Wall 74, San Angelo TLCA 0 — Gunner Garza ran for 92 yards and two touchdowns on just seven carries, and Gunner King went 6 for 7 for 129 yards and three TDs passing to fuel the Hawks to a blowout win over the Eagles.
Caden Sturm, Hagen Surber and Kaden McFarden also had rushing scores for Wall (7-1, 2-0), which got scoring catches from Surber, Slayton Hallmark and Brady Neal.
Wall 50, Llano 14 — Gunner King passed for 292 yards and five touchdowns while Hudson Surber received for 140 yards and three scores to lift the Hawks to a blowout win over the Yellowjackets.
Caden Sturm (19-106, 1TD rushing) and Evan Boehle (5-71, 1 TD receiving) also had productive games for Wall (6-1, 1-0), which built a 36-0 led by halftime and took a shutout into the fourth quarter.
Midland Christian 34, Wall 26 — A rocky second quarter put the Hawks in a 20-12 halftime hole they could never climb out of in suffering their first loss since the 2024 playoffs.
Trailing 9-7 after a quarter, the Mustangs outscored WHS 13-3 in the second to take an eight-point lead that they would stretch to 34-19 in the fourth quarter on their way to snapping a 21-game win streak for the Hawks.
A week ago, Graham senior quarterback Cooper Corley narrowly missed taking our Big Country Preps Player of the Week award.
This time around, there was no stopping him.
Corley, who led the Steers to a 48-21 win over Peaster, hit 16 of 27 throws for 307 yards and two TDs.
He also rushed 12 times for 132 yards and four more scores and caught a 29-yard TD pass for seven touchdowns on the night.
“Very rarely do you see a kid total 7 TDs in a night and score in three different ways,” Graham coach Clay McChristian said. “He scored at least one touchdown passing, rushing, and receiving.
“That is right at 1000 total yards and 13 TDs in the last two weeks against two quality opponents.”
De Leon 51, Early 20 — Lane Couch ran for 167 yards and two touchdowns and Bryce Burkeen received for 148 yards and three TDs to lead the Bearcats to a lopsided win over the Longhorns.
De Leon finished with 496 yards of total offense while limiting Early to 188 in building a 37-7 lead by halftime.
WALL — Although the yardage totals were fairly close in Friday’s Big Country Preps Game of the Week, the key play was rather lopsided in Wall’s favor in a win over Midland Greenwood.
The Hawks dominated in that area, forcing several key Greenwood mistakes, scoring on special teams and even producing a dramatic fourth-quarter strip to save a touchdown in a 31-13 victory at Hawk Stadium.
Gunner King threw for 206 yards and rushed for 105 more while accounting for three scores to lead Wall (5-0), which overcame an early 7-0 deficit to win its 21st straight game.
Andrick Rodriguez led Greenwood (3-2) with 215 yards passing and one TD to go with 90 yards rushing.
“Those guys can play,” Wall coach Craig Slaughter said of Greenwood. “They’re a very good football team and we didn’t play as well as (we can).”
Each time the chips were down, however, Wall managed to find an answer, with big plays playing a key role in it.
LAST WEEK: 48-21, .695
SEASON TOTAL: 213-69, .755
After suffering through one my worst mid-season pick weeks in recent memory (by midseason I’m usually zeroed in), about all I could do was raise my eyebrows, shake my haed and get back to work.
So here goes nothing:
Our Big Country Preps Game of the Week heads south this Friday to Wall, where the Class 3A Hawks will put their 20-game winning streak on the line against a Class 4A toughie from Midland Greenwood.
Greenwood enters this game at 3-1 after topping Wichita Falls Legacy in a shootout last week, 43-42. The Rangers have averaged 33 points per game against a difficult schedule and are accustomed to big games, so they won’t enter this intimidated.
Wall 51, Ozona 6 — Gunner King, the area’s second-leading passer entering Week 4, regained the top spot with 337 yards and five touchdowns in a blowout win over the Lions.
The senior QB also ran for 60 yards and a score, while Jager Thompson received for 110 yards and a TD and Gunner Garza added 78 yards and a score on the ground.
