Texas football commits in the playoffs: Dec. 6-8

The teams of nine Texas Longhorn football commits had postseason games last week. That number was bound to be lower this week, as three of those nine were playing in state championship games, and Juco commit Jacoby Jones was playing in a postseason bowl game. Two other commits saw their senior seasons come to an end with playoff losses last week, leaving only three state of Texas products whose seasons were still alive going into this week’s state quarterfinal round.

Last night that number was reduced to two, as one commit’s team saw its season end when it gave up a breathtaking last-minute TD on a 4th-and-long play.

UT also lost a commit during the week, as longtime pledge De’Mariyon Houston, a four-star 2019 wide receiver from Millwood High School in Oklahoma City, announced on Monday that he had de-committed from the program after being a member of its #fUTure19 class for nearly five months.

As of this writing only two Longhorn commits have yet to play their final game of the 2018 season. The bright side: the rest of these posts won’t be 7,000+ words!

On Saturday afternoon in San Antonio, Hudson Card will lead the Lake Travis Cavaliers against the undefeated Converse Judson Rockets, a team Lake Travis beat in the playoffs a year ago and which has at least three future FBS athletes on its defense.

Tonight Also on Saturday in San Antonio, Jordan Whittington’s Cuero Gobblers will face a Geronimo Navarro team that they have encountered in the playoffs in every season since 2013. Cuero eliminated Navarro in the third round of last year’s playoffs, and more recently won a 43-7 district matchup between the two schools on November 2. [Friday update: the Cuero-Navarro game, originally set to kick off Friday night, was delayed to Saturday December 8, due to heavy rains in the San Antonio area.]

In other words, if you’re a high school football fan who might be thinking of taking an impromptu weekend trip, San Antonio will be the place to be tonight and tomorrow.

It’s been over 20 years since the last Texas high school football season in which no state championship-winning team had a future Texas Longhorn on its roster. Let’s see if Card or Whittington can help keep that streak alive.

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2020 QB Hudson Card (Lake Travis)

Last week: Completed 17 of 20 passes for 357 yards and 7 TDs, and had 6 carries for 35 yards and lost a fumble in a 56-14 win over Weslaco in the regional semifinal round of the Class 6A Division I playoffs.
This week: Saturday, December 8 at 2:00, vs. Converse Judson (at San Antonio’s Alamodome) in the Region IV final of the Class 6A Division I playoffs.
Notes: In Lake Travis’s third round playoff win over Weslaco last week Hudson Card tied a Lake Travis school record for touchdown passes in a game, and he needed only one half to do it! It was the fourth game this season in which Card’s TD passes outnumbered his incompletions.

It wasn’t a perfect performance, as Lake Travis’s offense fumbled three times in the 1st quarter, according to the Austin American-Statesman’s recap of the game, and a Card fumble resulted in the game’s only turnover for the Cavaliers. But outside of those early errors, Weslaco was powerless to stop the Lake Travis attack, which gained an incredible 515 yards in the first half, and Card’s seven TD passes staked the Cavaliers to a 49-0 halftime lead. Those seven TD tosses tied him with Matthew Baldwin (now at Ohio State) and Garrett Gilbert (the former Texas Longhorn and SMU Mustang) for most in a single game by a Lake Travis QB, which really says something if you know anything about Lake Travis’s history of prolific QBs.

Lake Travis’s eventual 56-14 win allowed it to advance to the fourth round (the regional finals) of the playoffs for the tenth time in twelve seasons. On Saturday afternoon in San Antonio the 11-1 Cavaliers will face undefeated Converse Judson in the Region IV final.

Judson was ranked third in Class 6A in the AP poll taken after the final week of the regular season, while Lake Travis was ranked tenth. The 12-0 Judson Rockets are averaging 49 points per game, and since a 35-28 win on September 8 over Judson ISD rival San Antonio Wagner (a team that has not lost since and will play in the fourth round of the 5A Division I playoffs this week), they have not allowed another opponent to score more than 21 points and they have beaten nine of their ten subsequent foes by 28 points or more.

Lake Travis and Judson played twice in the 2017 season; Judson beat the Cavaliers 65-45 in that season’s opening week, but Lake Travis later got revenge with a 47-39 win when the teams met again in the second round of the 6A Division I playoffs.

