The favorites

• Katy (8-0) enters the playoffs at No. 2 in the state in the Associated Press’ Class 6A poll and No. 1 in the Chronicle’s 6A rankings. The Tigers are back in the Division I bracket, where they failed to make a state championship game for the first time in five years last season. But they claimed their first state title in the modern era in Division I in 1997, and with a healthy Deondrick Glass and stout defense, they’re as good as any team in Texas.

• Is this the year Manvel (9-0) brings home a trophy? The Mavericks, with 95 wins in the last eight years, have been a state favorite since making the 4A Division II final in 2011, when they lost to seven-time state champ Aledo, but they stumbled in the regional finals the last four years, three times against Katy and last year in a disappointing setback against Temple (10-7). But this group is hungry, motivated and as talented as any team the program’s produced.

• Christmas came early for Cy-Fair (90), which dropped into the 6A Division II bracket after Cypress Falls, 17-6A’s largest school, clinched a playoff spot. The Bobcats were in the Division I playoffs each of the last six years, and they fell in the first round the last two, but they made the regional finals in 2013. With RB Trenton Kennedy and a stingy defense, they own the same recipe for success Katy followed in its domination of the small-school division.