Go Friday Night

Sad Ending

If your reading this you already know Clyde lost to Argyle. We just didn't get it done. They were a really good football team. Of course that is what you will find in the playoffs. Defensively we played as well as you could hope. To punt the ball over and over and only give up to 17 points to that team is a really good accomplishment. Our offense was stuck with bad field position all night long, but we really didn't look very crisp. Coming off the bye week had its role. Bye weeks almost always help the defense and hurt the offense.

It would have been nice to play someone not as good as Argyle in the first round to kind of get rolling again, but you can't gripe about who you play to much. We certainly could of beat them if we played a little better. Wes Liles played an unbelievable game on defense - I haven't seen the stats but he must have had close to 20 tackles. He has the looks of an all state linebacker candidate to me.

It was a great season though, there were a a lot of things accomplished this year that haven't been done in a long time or ever. Congrats to the Bulldogs and coaches for a great and fun year!

• Ken Mauldin
• November 19, 2007 3:29 PM

Clyde vs Argyle

Clyde will play Argyle this Friday night in Aledo at 7:30.

Argyle is a very good football team. They tied for first in their district. If you look at the comparative scores, they look like the best team in their district. Bridgeport beat them and won the tiebreaker as the #1 team for their 3A division II representative and will play Sweetwater. Argyle beat Decatur who will play Wylie in Division I 3A. It appears when Arglye played Bridgeport they played their worst game of the season. The easily whipped most of the teams Bridgeport struggled with. Bridgeport also lost to Iowa Park who Wylie slaughtered.

Argyle has a very good quarterback who throws for huge numbers week in and week out. Argyle will probably be the best offensive team we have played this year. They can pass and run and average about 46 points a game. In their two losses this year they had trouble protecting their QB. Clyde absolutely has to rush the QB if were going to beat them. I hope Coby Smith is ready for the game of his life from his defensive end position. On offensive we have to hang on the ball and keep it away from their offense, something I think we can do. They lost 2 defensive starters in their last game to injuries. Other than the Breckinridge game we have played good defense all year long. If we play well on defense we can win this game.

Go Bulldogs!

• Ken Mauldin
• November 12, 2007 3:19 PM

On to the Playoffs

Clyde took care of Comanche Friday night 49-6. I thought it might be a better game. Comanche really couldn't generate any offense at all. We kept getting the ball back and scoring. We did have too many turnovers though, hopefully that's out of our system. We were also content on working on the passing game and other stuff while preserving the health of Curtis Kevil. Tanner Parker had another awesome game making tackles all over the field.

THE PLAYOFFS:

We play the 8-3A district in the first round. Right now there is a 3 way tie for first place between Argyle, Bridgeport, and Decatur. Decatur is the largest school in the district so throw them out of our equation, they will be playing Wylie (if all my facts are correct). We will play either Argyle or Bridgeport. In any event were not going to get an easy team. They have 3 teams capable of winning district and we will get one of them. Sweetwater and Breckenridge will dual it out in Breckenridge for the 3rd spot in our district this Friday. I think Sweetwater's defense will probably make the difference in the game.

I'll post more as soon as I know more. I know Clyde is going to charter a bus for the playoff games at like $20 dollars a person. It disturbs me though on why we have always go to the metroplex to play? Why can't we play at shotwell? Why do we always have to play in their area?

One note on the complaint of our announcer. If you read in the paper a Sweetwater person complained about our announcer "crossing the line" with his style of announcing at our home games. Maybe the announcer shouldn't say things like "he was hammered", but there is nothing wrong with the phrase "That's a Clyde First Down". That's called enthusiasm. Our crowd does it on the road and at home. Let Clyde enjoy a little success, we haven't had a lot in recent years playing bigger schools like Sweetwater, Wylie, and Snyder. Gives us a mulligan. my gosh.

• Ken Mauldin
• November 5, 2007 3:21 PM
• Comments (1)

What a game!

After the back to back heartbreaking losses, Clyde has two incredible back to back wins. So if your sitting in Breckenridge thinking the Buckaroos should have won that one, trust me the Clyde Bulldogs and fans know the feeling.

It was a back and forth game all night long. The main difference was the Breckenridge was scoring on long touchdowns while Clyde was having to work their way down the field. Breckenridge QB Blaine Vick is an incredible football player, he really leaves it all on the field. The Bulldogs do the same. They simply will not give up, no matter the circumstance. Curtis Kevil gets better and better as the game goes on. I would hate to try to stop him when he gets ahead of steam going. I hope I get to watch him about 6 more times in a Clyde uniform.

It's not just Curtis though, Wes Liles makes plays all over the field on both sides of the ball and rarely gets a breather. Colby Smith goes 110 percent every play. Jeremy Gordon makes a huge play in every game.Our underrated QB Jacob Gonzales does so many little things well that don't get noticed. The list goes on and on so I shouldn't have started naming players.

It looks like a second place finish for our Bulldogs. Even if we lost to Comanche which isn't very likely I think we would win tie breakers over Sweetwater and Breckinridge. We will finish 1st in the Division II standings, meaning Wylie will go to Division 1 playoffs and the rest of the district is playing for Division II seeding. Being the #1 seed is important because you will probably get to play a 3rd place team instead of a second place team in the first round of the playoffs. Since we don't have much of a playoff history its easy to remember a few of our first round playoff game disasters like our game against South Lake Carroll who was ranked #1 in the state in 3A at the time. That was not a pretty game! Seeding is important!