Hudson Card and the Lake Travis offense will battle perhaps the most experienced defense they’ll face this year, as Judson’s top 11 tacklers are all seniors and its defense boasts future FBS players at each level: four-star Texas A&M defensive line commit DeMarvin Leal wreaks havoc along the line of scrimmage, third-year starting linebacker Kevin Wood Jr. is committed to North Texas and leads the team with 107 tackles and 15 tackles for loss, and UTSA commit Rashad Wisdom plays safety and has recorded three interceptions and scored three defensive TDs.

Also patrolling the secondary for Judson are senior cornerbacks Michael Washington II and Kenyon Morgan, an undersized duo that has been credited with a combined 92 tackles, seven interceptions and 38 passes defensed. The speedy Morgan, who ran the 100 meter dash at the 6A state track meet as a sophomore and junior (finishing sixth both times), was primarily a wide receiver earlier in his career and averaged 35 yards per catch as a junior, but has played corner full-time as a senior and along with intercepting two passes he has also recovered three fumbles and blocked two punts.

Judson’s offense isn’t too bad, either. Junior QB Mike Chandler II was a starter at San Antonio Johnson as a sophomore and produced 23 total TDs while throwing just one interception. Chandler later transferred to Judson and has taken over signal-calling duties from the graduated four-year starter Julon Williams (now a freshman wide receiver at Houston), compiling over 3,100 total yards and passing or rushing for 36 combined TDs while again throwing just one interception.

Joining Chandler in the backfield is UTSA commit Sincere McCormick, who has rushed 21 TDs this fall, has topped 1,200 rushing yards for a second consecutive season, and is closing in on 4,000 career yards from scrimmage. McCormick also handles Judson’s punting duties, a role he has filled since he was a sophomore.

Judson’s offense can be fairly categorized as “run-first”, as the Rockets have over 200 more rushes than pass attempts this season, but when they throw the ball the primary recipients are the tall junior duo of Amarea Bailey and Antony Shelton, who are both listed at 6’2” or above and have combined to produce 48 receptions for 1,269 yards (26.4 yards/catch) and 16 TDs.

Lake Travis vs. Converse Judson may be the best game the Alamodome hosts in 2018. The winner will advance to the 6A Division I state semifinals and face either second-ranked Galena Park North Shore or defending 6A Division II state champion Cy-Fair.

QB Roschon Johnson (Port Neches-Groves)

Last week: Completed 10 of 23 passes for 81 yards, and had 19 carries for 133 yards and one TD in a 53-14 loss to Fort Bend Marshall in the regional semifinal round of the Class 5A Division II playoffs.
Season over
Notes: In his decorated career at Port Neches-Groves, Roschon Johnson has led the Indians to some exciting comeback wins and a good number of victories that likely would have been losses had they instead had a merely above-average Class 5A signal-caller taking the snaps.

But his skills weren’t enough to get PN-G past the third round of the playoffs for the first time since 1999, as the Indians ran into the buzzsaw that is the Fort Bend Marshall Buffalos, the fourth-ranked team in Class 5A. Marshall led 18-0 before the game was ten minutes old, and by the time Johnson got the Indians on the scoreboard with a 20-yard TD run with 5:38 left in the 2nd quarter, his team trailed 24-7. Marshall added two more scored in that quarter and took a 39-7 lead into halftime.

Marshall’s junior QB Malik Hornsby, who undoubtedly had more weapons at his disposal than Johnson did, passed for 210 yards and 2 TDs and also rushed for 73 yards and two more TDs. Hornsby is currently ranked as the nation’s #2 dual-threat QB recruit in the 2020 class.

Port Neches-Groves finished its 2018 season with an official record of 9-4.

WR Jake Smith (Notre Dame Prep - Scottsdale, Arizona)

Last week: Had 6 catches for 42 yards and 2 carries for -1 yards in a 60-7 loss to Peoria Centennial in the AIA Conference 5A state championship.
Season over
Notes: Playing defending state champion Centennial in a re-match of the 2017 5A state final, Jake Smith and his Notre Dame Prep teammates couldn’t get any momentum on offense, and the game snowballed as Centennial took advantage of several turnovers to effectively put the game away by halftime.

Notre Dame Prep’s first possession ended with an interception, the first of five that senior QB Jake Ferrell would have on the day. Centennial’s junior QB Jonathan Morris ran in a TD from 64 yards out a few minutes later to put the Coyotes ahead 7-0 with 6:58 left in the opening quarter.

