600th victory in ‘06 a ‘run’ away for SW’s Jackson
Kent Jackson took over as the head football coach at Sweetwater in 2001 after a highly-successful run at Olney. He added 78 wins at Sweetwater, including the school’s all-time 600th win his sixth year when his team blew out Borger 35-0 at homecoming in the 2006 season to improve to 5-1 on the way to a 9-3 campaign.
The Mustangs’ formula was to run the ball and then to run it more.
All five of the touchdowns against the Bulldogs came on the ground from three different players. Four players ran for at least 75 yards while averaging between 7.5 and 15 yards per carry, with the longest going 67 yards.
The one pass the Mustangs threw was incomplete.
Jackson’s blueprint led to eight straight playoff trips through 2008, his last year.
His 78 wins are still the second most wins in the long history of Sweetwater football. He had at least one playoff win a year and four in 2005 when Sweetwater made it to the 3A state semifinals. In ‘02 and ‘04 the Mustangs made it to the 3A state quarterfinals, losing a chance to advance by a total of seven points including a particularly heartbreaking one-point 2004 quarterfinal defeat to Snyder.
However, Jackson led his ‘05 team to the semifinals. The Mustangs that year became only the third team in history to finish with 13 wins, along with the 1985 state champs and the 1997 team that reached the state quarterfinals. In 2014 and again in 2016, the Mustangs also ended the year with 13 victories. But under Jackson there were eight consecutive winning seasons, with the worst a 7-5 record in ‘07. And Jackson’s eight straight playoff trips are tied with Tom Ritchey for the best run at Sweetwater under one coach.
The 2006 team was led offensively by Joe Banyard, a running back who later played for Texas Christian University and had an NFL career as well. But several running backs were able to have great success during the years Jackson coached the Mustangs. The ‘06 team finished the season with almost 4,000 yards rushing.
Sweetwater’s defenses under Jackson were solid as well. The ‘05 semifinalists were able to shut out two foes while three others scored just once. In ‘06 when Shane Mobley — later a successful Sweetwater head football coach as well — served as the team’s defensive coordinator, the Mustangs also had two shutouts — the 600th victory against Borger being the first.
Jackson had a record 17 playoff victories during his years here. Many were thrillers — 24-21 in ‘02 over Decatur in the regional playoffs; 28-27 in 2003 vs. Perryton in the area playoffs; and two years later a 27-21 regional win vs. Iowa Park. Trailing 21-7 in the fourth period, the Mustangs rallied to win in overtime.