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Year-end high school football thoughts
December 31, 2007I'm a total slacker. Here I am, blogging 2-3 times a week, and then when state championships are up for grabs, I disappear from the face of the Earth.
And I really don't have any great excuse other than I was writing more for the paper those weeks, Christmas shopping and the holiday season had me tied up, plus I had a couple of vacation days thrown in.
As a matter of fact, as I write this, I'm about 15 minutes from leaving work here on Sunday night and I'll be gone until Jan. 11. My family and I are headed up to Jackson, Wyoming for lots of skiing and some well-deserved rest and relaxation.
But I wanted to write a blog before I left with a couple of ending-the-year football memories.
But I wanted to write a blog before I left with a couple of ending-the-year football memories.
And also, even though high school football season is through, when I return I will continue blogging about sports and other related topics.
So keep tuning in, and since my life is far less hectic now that football is over, I should be blogging quite a bit once I return.
Anyway, here are some quick hits form the high school football season:
* Munday's defensive line is the best I have seen since covering football here four years ago. They allowed 1.24 yards per rush in the entire playoffs. That's incredible.
* And I know the Moguls could give Alto a game. Watching both Class A state championships was fun, and I think those two winners would play an entertaining game.
*Alto didn't impress me as much as I thought they would. Their speed, which is all you hear about, was pretty good, but Seymour's defense did not let Alto's playmakers get to the edges. Very quality performance by the Panthers.
* Some people have asked me if I thought Seymour would have won if QB Hayden Holub hadn't torn his ACL in the first quarter.
My reply: I think maybe they would have been trailing by a touchdown in the fourth quarter, so they would have had to make a great drive into the wind to tie things up. But they would have at least had a shot.
* I think my Red River 22 team selections went pretty well. There were a couple of kids I would have liked to have squeezed on, but everybody who really deserved it made it.
And I have not received any nasty e-mails form parents of kids who said I should have placed on the team, so that's always nice.
* And finally, what a great high school football season 2007 was. Two teams played for state titles, another three went to regional finals.
I thought we would have a decent year from this area (we always seem to), but I remember having a conversation with KFDX sports anchor Tobin McDuff in August.
We agreed on expectations for certain teams, but after the great runs of Windthorst, Vernon, Holliday, Electra and Rider on 2006, we thought this year might take a little bit of a step down.
Oh, how we were wrong. In my four years here, this was the most successful playoff season I have endured. And it was a great past few weeks.
Posted by trn-admin at 01:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Some people are offended way too easily
December 11, 2007Wasn't planning on blogging today, but after what happened while I was at work, I had to feel like getting something off my chest.
When a team makes it to a state title game, we run stories on them almost every day of the week. Usually, the first one I write is a profile on the opponent that our area team is playing.
So if you read our paper today, you would have noticed a story on Alto, Seymour's opponent this Saturday.
The purpose of this is to inform our readers (specifically Seymour fans) about the team they are playing. I even get quotes from the other coach. Standard procedure -- I did this last year on Chilton when it played Windthorst. No big deal right?
Apparently it was to Seymour, as some people took this as a slap in the face. I got four personal e-mails sent to me asking why I was writing about Alto and complaining about a lack of Seymour coverage.
The regular sports e-mail got a rant as well, and we even had someone from circulation coming over to us saying that people in Seymour were threatening to cancel their subscriptions.
Get a grip, people. It's one story. I have plenty more to write this week about Seymour. I spent an hour or so in your town on Monday talking to coaches and players.
Now I know there was only a small percent of people who are up in arms. And I have met lots of truly great people from that town, so I am not trying to lump everybody together.
But I just thought the outcry was kinda ridiculous, that was all. I mean, do you all think I wouldn't write anything good about Seymour all week?
Posted by Zach Duncan at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I have created a new word
We will get to the football action in a moment. For now, I want to tell you about my new word.
It's called mog. Half mist, half fog. (fist, obviously, was already taken). The last three weeks, I have covered two games in some cold mog: Graham-Argyle and Seymour-Sunray.
What's worse is that I have had to make a couple of long drives back to the casa here in Wichita Falls in that stuff.
It's no fun. Just as it is no fun to play in the mog. And as I write this late Monday night, there is mog everywhere in Wichita Falls.
Back to football. Here are some of my thoughts:
* Last week, I gave two scenarios on how the Munday-Windthorst game would turn out. And my first one was right.
The Trojans, despite gaining only 86 yards (and 66 of those came on one play), hung around with two blocked punts and a fumble return for a touchdown. Munday, coming off a huge win vs. Roscoe, failed to put the game away.
In the end, the Moguls prevailed, 17-16. But only after the Trojans let a late opportunity slip away with a fumble. Sounded like a good game.
* Snyder running back Will Clay is the best RB I have seen all year. By far.
He is powerful, elusive and decently fast. There's a reason why he has almost 3,000 yards and 41 touchdowns. There were times he refused to go down.
Vernon did not do a good job of tackling, but I still cannot believe the Lions' tough defense gave up 404 rushing yards. You knew Snyder was running -- the whole stadium knew -- and yet it didn't matter. Still a great season for the Lions.
* Total bummer Rider came up short in the regional finals again. It sounded like a very winnable game for them. That makes three times Rider has lot in this round in the past four years -- all of which were one play from going their way.
* Seymour is playing for a state football title for the first time in school history. That's great. Its team speed was superior to Sunray, and the Panthers easily took advantage of it.
And Hayden Holub is a total stud. Hadn't seen him play in person until Saturday, but came away impressed. He had all of Seymour's rushing and passing yards.
