With just one more Friday night remaining in the regular season, area playoff brackets are shaping up. Who are the top DFW teams?
CLASS 6A — Will we see another Duncanville-North Shore matchup?
Eight of the state’s top-25 teams reside in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
Coming in at the top of the state rankings is No. 1 Duncanville with another impressive regular season campaign led by star quarterback Ja’Quiden Jackson, who is a Texas commit. Duncanville rolled through its schedule on the legs and arm of Jackson and a stout defense that has four shutouts and through nine games has only allowed 33 points.
This Duncanville offense has scored a total 395 points with a 362-point differential in its favor.
Joining Duncanville are No. 3 Allen, No. 6 Southlake Carroll, No. 11 Arlington Martin, No. 15 Denton Guyer, No. 16 Cedar Hill, No. 23 Euless Trinity and No. 24 Rockwall.
Guyer could very well be the surprise out of this highly talented pool of area playoff teams. With an excellent defense led by senior tackle Grant Mahon, who is an Oklahoma State commit, the Wildcats have a lot to prove in the postseason.
The offense can score with the best of them. All one needs to do is look at this year’s match-up against Carroll.
The two teams went back and forth all game long in a showdown that totaled 80 points. Since that game, Guyer fixed a lot of those early season mistakes and is playing great football at the right time of the year.
CLASS 5A — Is this the year Frisco Lone Star shines?
Class 5A, Division I has three of the top five teams in the state.
No. 4 Highland Park is no surprise, clicking as the squad begins another playoff run.
No. 3 in the rankings is Denton Ryan. Denton is chock full of talent, and with an impressive regular season winning streak on the line Friday night, Ryan has a much bigger goal in mind — Dec. 21 to be exact.
Last year, Denton was bounced from the playoffs by Highland Park as they went on to win the state championship.
Led by Alabama commit Drew Sanders, Ryan will certainly make a lot of noise as they march toward that goal. The Raiders’ offense has been stellar during the regular season.
Quarterback Seth Henigan has plenty of weapons outside of Sanders to work with, including Billy Bowman Jr., who leads the receivers with 10 touchdown catches, and running back Emani Bailey, who keeps opposing defenses honest with his ability to bust a huge run at any given moment.
Bailey is averaging 12.2 yards per carry, according to The Dallas Morning News.
Rounding out Division I is No. 1 Frisco Lone Star.
The Rangers have already knocked off two of the area’s top Class 5A teams in The Colony and Highland Park.
The Colony has given the Rangers their only true scare all year.
Frisco handled Highland Park and pulled away to win that game early in the year 30-19. However, the Rangers and the Cougars battled back and forth the entire game with Lone Star prevailing 41-38 in a wild one.
Wide receiver Marvin Mims highlights this powerhouse unit and is committed to Stanford.