That remained the score going into the 2nd quarter, but the lead stretched out to 21-0 less than a minute into the quarter, courtesy of an 88-yard punt return TD and a 35-yard pick-six by senior A.J. Jackson. Jackson added a 24-yard TD reception in the final minute of the first half, putting Notre Dame Prep in a 39-0 hole at halftime.

Things didn’t get better for the Saints in the second half, as another Ferrell pass was intercepted and returned for a TD with 8:08 left in the 3rd quarter, and the resulting 46-0 score triggered a running clock for the rest of the game. The Saints scored their first and only points with 2:25 left in the 3rd quarter on a 58 yard pass from Ferrell to senior receiver Zack Gray (who received his first Division I offer a month ago from FCS program Drake). Centennial scored twice more before the end of regulation and won by a 60-7 score. Centennial won its second consecutive 5A state title — and its seventh overall in 13 seasons — in dominating fashion, finishing off an undefeated 14-0 season in which it outscored its opponents by an average score of 45-6.

Jake Smith was effectively contained by the Coyote defense, which limited him to 41 yards on eight offensive touches, and the Saints rushed for only 56 yards on 24 carries as a team. Notre Dame finished its 2018 season with a 13-1 record, and Smith finished his senior season with just under 1,900 yards from scrimmage and 39 total touchdowns.

WR Marcus Washington (Trinity Catholic - St. Louis, Missouri)

Last week: Had 3 catches for 104 yards and 3 TDs in a 45-19 win over St. Louis Cardinal Ritter in the MSHSAA Class 3 state championship.
Season over
Notes: Marcus Washington had a season-high three TD catches and nearly outscored Cardinal Ritter by himself in last week’s Class 3 state championship game. The 45-19 win gave the Titans some redemption after losing in the Class 2 state championship in 2017.

Trinity led 19-13 at halftime but put the game away in the second half, largely on the strength of its ground game. Running backs Reggie Love and Alphonzo Andrews combined to produce 281 yards and 3 TDs on 33 carries. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch described the game as “chippy”, and noted that the two teams (rival Catholic schools whose campuses are just 12 miles apart) were penalized a combined 32 times, with Trinity setting a new state championship record with 18 penalties assessed.

But Trinity emerged as the decisive victor, winning its 13th consecutive game after starting off the 2018 season with losses to two out-of-state powers, and capping off a 13-2 season with the program’s first state title. The Post-Dispatch quoted Marcus Washington after his 3-TD performance in the state final as saying:

“The whole season people were talking about my stats,” Washington said. “I’ve always believed in the system and the team and I’m not a selfish player. I knew my time would come. Today it showed out.”

WR Jordan Whittington (Cuero)

Last week: Caught 5 passes for 129 yards, had 4 carries for 43 yards and 2 TDs, and made 4 tackles (including one for loss) in a 59-20 win over Corpus Christi West Oso in the regional semifinals round of the Class 4A Division II playoffs.
This week: Saturday, December 8 at 6:00, vs. Geronimo Navarro (at San Antonio’s Comalander Stadium) in the Region IV final of the Class 4A Division II playoffs.
Notes: Cuero’s game this week was originally scheduled for Friday night, but heavy rains forced its postponement until Saturday evening.

As has been the case in essentially every week since Jordan Whittington returned from injury after missing Cuero’s first four games, last week’s contest was over almost as soon as Cuero got off the bus. The Gobblers led 38-6 at halftime and cruised to another easy win to advance to the regional final (aka state quarterfinal) round for a fourth straight year, and for the ninth time in 15 seasons.

Jordan Whittington scored on 2nd quarter TD runs from 17 and 14 yards out, and he also connected with his brother Devyn Whittington on a successful 2-point conversion pass. Cuero didn’t have a TD through the air but scored 8 rushing TDs and compiled 460 rushing yards as a team, with seniors Chance Albrecht and Army commit Kieran Grant combining for 29 carries, 360 yards, and 6 TDs.

The Gobblers will play for the Region IV championship against the most familiar of playoff foes: Geronimo Navarro, a team they have faced in each of the last five postseasons. Cuero beat Navarro 38-24 in the third round of the 2017 playoffs, and also eliminated them every season from 2013 to 2015, while Navarro ended Cuero’s season in the fourth round of the 2016 playoffs.

