Prime time for playoff primer
Today, there are 704 Texas high school football playoff teams still practicing. On Sunday, 352 will start the countdown to 2018. • By Christmas week, 12 different state champions will be crowned at Arlington’s AT&T Stadium. • Will one of those state champions call the Houston area home? Or will the city be shut out … again? The last 10 years says both are valid questions.
The 2015 season was a banner year with Katy, North Shore and George Ranch winning titles in their respective brackets on home turf at NRG Stadium– attendance issues and all.
The year of the small school was 2012 – Navasota won its first of two championships in three seasons in Class 4A, and Class 3AEast Bernard won its first since 1977. Katy won the first of what would be three straight state championship dates against Cedar Hill in 2012, too.
Pearland’s 2010 triumph over Euless Trinity was special for since-retired coach Tony Heath. How about the out-of-nowhere stories like Jacquizz and James Rodgers spurring Lamar Consolidated to a Class 4 A title in 2007? Remember T rey Williams leading four-year-old Dekaney to state championship glory in 2011?
Is there room for another dream run in Houston? Or will hoisting the trophy only remain a dream once again?
Houston went home empty-handed in 2014 when Katy fell to Cedar Hill in the Class 6A Division II title game and Allen’s Kyler Murray ended Cypress Ranch’s landmark season in Class 6A Division I.
Cedar Hill clipped Katy in 2013, too, while Allen halted Pearland’s second attempt at a champion- ship. And that 2012 season could’ve been even sweeter for the city. Lamar was the first HISD team to play for it all since 1992 that year, but Allen once again had other plans.
Last year, The Woodlands was the city’s lone representative at the state championships. The buzzsaw that was Lake Travis spared no one, though.
The Woodlands is back for more. So is Katy, as always. North Shore, Manvel, Lamar, Atascocita, Cy-Fair, Klein Collins and Westfield, too. Many others join with the same aspirations.
Which will it be for Houston? A champion or another wait until next year?