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Show Notes & Links:
- 2015 Frisco High School Football Preview
- 2015 Frisco Area High School Football Results
- Articles by Timothy Howell
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Transcript
Scott Ellis: Hey Frisco this is Scott Ellis and high school football season is upon us yet again. This week we’re going to get into the twenty fifteen high school football preview. This is the Frisco Podcast.
With me today is our sports writer Tim Howell and he is joining us to give us the one down of all of the Frisco high school football teams and give us a little sneak peak at how they’re going to do this season. Tim welcome back to the show good to have you here.
Tim Howell: Hey my pleasure Scott thanks for having me. Always a fun time if your looking forward to the high school season. Let’s just jump right into it. All right first and foremost is we all know District 9-5A is now earning the reputation, it’s a well found one of being one of the toughest in the area if not the entire state. Remember now all of these teams have had one year under their belt in 5A, one team of which we’ll speak about in a moment the Lone Star Rangers made the jump from 3A to 5A and were largely successful last year. Here it is District 5A, 9-5A rather, it’s parity being a large reason why people love football so much especially on the professional ranks and on down through college and high school to name of the game in this district is every team legitimately has a chance.
This year nobody seems to be giving much thought to the Independence Knights or the Liberty Redhawks. The Knights of course they’re inaugural season was last year but you can’t really rule them out, same with the Redhawks. Remember a year ago nobody was thinking too much about The Colony or Heritage, the Coyotes or D2 regional semi-finals.
All right so here we start off with the Lone Star Rangers. These guys play with a chip on their shoulder which is interesting, very talented but they do view themselves as the small guys thanks to the lowest enrollment in the district just at about twelve hundred as I mentioned a moment ago they were 3A two years ago and they were almost 4A, could have been a big 2A now here they are in 5A competing with everybody else. Their win of last year’s fatalities and since that they were 5 and 3 and thanks to the crazy tie breaker that takes a physicist from NASA to figure out. They were eliminated despite having one of the better records in the district. This year they’re going to be hungry and of course they have Jason Shelley probably the most talented overall option quarterback in the district. He also has a wide assortment of play makers at his disposal.
We talked about him briefly and we’ll talk a little bit more about the Liberty Redhawks. Last year they had star senior quarterback Udgam Goyal who has graduated so one key for Coach Burtch’s team this year is going to be to find a new signal caller but they have a talented running back returning in Brandon Hubbard. They might struggle a bit on defense, they weren’t the world’s strongest defensive unit a year ago and this year they’re only returning one starter. However he was a stud, led the team, it’s linebacker Gage Reiter. In order for them to repeat on a three win season they’re going to have to get some answers for some questions on defense as well as finding a quarterback to helm that offense.
Then of course you have the Centennial Titans. Mark Howard was the head coach for quite a while and now he was replaced by Ronny Mullins who came over from Prosper, he was the athletic director there. Howard now is going to be coaching Trinity Addison, Trinity Christian Addison rather. The defense is going to be the same and I think this might be a key because everytime you bring in a new coach there’s going to be a transitional period because they like to employ their own offense and a lot of times will bring over their own defensive coaches but he decide to stick with Coach Swann who’s a very, very much a veteran of the high school defensive coordinating position. Very good they’re going to stick with that 3-4 so that’s one less thing for all these players to have to get accustomed to. Of course the Centennial Titans they have Anthony Peguese, an eighteen hundred yard rusher from a year ago, probably the district’s most explosive runner so the Titan should be back in the mix. They were bi-district finalist a year ago.
Next we have the Frisco High Raccoons. There’s three things you can count on, death, taxes and the Wing-T offense from Coach Vance Gibson loves it. It’s old school, it’s smash mouth, it seems like you can always find a stud running back to helm that position. Once again this year he has another excellent runner but more important than that he has Rohan Vasa, he has a stud quarterback. Coach Gibson, I spoke with him briefly said just really shined in the spring practice as well as this summer. He’s going to be that starting quarterback for sure. One thing they had to continuum with is they did lose Paul Terry. He was the Lifestyle Frisco MVP for the Raccoons a year ago. He’s going to head on over to his old school up near Amarillo but you better believe they’re going to have the right man for the right offense in that situation.
Next up we have the Heritage Coyotes. This is Frisco ISD’s biggest surprise from last year. The Coyotes pre-season really nobody saw them able to make the post-season but they did and with authority. They were D2 regional semi-finalist just like the aforementioned Colony. This year their returning studs Bubba Ogbebor, easy for me to say, and Kene Nwangwu. That’s a running back and wide receiver respectively. They did lose last year’s Lifestyle Frisco MVP quarterback Malik Walker but I spoke with the head coach and a [Mo-ray 00:04:43] Jones, a sophomore is going to step in and Coach Hendrix is convinced that he’s not only a step or two faster but he has a stronger arm so watch for the Heritage Coyotes, could be scary.