Cuero should go into this game with a lot of confidence, as it has scored 43 or more points in ten consecutive games, a streak that includes a 43-7 win over Navarro in a district game on November 2. Navarro still easily qualified for the playoffs for an 11th straight year and reached the fourth round following a 34-30 win over Devine, a 35-27 win over Raymondville, and a 28-13 win last week over Rockport-Fulton.

The Cuero-Navarro winner will move on to the 4A Division II state semifinals and play the winner of Golden Triangle area powers West Orange-Stark and Silsbee. Cuero has never played either team in the playoffs.

TE Brayden Liebrock (Chandler, Arizona)

Last week: Caught 6 passes for 104 yards and one TD in a 65-28 win over Gilbert Perry in the AIA Conference 6A state championship.
Season over
Notes: Arizona’s state championship weekend went better for Brayden Liebrock than it did for UT’s other Grand Canyon State commit, Jake Smith. Liebrock caught 6 passes for 104 yards and a score in Chandler’s state championship victory over Perry, a very similar statline to the one he had in Chandler’s 2017 state championship win over the same team: 5 catches for 115 yards and one TD.

Chandler won its third straight state title last week, beating Perry in the championship game for a second consecutive year. Along with Liebrock, Chandler got a big performance from senior running back DeCarlos Brooks, a Cal commit who rushed 33 times for 336 yards and 6 TDs. I’ve mentioned Brooks in a number of past recap posts, and last week was the third time this season he had carried the ball 30 or more times, and he finished his senior season with just under 2,600 yards from scrimmage and 37 total touchdowns.

After starting the 2018 season relatively slow from a stats perspective, Liebrock got stronger as the season went along and finished his senior campaign with 65 catches for 784 yards and 11 TDs.

Chandler was dominating on offense, amassing 661 total yards and playing turnover-free football. Meanwhile, Chandler’s defense forced four turnovers (3 interceptions and one fumble) against Perry’s junior QB Chubba Purdy (younger brother of Iowa State QB Brock Purdy), who passed for 159 yards and ran for 142 more, a performance in stark contrast to the 361 yards passing, 5 total TDs and no interceptions that he had in the two teams’ previous meeting on September 28, when Chandler beat Perry 45-34.

Chandler concluded the season with an overall record of 13-1 and won not only the program’s third straight state title but also its fourth in five years.

DE Jacoby Jones (Butler Community College - El Dorado, Kansas)

Last week: Made 3 tackles and had 2 QB hurries in a 34-30 win over Northeastern Oklahoma A&M in the Midwest Classic Bowl.
Season over
Notes: In his last Juco game, Jacoby Jones made three tackles in his Butler Community College team’s come-from-behind win over host Northeastern Oklahoma A&M (NEO) in the Midwest Classic Bowl last Sunday. All three of his tackles came during NEO’s second possession of the game, a 13-play drive that ended with their first TD and the game’s first points.

Butler trailed 21-6 early in the 2nd quarter but cut the deficit to 21-19 by halftime. After a pair of lead changes, NEO was ahead 28-26 after scoring on the first play of the 4th quarter. Butler would score with 4:35 left in regulation and add a 2-point conversion to take the lead for good at 34-28.

NEO would get two points closer with a safety in the final minute of regulation that cut Butler’s lead to 34-30, but a Hail Mary attempt on NEO’s last play was intercepted in the end zone, the third time Butler intercepted NEO inside the 5-yard line in the 4th quarter.

The Grizzlies finished their 2018 season with an overall record of 8-4, and Jacoby Jones finished with 58 total tackles, 16 tackles for loss, and 10.5 sacks.

DE T’Vondre Sweat (Huntsville)

Last week: Team beat Marshall 35-34 in the regional semifinal round of the Class 5A Division II playoffs.
This week: Team lost 47-43 on Thursday night to Fort Bend Marshall in the Region III final of the Class 5A Division II playoffs.
Season over
Notes: Two weeks, to exciting back-and-forth games for the Huntsville Hornets against a pair of schools named Marshall.

Last week, Huntsville faced the Marshall Mavericks of east Texas in the regional semifinal round. The Hornets were behind 21-7 at halftime before making a second half comeback. They scored 21 straight points to take a 28-21 lead with 7:49 left in the 4th quarter. Marshall tied the game less than 30 seconds later, but Huntsville would take the lead for good on a 30-yard pick-six by junior defensive back Jaden Shroeder with 3:52 left in regulation. It was Shroeder’s third interception of the game, and the fifth the Hornet defense recorded in the second half.

