like a man possessed in a 7-3 Stephenville win.
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Abilene High-Justin Northwest football playoff (86 images)”
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Wall-Lubbock Roosevelt football playoff (39 images)”
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Westbrook-Borden County football playoff (47 images)”
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Brownwood-Springtown football playoff (26 images)”
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Albany-Muenster football playoff (43 images)”
SWEETWATER — Westbrook coach Homer Matlock said his Wildcats don’t care who scores or who handles the ball.
That mentality was on full display in the Region II-1A Division I final Saturday at the Mustang Bowl, where WHS pulled away in the second half to beat Borden County 110-65.
It marked the first time in Matlock’s career that he had a team score in triple digits. Continue reading “GAME STORY: Team effort sends Westbrook into state semifinals”
CROWLEY — When the Brownwood offense is rolling, the Lions are hard to beat.
Friday night at Crowley ISD Stadium, the Lions had just 306 yards of offense, but they took advantage of four turnovers by Springtown to pull away in the fourth quarter for a 37-17 win in a Region I-4A Division I semifinal.
The victory marked the sixth scoring output of at least 30 points since the Lions (12-1) suffered their only loss this year Sept. 29 against Stephenville.
WICHITA FALLS — A fast start offensively and a clutch defensive performance throughout were all Abilene High needed Friday to down Justin Northwest 27-16 and advance to the fourth round of the playoffs for the first time since 2011.
AHS raced out to a 14-0 lead after a quarter, took a 20-7 advantage into halftime and never trailed the rest of the way despite frequent challenges by the Texans offense in the second half.
The Eagles, who turned Northwest away in the red zone twice in the third quarter, allowed just one second-half touchdown despite spending most of the final two periods on their own end of the field. That allowed the offense, which finished four of their five first-half possessions with points, to put the game away with their only scoring drive of the second half late in the fourth quarter.
WEATHERFORD — Sometimes a defensive back just has to gamble and take a chance.
When it works, they come out a hero. If it fails, they get remembered for all the wrong reasons.
On Friday afternoon at Kangaroo Stadium, Albany defensive back Cason Fairchild took a gamble and it paid off with a game-clinching interception with 37 seconds left as the Lions hung on to beat Muenster 19-14 in a Region II-2A Division II semifinal.
SWEETWATER —In order to pull off an upset of eighth-ranked Wall, the Lubbock Roosevelt Eagles needed to win the turnover battle to gain an upper hand in a limited possession game.
Mission accomplished — at least, one part of it.
While Roosevelt achieved an edge in takeaways, charting a +3 turnover ratio in the first half, the Eagles failed to take advantage of any of them — trailing 14-0 at the break before eventually losing to Wall 35-6 at the Mustang Bowl.
Editor’s note: Westbrook football coach Homer Matlock, his wife Tia and their daughter Zoe sat down with BigCountryPreps.com on Tuesday to share their feelings this holiday season, along with their experience after Zoe was involved in a serious car wreck earlier this month.
WESTBROOK — Find your purpose.
Coming off back-to-back state championships, the Westbrook football team adopted those three words as their motto for the 2023 season during two-a-days in August.
Little did they know at the time just how much that phrase would impact the program from the top down, starting with head coach Homer Matlock and his family. Continue reading “THANKSGIVING FEATURE: Matlock family thankful for community support in wake of accident”
Each week here at Big Country Preps, we’ll post our picks for all of that week’s 11-man games and select six-man games, in addition to the results of Evan Ren’s Twitter polls for each matchup.
For those interested in voting, polls go up on Monday night each week.
Disagree with our picks or the Twitter consensus? Let us know in the comments section below.
LAST WEEK: 22-5, .814
SEASON TOTAL: 535-108, .832
Turkey Day has arrived and we’ve still got 16 Big Country football teams from 1A through 5A hitting the field this week.
That’s up from 13 a year ago, giving you some perspective on the overall quality of area football in 2023. And unless I miss my guess, we’ll have at least 10 area teams still slugging it out in December.
Not too shabby.
Of those, we have roughly seven or eight that have a shot at reaching Arlington and playing for a state championship, including four that I would consider favorites to win it all.
That said, let’s take a look at this week’s matchups, shall we?
Be safe going to your games!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
It’s always nice to see numbers that match a nickname. And in the case of our Big Country Preps Player of the Week, there’s no worries in that department.
Roscoe junior running back Ivan “The Terrible” McCann takes the accolade for the week ending Nov. 18 after helping the Plowboys to a stunning 50-22 win over Windthorst in the 2A DI area round.
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Clyde-Shallowater football playoff (50 images)”
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Wylie-Argyle football playoff (52 images)”
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Cisco-New Deal football playoff (51 images)”
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Hico-Lovelady football playoff (80 images)”
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Marlin-Coleman football playoff (48 images)”
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Roscoe-Windthorst football playoff (32 images)”
By his own lofty standards, Blake Carr didn’t play his best game in Clyde’s Region I-3A Division I area-round matchup against Shallowater on Saturday at Shotwell Stadium. But when it was time to be a game-changer in crunch time, the standout quarterback did what he so often does in leading the Bulldogs 26-21 win.