I hope were ready to play Friday night, Comanche just about knocked us out of the playoffs last year. I know they are struggling but they have gotten better as the year has gone on.

Sweetwater vs Breckenridge in the last week of the season when we have our bye, should be a fun one for what I think will be the last playoff spot.

• Ken Mauldin
• October 29, 2007 2:27 PM

Ouch!

That one stung and keeps on stinging. Of course I'm referring to the overtime 28-27 loss to the Wylie Bulldogs. It was obvious from the get go, Wylie wasn't ready for the level of play that Clyde brought to their field. Clyde forced many Wylie mistakes early on in the game which helped Clyde to a 21-0 lead.

It took Wylie about 2 1/2 qtrs to recover from the Clyde Bulldog attack. Unfortunately they did about the time Clyde was getting a little winded. Its really a matter of physics, how can a team that has so many players going both ways on offense and defense hold up in the 4th quarter against a team that gets to rest most of its starters 1/2 the game because they only play on one side of the ball? I hate excuses, but it was pretty obvious in the 4th qtr we were worn out and they were still fresh. Wylie all so played a flawless 4th quarter, their qb got his act together and led them back drive after drive and eventually to victory. As I walked out of the stadium and merged in with the Wylie crowd I heard one of them say "we had no business winning that game". It seemed that way to me to, but Wylie is a quality team with a quality coach, its not a shame to lose to them.

On the bright side the very same thing can be said about our Coach Slaughter and Bulldogs. This Clyde team keeps getting better and better. I hope this team keeps their head up, they probably don't realize exactly how much they are accomplishing. No matter how disappointing a loss it was, there is still time to make this a magical season. Go Bulldogs!

The Bad Call

Yes, this video is flying around from this link:http://www.ktxs.com/sports/
Scroll down to the Wylie vs Clyde highlights and watch the Wylie touchdown, the first one that's shown. Pause the video as the Wylie player crosses the endzone, the ball is long gone by then. It was a horrible call. It appears the Wylie player fumbled around the 3 yard line, it wasn't even close. You will also notice the wylie player burying his head in the endzone off what he thinks is a fumble too. A horrible horrible call. It's a shame for a team that played their heart out.

• Ken Mauldin
• October 16, 2007 2:43 PM
• Comments (3)

Its time for Wylie

Clyde definitely lost a heartbreaker to Burkburnett last Friday. Clyde was ahead 13-3 in the 4th qtr and also only needed to stop a 4th and long in overtime to win the game. It's over now though and it wasn't a district game. Win or lose it was a very impressive showing, this Clyde team now with 2 losses, could easily be 6-0. Our district record is 0-0 and that's all that really matters.

Clyde starts district play this Friday night against the Wylie Bulldogs (perhaps you have heard of them). I believe they will be the best team we have played this year. The game is at Wylie, where at least most of the people will get to sit down (when not jumping up and down). If anyone has been to Clyde game lately it appears we only have seating for about 70% of our attendance at most, but that's another subject. Getting back to the game, our one common opponent has been Graham which we both lost to. I think both teams would like to get a chance to replay that one. Wylie may get that chance in the Division I playoffs. Clyde will have to play their best game of the year to beat this Wylie team, but this isn't like the past where we have to hope for a miracle. This Clyde team can play toe to toe with Wylie, we just need to get off to a good start.

The rest of the district.

Sweetwater - as expected have come to life. They are improving dramatically each week with their starting qb back in action. They are our next opponent after Wylie, so there will be no rest. I feel much better about playing them at home, then on the road. That will be a big plus.

Breckenridge - another team coming to life. They had a hard time in the second half with Vernon last week, but Vernon is a very good offensive team. Breck will have the Clyde Bulldogs marked on their calendar this year after last years result that knocked them out of the playoffs.

Comanche - definitely not playing at the level of the other teams in this district.

• Ken Mauldin
• October 9, 2007 3:06 PM
• Comments (1)

Clyde Beats Vernon in Football

The title of this article was fun to type. I doubt that anyone has ever typed that before last Friday night, I forgot to look at our all time history with Vernon, but I doubt we have even played them more than a handful of times.

It was another incredible effort from Curtis Kevil as noted in the Abilene Reporter News. The Reporter News has been giving Clyde a lot of publicity this year and its much appreciated. Curtis brings a lot of coverage to Clyde by being such a standout player. Curtis had an absolutely awesome game, not sure he has ever had a better one considering the competition he was up against. The offensive line really returned in a big way paving the way for his big night.

Vernon would be the first to tell you that it wasn't their best night, they fumbled and fumbled. I think the first 2 times they touched the ball in the 3rd quarter. Clyde did a great job of taking advantage of what Vernon gave them. Vernon has a running game that was really hard to stop and will carry them a long ways, but not giving up the big play has been a key to our season this year on defense. That has allowed time for mistakes from our opponents who have had to earn their yards this year. Our secondary has just been outstanding all year long, even when their out manned by bigger players you see them stick their heads in there and make the tackle, that's something that has really been missing from our defense for the last several years.

The one thing I have noticed over and over is the sportsmanship of this team. They are constantly helping their opponents to their feet. This is definitely a special group we have at Clyde this year.

• Ken Mauldin
• October 3, 2007 3:32 PM