Marshall eventually got the ball last and scored on a 19-yard TD pass with 13 seconds left on the clock. Trailing 35-34, Marshall elected to go for a 2-point conversion rather than a potential game-tying PAT. The resulting pass fell incomplete, preserving Huntsville’s one-point lead, and the Hornets hung on to win and advance to the fourth round for the first time since 1989.

Last night, Huntsville played Class 5A’s fourth-ranked team, Fort Bend Marshall, whose Buffalos were fresh off a dominating win over Roschon Johnson’s Port Neches-Groves team in the third round. Marshall had reached the fourth round on three previous occasions but had never advanced further. Like the Huntsville-Marshall game the week before, last night’s Huntsville-Fort Bend Marshall game had a comeback, lead changes, and a last-minute score, but the final result did not end in the Hornets’ favor this time.

Huntsville was playing last night’s game on unusually short rest, having finished its down-to-the-wire third round win over the Marshall Mavericks after 11:00 pm on Saturday December 1, with that game being played at The Ford Center in Frisco, 195 miles from Huntsville’s campus. Fort Bend Marshall had a comparative cakewalk in its third round win over Port Neches-Groves on the evening of Friday November 30 at Stallworth Stadium in Baytown, which is 50 miles from Marshall’s campus. So Huntsville had one less day than FB Marshall to recover from their previous game and likely only had three days to practice and prepare for the 4th-ranked Buffalos. Whether that had any bearing on the eventual outcome, who can say?

Huntsville, which had allowed only three opponents to score as many as 20 points all season, fell behind FB Marshall 20-0 in the 1st quarter last night. But they fought to get back into the game, and the tide turned early in the 2nd quarter when the Hornets recorded a safety to get onto the scoreboard just 16 seconds into the quarter, then scored their first TD less than a minute later to cut the deficit to 20-9. Both teams scored again before the quarter ended, and Marshall led 27-16 at halftime.

Huntsville got to within a point at 27-26 after a field goal with 4:51 left in the 3rd quarter, but Marshall answered almost immediately with a 48-yard TD run, and when Marshall’s star QB Malik Hornsby scored on a 17-yard run with 40 seconds left in the 3rd quarter it gave his team a 40-26 lead.

A TD and safety in the first three minutes of the fourth quarter again helped Huntsville close the gap, making the score 40-35, and later a 64-yard TD pass from Huntsville QB Matthew Southern — who would finish his junior season with 47 total TDs — gave the Hornets their first lead at 43-40 with 2:31 left in regulation.

Huntsville thought it had Marshall on the ropes, as they held a lead in the final minute, and Marshall had a 4th-and-12 situation at the Huntsville 47-yard line. On the game-deciding play, junior running back Devon Achane — who accounted for 254 total yards and had a hand in five total TDs on the night — took a reverse and lofted a pass down the middle of the field to receiver Dalevon Campbell, who caught the ball at the 25-yard line, slipped away from a pair of Hornet defenders and ran into the end zone for a TD, and the subsequent PAT put Marshall ahead 47-43 with just 33 seconds left on the clock.

Huntsville got the ball one last time but was intercepted to end the game. The Hornets made their deepest playoff run since the George H.W. Bush administration, but their 2018 season ended in the most heartbreaking fashion, and their final record was 12-2.

DE Myron Warren (Many, Louisiana)

Last week: Team lost to Welsh 28-21 in the semifinal round of the LHSAA Class 2A playoffs.
Season over
Notes: Louisiana’s high school football playoffs are organized in 32-team brackets with teams seeded according to a power ranking system. Myron Warren’s Many Tigers were the #1 overall seed in the Class 2A playoffs, the fifth time in six seasons Many went into the playoffs as the top seed, but for the fourth time out of those five, they did not end the playoffs as the top team.

In last week’s state semifinal game vs. #5 seed Welsh, the defending state champion and the team that ended Many’s 2017 season in the state semifinals, Many led 21-7 in the 2nd quarter and looked to be well on their way to avenging last year’s playoff defeat and moving one win closer to a state title. But Welsh cut the deficit to 21-14 before halftime, and a pair of 3rd quarter TDs by Welsh were the only points scored in the second half by either team, and Many fell by a score of 28-21.