TUSCOLA — Traveling to Jim Ned with at least a share of the District 5-3A lead on the line, the Wall volleyball team left Bill Thornton Arena with a big road win Tuesday night, digging out of an early hole to score a 23-25, 25-16, 25-14, 25-18 victory over the Lady Indians.
Taking advantage of a stellar defensive effort both at the net and on the back row, the Lady Hawks were dominant after the opening game, improving 20-4 overall and 2-0 in league play with the win.
The outcome puts WHS in a first-place tie with San Angelo TLCA (16-10, 2-0) — a half-match ahead of both Jim Ned (21-6, 2-1) and Clyde (14-11, 2-1).
It’s still too early to say, but 2026 could be the year of the quarterback in the Big Country. At least it has been that way through three weeks, with Clyde senior Devan Wright taking our latest Big Country Player of the Week award after another eye-popping performance from an area signal caller.
In the wake of Haskell’s Haegan Pinkerton winning our first two awards with two huge performances in Week 1 and Week 2, Wright followed those up with one of his own in a 57-21 win over Comanche on Friday.
Helping Clyde improve to 3-0, Wright connected on 12 of 18 throws for 194 yards and four scores. He also rushed nine times for 116 yards and three more TDs, giving him a direct hand in seven touchdowns.
Wall 49, Jim Ned 13 — Gunner King passed for 312 yards and two touchdowns, and Gunner Garza ran for 78 yards and three scores and added a 65-yard reception to lead the Hawks to a thorough win over the Indians.
Hudson Surber also contributed to the win, catching six passes for 140 yards and two TDs, as fifth-ranked Wall (3-0) raced out to a 28-13 halftime lead before shutting Jim Ned out in the second half.
We prefer to not have the same athlete win our Big Country Preps Player of the Week award in successive weeks, given that it is our aim to share the love. But every now and then, the numbers simply make that impossible.
So here we have it: Haskell’s Haegen Pinkerton has won our accolade twice in as many weeks, and deservedly so after leading the Indians to a 62-44 win at Bangs on Friday.
Wall 55, La Joya 14 — The Hawks went up three classifications and handed the Coyotes a lopsided loss, amassing 482 total yards in a dominating effort.
Gunner King passed for 222 yards and five touchdowns, while Gunner Garza added 127 yards and a TD rushing on just 10 carries and Evan Boehle received for 77 yards and two scores.
Before Haskell senior quarterback Haegen Pinkerton arrived at HHS as a freshman, the name of Pinkerton was something I associated with the famous detective agency.
I now associate it with statistical insanity, and you should associate it with the Big Country Preps Player of the Week.
Pinkerton, who was behind center in Haskell’s 80-62 loss to Stamford, had one of the biggest nights I can recollect in a losing effort, accounting for seven touchdowns on Friday.
Hitting 15 of 22 throws for 193 yards, three of Pinkerton’s deliveries went for scores. But it was on the ground where he did most of his damage, rushing 29 times for 290 yards and four touchdowns to help keep the Indians competitive.
Wall 42, Canyon West Plains 35 — Gunner King passed for 415 yards and four touchdowns and ran for 32 yards and an additional score to lead the Hawks to a thrilling come-from-behind win over the Class 4A Division I No. 10 Wolves in his first varsity start at quarterback.
Gunner Garza added 110 yards and a TD on the ground and 76 more yards receiving, while Jager Thompson (6-99), Evan Boehle (4-85, 1 TD) and Hudson Surber (5-83, 1 TD) also had productive days catching the ball for Wall.
After a week of highlighting area playmakers, we wrap up our eight-part preseason position rankings series with the Big Country’s best signal callers.
To complete our look at the area’s top players, we’ve ranked our top 15 quarterbacks with a list of others to watch in 2026.
We hope you enjoy this list and that you’ve enjoyed our position rankings as we get set to kick off a new season.
As we wind down our eight-part preseason position rankings series, we arrive finally at the Big Country’s top ball-carriers.
After breaking down this year’s crop of receivers and tight ends earlier today, we move now to the area’s top backs, ranking our top 15 with a list of others to watch in 2026. Don’t forget to check in tomorrow when we conclude our series with the top 10 area quarterbacks.