Carr completed just 10 of 29 passes and threw a pick-six on a forced throw early in the fourth quarter that allowed the Mustangs to climb back in a game that looked to be getting away from them.
But when he needed to put the Bulldogs on his back, the senior did just that, closing a 212-yard rushing day with a pair of brilliant chain-moving runs — the first on a key fourth-down play — to keep Shallowater from having a chance at a late game-winning drive.
MANSFIELD — The Cooper football team couldn’t keep pace with Colleyville Heritage in its Region I-5A Division II area-round matchup Friday, falling behind early and never recovering in a 55-21 loss at Newsom Field.
The Panthers raced out to 14-0 lead less than eight minutes into the game and increased their advantage to 35-7 by halftime, putting the game out of reach before the start of the third quarter.
Trailing 52-7 early in the fourth quarter, the Cougars added a pair of late touchdowns before seeing their season end at 5-7.
STEPHENVILLE — The Argyle Eagles ended Wylie’s football season for the second year in a row, controlling all phases of the game in a 49-14 area-round victory Friday at Tarleton Memorial Stadium.
AHS, which defeated Wylie 35-28 in the fourth round last year, held the Bulldogs without a first down until the 7:36 mark of the second quarter in Friday’s rematch. And by the time the Wylie offense finally found some rhythm in its quick passing game, it was in too deep a hole to dig out of.
The Eagles outgained the Bulldogs 482-256 for the game, taking a 28-7 lead into halftime and holding WHS at arm’s length the rest of the way.
CROWLEY — Dylan Slack passed for 227 yards and two touchdowns, and a ball-hawking Abilene High defense recovered two fumbles and intercepted a pass to lead the Eagles to a 31-21 win over Denton Ryan on Friday night. As a result, the District 2-5A Division I champions will advance to the third round of the playoffs to face Justin Northwest next Friday in Wichita Falls
The victory improved the Eagles’ record to 10-2. Denton Ryan, which earned second place in District 3-5A Division I, finished its season at 8-3. Additionally, the Raiders failed for the third time to earn a victory in the all-time series, having lost twice previously to Abilene High in regular season games in the early 2000s.
Slack was a big reason why, as the senior quarterback guided the Eagles’ ball-control passing game to help rally AHS from 7-0 and 14-10 first-half deficits. That was no small feat, considering that from the opening whistle to his final-play kneel to cap the win, Slack wasn’t only battling a talented Raiders defense, but a steady drizzle and occasional wind gusts.
SWEETWATER — After a season-long battle with low numbers, limited experience and a difficult schedule, the Cisco Loboes finally closed their 2023 campaign on Friday with a 52-21 loss to New Deal in the Class 2A DI area round.
Aiden Ysaguirre rushed for 218 yards and three scores to lead New Deal (9-3), which advances to face Stratford (12-0) in the Region I-2A DI quarterfinals next week.
Cisco closed its season at 5-7, led by Kannon Orsagh who rushed for 54 yards and threw for 68.
BELTON — Playing past the first round of the postseason for the first time since 2014, the Hico Tigers entered Friday night’s showdown at Crusader Stadium against No. 5 Lovelady full of confidence.
Unfortunately for Hico, a dream season came to an end on the campus of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor with a 42-7 loss against the Lions.
Despite the loss, the Tigers (8-4) took a major step forward in Todd Swearengin’s third year at the helm of the program after going 5-6 and 4-7 in his first two years. 2023 marked just the fourth time in the past decade that Hico finished the season with a winning record.
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Pug Parris Classic Day 1 (61 images)”
When Abilene High linebacker Bryce Neves looks back at his junior film, he’s struck by how slow he appears to play. But before one accepts that critique at face value, they should probably be aware of who it’s coming from.
Neves, who was a playmaker for an excellent Eagles defense last season, was playing at a perfectly acceptable speed and level. In fact, it was good enough to earn him a second-team all-district nod out of a strong Class 5A Division I league.
It just didn’t match the bullet train pace at which he’s reading, reacting and playing this year as a senior for the 9-2 Eagles.
As a quarterback and safety growing up, Wylie senior Collin Bruning has always had a knack for making plays. When he was moved to inside linebacker last year by former Bulldogs defensive coordinator and now Midland Greenwood head coach Bryan Hill, he took that same quality with him to his new position.
After breaking out last year in Hill’s 4-3 scheme, racking up 128 total tackles, 12 tackles for loss, two sacks, three forced fumbles, one fumble recovery and one interception, Bruning is in the midst of an even better season this fall as a senior.
And that playmaking ability that he developed in the offensive and defensive backfield as a young player has served him quite well as he’s helped lead a successful transition to current DC Matt Kates’ 3-4 alignment.