Many’s season ended in disappointment once again, and the Tigers’ final 2018 record was 13-2. Myron Warren was voted the Defensive MVP of District 3-2A.

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RB Derrian Brown (Buford, Georgia)

Buford finished the season with an overall record of 10-3, falling short of the state semifinals for the first time since 2006. Derrian Brown finished his senior season with 246 carries for 1,897 yards (7.7 yards/carry) and 28 TDs.

Buford went into Georgia’s 5A playoffs as the 2nd ranked team, but lost to a Bainbridge squad that had gone 5-5 in the regular season (with losses to a 3A and 2A team) but caught fire in the playoffs, beating the #8 and #4 teams in the two rounds before they eliminated #2 Buford. Bainbridge then knocked off the #6 team last week to advance to tonight’s 5A state championship game against #3 Warner Robins. Warner Robins beat Bainbridge 38-0 when the teams played on October 19, and Bainbridge has not lost since.

TE Jared Wiley (Temple)

Team lost to Mesquite Horn 45-38 in the bi-district round of the Class 6A Division II playoffs on November 16. Temple won its first eight games of the season before dropping each of its last three.

OL Tyler Johnson (Conroe Oak Ridge)

Oak Ridge finished 5-5 overall and did not qualify for the Class 6A playoffs. Tyler Johnson was one of twelve (12!) offensive linemen voted to the all-district first team from District 15-6A.

2020 OL Logan Parr (San Antonio O’Connor)

O’Connor went undefeated in the regular season for a second straight year, but lost to San Antonio Reagan 30-7 in the bi-district round of the Class 6A Division I playoffs on November 16.

OL Javonne Shepherd (Houston North Forest)

North Forest qualified for the 4A Division I playoffs but lost in the bi-district round to Splendora on November 16 by a score of 47-19. North Forest finished 4-7. Javonne Shepherd was one of four offensive tackles voted to the all-district first team out of District 12-4A Division I.

DE Peter Mpagi (Richmond George Ranch)

George Ranch went 4-6 this season and did not qualify for the Class 6A playoffs. Peter Mpagi was one of three defensive ends voted to the all-district first team out of District 23-6A.

LB De’Gabriel Floyd (Westlake - Westlake Village, California)

Westlake went 7-4 and ended its season with a 19-14 loss to Los Alamitos in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division 2 playoffs on November 2.

LB David Gbenda (Katy Cinco Ranch)

Cinco Ranch finished 3-7 and did not qualify for the Class 6A playoffs. For the season Gbenda was credited with 79 tackles, 15 tackles for loss, 4 sacks, 1 forced fumble, 2 fumble recoveries, and 1 blocked punt, and he rushed for 5 TDs on 13 carries in short-yardage situations. He was a unanimous all-district first team selection at linebacker and was also voted the Defensive Player of the Year for District 19-6A.

LB Marcus Tillman (Jones - Orlando, Florida)

Jones had a record of 10-2 and ended its season with a 30-27 loss on November 16 to Cardinal Gibbons in the second round of the FHSAA Class 5A playoffs. Cardinal Gibbons beat defending state champion American Heritage the following week and went on to win the 5A state championship on December 7.

DB Chris Adimora (Mayfair - Lakewood, California)

Mayfair went 9-3 overall and its season ended with a 31-28 overtime loss on November 10 to Oxnard Pacifica in the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division 6 playoffs. Chris Adimora voted the MVP of the Suburban League MVP last month.

DB Marques Caldwell (Alvin)

Caldwell suffered a torn labrum and missed much of his senior season. Alvin finished 0-10 and did not qualify for the Class 6A playoffs.

DB Tyler Owens (Plano East)

Plano East finished 8-3 and achieved its best win total since 2006. The Panthers lost 35-25 to Sachse in the bi-district round of the Class 6A Division I playoffs on November 16. Plano East had previously beaten Sachse 29-7 on September 14.

DB Kenyatta Watson (Grayson - Loganville, Georgia)

Grayson lost to Lowndes 20-15 in the quarterfinal round of the GHSA Class 7A playoffs on November 23.

ATH Peyton Powell (Odessa Permian)

Permian lost 49-35 to Arlington Lamar on November 23 in the area round of the Class 6A Division I playoffs, a game Powell missed due to injury. The loss ended Permian’s season with a 8-4 overall record.