* And finally, I wanted to send a thanks to all the deer that decidedly chose not to jump out in front of my car on the way back home from Lubbock in the mog.
I am a total city boy (self-disclosure: never ridden a horse or gone hunting or camping), so the thought of having a deer step in front of me while I drive my wife's tiny Camry scares the living crap out of me.
I counted 20 deer on the road in the Dickens-Guthrie area. And you can imagine my nervous hands gingerly clutching the steering wheel while my beady eyes kept shifting to the left and right side of the road.
My biggest fear was nailing one in the middle of the night while being stopped somewhere with no cell phone reception. My only saving grace: hoping some random Seymour person was driving behind me and would stop and help (which I am sure they would).
Thankfully, it never came down to that.
I'll talk more about the Munday and Seymour games in separate blogs later in the week. So check back in a couple of days.
Posted by Zach Duncan at 01:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Week 4 playoff predictions
December 06, 2007My life the past four weeks can best be summarized by that Johnny Cash song "I've Been Everywhere."
While driving back from Abilene at 2:30 a.m. last Saturday, I was figuring out that I've driven about 1,500 miles the past three weeks covering high school football.
In a span of 17 days, I saw nine different games involving six different teams in six different locales.
There are four games on the docket this weekend, and I'll be at two of them. Let's break them down:
* Rider vs. Everman: I'm not going to act like I know a whole lot about these teams because I only cover the area schools. But both are legit contenders for the state title.
Rider is more two-dimensional on offense -- Everman runs a ridiculous amount and does it well --so if the Raiders can stuff them at the line of scrimmage, then they should be in good shape.
The Raiders have never made it past this mark in school history. Surely, Ponder and his guys can get over the regional final curse that plagued them in winnable games in 2004 and 2006.
That's why I will pick Rider. Finally, the state semifinals.
* Vernon vs. Snyder: The first of my two games I will see. Vernon has not been tested so far in the playoffs like Snyder will test them, and the Tigers have a 2,700-yard tailback.
But Vernon has been great stopping the run all year with the exception of the Clyde game (which they lost) and the Graham game (which they nearly lost).
Still, I think the Lions, who are usually a top-notch specials teams squad, will make enough plays to limit Snyder. And I think the Lions can score enough to win, but not by much.
* Seymour vs. Sunray: The Panthers, especially QB Hayden Holub, are on a roll. If Sunray wants to succeed in playing for a state championship, they must stop Holub.
And I don't think they will. While I hate to compare scores to make playoff picks, Sunray only beat Quanah 6-0 two weeks ago. I think Seymour could handle Quanah like they have handled the last two games (combined score: 49-23). So the Panthers win by 10 out in Lubbock.
* Munday vs. Windthorst: I have given a lot of thought to this game. I think Munday will win unless they give the Trojans a short field with turnovers (like Goldthwaite did last week).
But I can also see this game going two ways:
1) Windthorst comes out with nothing to lose; Green uses tons of trick plays; Munday, coming off a huge win last week vs. Roscoe, is a little tight and may be sluggish; maybe Windthorst gets an early lead (which Roscoe wasn't able to do). If this happens, I can see Munday barely surviving the upset bid, and with a few turnovers, have a slight chance of losing.
2) I know it was a 30-point game last time and Munday had two defensive touchdowns, so Windthorst people might say it was only a two-TD difference and the Trojans are playing better now than then.
But Munday reached Windthorst's 20-yard line four times and didn't score. So Munday also could have really blown them away. Even though Windthorst has a different QB this time around and is playing better, I still like the Moguls' skill players and defense better.
My pick here is Munday, and I'll go somewhere in the neighborhood of 13-17 points. But anything less or more would not surprise me in the least bit.
Posted by Zach Duncan at 03:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
What a game
December 03, 2007I have already written a bunch about the Roscoe-Munday game, so we won't be going into details in this blog.
But what I will say (or type) is that I usually see these kind of games only once or twice a year in the playoffs.
First of all, even though it's always a win-or-go-home mentality, both teams have to be legitimate state title contenders. So some crazy bi-district game that had the winner losing the next week does not count.
You also need an electric atmosphere, the feeling that anything can happen on every single snap.
And when the game is over, knowing that if these teams played 10 times, they would spilt the series 5-5.
Here are some other playoff games (keep in mind, I started covering football in 2004) that reminded me of last Saturday's battle:
* 2004 and 2005: Windthorst-Stratford. Both came down to the last second. In '05, stud Trojans QB Brad Green was stuffed inches short of a game-winning touchdown on the game's final play.
To date, this is the best game I have ever covered.
* 2004: Quanah-Stratford: Although both state-ranked teams met in bi-district, this one wasn't over until the gun sounded. It was a high-scoring affair with momentum swings every few minutes.
You know what. That's about it. Henrietta-Boyd in the state semifinals in 2004 was also a good one, but Boyd had beaten the Bearcats by 40 earlier in the season, so Henrietta came in as a pretty big underdog.
Also, while I have not covered them, I think the Rider-Stephenville matchups from 2004, 2006 and 2007 fit the bill.
Here are a couple more quick-hit thoughts from the weekend:
* Windthorst keeps winning, which usually would not such a surprise, but after its 4-6 regular season, it is pretty impressive.
* Vernon has the area's second best playoff football pedigree right now, next to the Trojans. Coach Hall could have his Lions playing in the state semis for the third time in five years with a win this week.
* After not making the playoffs since 1999, Seymour could be playing for a state championship in two weeks. Wow!
Posted by Zach Duncan at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