We hope you enjoy this list and encourage you to check out the other position groups, which are linked below.
We’re approaching the final stretch of our eight-part preseason position rankings series, and it’s time to look at the Big Country’s top receivers.
After starting the offensive portion of our series with the linemen, we now shift our attention to the playmakers on the perimeter, ranking our top 15 wideouts/tight ends with a list of others to watch in 2026.
We hope you enjoy our list and encourage you to check out the other position groups, which are linked below.
With the defensive and special teams rankings behind us, it’s time to look at the area’s top offensive players. And we’ll start with the foundation of any productive offense: the offensive line.
For the fifth installment of our eight-part preseason position rankings series, we turn our attention to the trenches, ranking the Big Country’s top 15 offensive linemen with a list of others to watch in 2026.
We hope you enjoy reading through our rankings.
After recognizing the top defensive players throughout the Big Country over the past three days, it’s time to honor the specialists.
We continue our eight-part preseason position rankings series by naming our top 10 kickers and top three punters to watch this fall.
We hope you enjoy this list and that you have enjoyed our position rankings as we get set to kickoff the 2026 season.
After starting with the linemen and linebackers, we turn to the defensive backfield to complete our look at the top defenders in the Big Country.
For the third installment in our eight-part preseason position rankings series, we shift our focus to the secondary, giving our list of the area’s top 15 defensive backs and others to look out for in 2026.
We hope you enjoy our list.
After taking a look at the Big Country’s top defensive linemen last night, it’s now time to examine those who will backing them in 2026.
Continuing with Big Country Preps’ eight-part preseason position rankings series, here’s our top 15 linebackers to watch this fall, as well as a list of the others we’re expecting big things from.
We hope you enjoy our list.
With the start of football season around the corner, it’s time to take a look at the players who will be making the biggest impact in 2026.
For the first installment in an eight-part series that will cover all position groups, we’ll be taking a look at the area’s top defensive linemen, ranking our top 15 with a list of others to watch this fall.
As with any such list, these rankings are subjective. We hope you enjoy reading through them.
Continue reading “Big Country Preps Preseason Football Position Rankings: Defensive Linemen”
The time has arrived for us to make our Big Country predictions, district-by-district.
Several weeks of research and two solid months of summertime labor have gone into this, so we’re more than ready to post it.
With that please dive in and study our take on the upcoming season, along with the more than 80 preseason stories we posted earlier today. Enjoy! We’ll see you on the road!
As is the case at most positions on both sides of the ball this season, the quarterback spot at Wall will feature a new starter in 2026.
And in following the footsteps of Landon York, who completed 501 of 759 passes for 7,786 yards with a 107-to-14 touchdown-to-interception ratio over the past two seasons — leading the Hawks to a 16-0 state championship run last fall — no player in the state will have bigger shoes to fill.
But in senior Gunner King, WHS not only has a player its staff feels can do the job at a high level, it has a signal caller who is embracing the challenge of replacing a record-setting predecessor. His goal is not just to keep the Hawks competitive through heavy graduation losses and a move to Class 3A Division I, it’s to sustain the elite level of play Wall has gotten from the QB position since moving to the spread ahead of the 2024 campaign.
Coming off the greatest season in program history and one of the most dominant by any program in recent memory, the Wall Hawks will enter the 2026 campaign with a tough act to follow.
But despite graduating 23 of its 40 lettermen, returning just three starters on both sides of the ball and making the jump to Class 3A Division I at realignment, coach Craig Slaughter and his squad will happily accept the (sometimes unfair) expectations that come with unprecedented success.
While the Hawks will look different in 2026, their goals will not. Those returning from last year’s 16-0 run to the Class 3A Division II state championship have every hope of returning to Arlington in December, and the call-ups from a 10-0 junior varsity team who will be filling the holes left by a sizeable graduating class are ready to make their own marks on the program.
Here are our second-team selections for the 2026 All-Big Country Preps baseball team. For the rest of this year’s selections, click the links below.
Here are our second-team selections for the 2026 All-Big Country Preps baseball team. For the rest of this year’s selections, click the links below.