Every year it’s the same ole thing: who would win if the Division I state champ played the Division II champ?
Sometimes the match ups are intriguing. Like, what if this high-powered offense had to play that tough defense. Or, we’d like to see that legendary coach against that legendary program. Maybe it’s star power on state championship teams or just to see if Cinderella can conquer one more foe.
High school football season ended last weekend at AT&T Stadium in Arlington with 10 newly crowned state champions in 11-man football.
As a way of extending the season one more week, here’s our Christmas wish — a hypothetical game of each class’s state champions. It’s like the Little League World Series finale is the United States Champion against the International champion.
But this is Texas, and we’re ALL Texans. So here are the match ups, each with a prediction.
And to go old school, we’ll put each game at a site that’s neutral and about even in distance — the way coaches used to decide on the site for a state championship game. We’ll have five games in four days at four different site, just to drive those guys at Fox Sports Southwest absolutely crazy and earn play-by-play announcer Craig Way another 1,000 miles in airline travel.
6A State Finale
Who: DeSoto vs Lake Travis
Date: Saturday, 4 p.m.
Site: Baylor’s McLane Stadium
The Texas High School Super Bowls wrap up on Christmas Eve with the 6A state champions from Austin and the Metroplex meeting halfway down I-35 in Waco. The only thing holding this from being a complete sellout is the fact it’s on Christmas Eve.
Those who can’t attend will certainly want to watch it on TV. If for anything else, just to watch DeSoto quarterback Shawn Robinson, who accounted for more than 400 yards and three touchdowns in 38-29 win over Cibolo Steele for the Division II title.
Robinson, a TCU commit, threw a 28-yard touchdown strike KD Nixon on the final play of the first half to give the Eagles a 28-10 lead.
DeSoto capped an undefeated season and brought the title to town for the first time in school history. The resume was impressive with wins over Dallas Jesuit, Midland and Denton Guyer in non-district. District wins included a 33-18 triumph over Cedar Hill and a sweep of the Irving and Grand Prairie schools.
The Eagles flew high in the playoffs with wins over Killeen, Southlake Carroll, Abilene, Cedar Hill and Klein Collins to get to state. DeSoto averaged 47.5 points a game this year.
Lake Travis manhandled an inspired team from The Woodlands, 41-13. After a season-opening loss to Converse Judson, the Cavaliers won a 59-56 thriller over Steele the next week in a lightning-delayed game. They then won their next 14 games, including twice routing rival Austin Westlake and coasted to a Division II title.
Lake Travis quarterback Charlie Brewer operates the Cavalier offense like a skilled surgeon, and he passed for 361 yards and four touchdowns in the state title game.
DeSoto had a phenomenal season and was certainly battle-tested, but Lake Travis has too much history and the Cavaliers have been unstoppable since September.
Lake Travis 47, DeSoto 45
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I think Lake Travis wins by more than this. They routinely destroyed top competition, the game was often over in the first quarter. For example against the Woodlands, they could have racked up 60 points if they wanted to, they let up in the 2nd half and gave them a touchdown at the end. Lake Travis got way better over the course of the season. The closest anyone got to them was about 20 points and that was an outstanding Smithson Valley team that was blowing out really good teams themselves at the end of the season.
So much focus is on the offense, but after the first couple weeks, pretty much nobody scored on them after the first couple weeks.