We have the Independence Knights it’s their second year and of course they’re coming off that first season and they didn’t have any seniors last year, brand new start up high school but now the flip side of that is they have 44 returning starters and they all have a full year of experience under their belts in 9-5A. Keep your eyes on Myles Russell who actually scored the school’s first touchdown their second game of the season last year and quarterback Kyle Saddler.
Of course the Wakeland Wolverines, can’t forget about them. Noah Anderson is an intriguing player. He got the majority of the snaps quarterback last year but he’s now going to Segway from full-time QB to wide receiver to really take advantage of that explosive speed. The Wolverines will look to fill that spot the quarterback that Anderson vacated but they’ve got a large bevy of underclassmen fighting for that role. Keep your eyes [peel 00:05:34] for that. One thing for sure is Justin Williams the team’s leader in tackles and also an excellent wide receiver is gone. He’ll now be playing football at the University of Illinois but filling his shoes will be Tanner Euting. He had a hundred and twelve tackles last year and is even bigger and stronger this year. So look for Euting to have another big season.
The Colony. They’re not Frisco schools but you got to watch out for them too. The Colony is easy to overlook, they’re just flying under the radar but they were a surprise a year ago as, well, just like the Heritage Coyotes the original semi-finalist and of course as is their hallmark they return an excellent running back it’s Khalil Banks. He was a fifteen hundred yard rusher last season and he has a gigantic [o-line 00:06:13] that averages about 280 pounds with which to run behind. Keep your eyes on that.
The Little Elm Lobos they’re still kind of going through some growing pains. A couple of years ago they’re in the mix. They had Kaleb Chapman who was just a grounded pound runner. He’s been gone now for two years and they’re still looking to fill in that gap. They look to improve over last year’s one win season but they do have a … Let’s see they’ve only lost, excuse me, four letterman from a year ago so they will have some experience.
Lastly but not least we’re going to talk about the Frisco Legacy Christian Eagles. Kind of like Lone Star they had a tougher time transitioning but they jumped up to a much more difficult district. They went from tabs D2-3 to tabs D2-2. Kind of ran the table as far as non-district then started playing the Dallas Christians and the [inaudible 00:06:57] both very experienced teams. I talked to Coach Embry and he said one of the biggest difficulties with them to overcome last year was just the fact that they were outmanned. All of a sudden you go to play a team that has a full 25 guys on the bench at any time and they can just rotate them in and out so they’re always fresh.
They do have a larger squad this year, to the Eagles of Legacy Christian but they’re going to try a little bit of a platoon advantage to keep those guys rested and once again you can’t underestimate having a full year under your belt to play in a tougher district. They have Chase Eisenman who returns an eighteen hundred yard rusher, he’s going to be the key of the offense. They do have a bit of a quarterback issue as Tanner Lee who was probably going to be the starter at a cap has decided to focus fully on baseball but regardless this year look for the Legacy Christian Eagles to certainly improve upon their district record of just one win a year ago. Should be a lot of fun.
Scott Ellis: All right Tim thanks for the rundown. Okay. I’m going to ask you one question.
Tim Howell: Bring it.
Scott Ellis: I’m going to put you on the spot and we’re going to record this so everybody can hear it. If there is any one of the Frisco football teams that you think is going to be the standout, that really has a chance to go to distance this year, who would you pick?
Tim Howell: All right well thanks Scott. Sure I’d go with the Heritage Coyotes. Coach Hendrix has an excellent offense in place. Like I said last year they’re under the radar, they did use a stud, they lost their stud quarterback Malik Walker but now there’s some [Mo-ray 00:08:15] Jones get I’ve had the opportunity to watch a couple of practices. He’s really, really electric. That with Nwangwu and Ogbebor you might have a three of the best offensive players in the district with the Heritage Coyotes so watch out. I do think they’re going to be play-off bound for certain.
Scott Ellis: All right I like it. We’re going to come back mid-season and review this and see how we’re doing how’s that sound?
Tim Howell: We’ll see. We want to bet at some right?
Scott Ellis: Yeah we’ll see how we do. There’s no editing now. It’s on record, we’ve got you. All right Frisco that is it for this week’s episode. Have a great week and we will talk to you next week on the Frisco Podcast.