After the Paetow result and with the bye week next, here is where Katy’s state playoff outlook stands at this moment. Taylor beating Morton Ranch last night was actually significant in that it keeps Katy’s Division 1 chances in tact. Taylor holds the head to head tie-break over Cinco, so we have a five team race for four spots in 19-6A.
Katy’s playoff route doesn’t change a ton regardless of which Division the Tigers land in. The second round in Division 1 would be more interesting versus Cy Fair since they have a highly touted quarterback in Trey Owens (6’5 205 pounder, committed to Texas).
Katy would be looking at North Shore or Summer Creek in the third round either way provided those two finish as the top seeds. Atascocita and King would be the potential opponents otherwise. I watched North Shore against Summer Creek from last night (31-21 NS win), and they were more or less equals athletically. The game was close the entire time, and NS got a big piece of luck at the end when Summer Creek got called for punt catch interference when it was actually the North Shore man running into his own return man.
Summer Creek would have had the ball near midfield with four minutes remaining to tie it. Officials had a long conference and totally botched that call. Both NS and SC have elite defensive talent. Aside from Duncanville, not many other teams in the state are close to what they field across each position. SC and Atascocita were pretty closely matched on defense last year, but SC head and shoulders clear of them this season.
Knowing what kind of match-ups await Katy in a month or so potentially, I think this bye week will serve as a great opportunity to fine tune the fundamentals and maybe tweak the two-deep a bit to see if the Tigers can use the last part of district to really get things working for prime time.
In my opinion, Katy needs to develop as close to perfection as it can get fundamentally in order to compete with the athletic ability of teams like a North Shore or Summer Creek. The margin for error is extremely small to non-existent in that type of match-up.
There’s going to be a real 80s-90s Katy feel in the air when the playoffs arrive. Underdog Katy enters the “land of giants” so to speak. It’s been a while since the Tigers have been able to legitimately claim that role, and it’s definitely applicable this season. I look forward to it and to continue to follow this team’s journey. We have gotten so destination-focused with the absurd success of the program that the prospect of taking each week as it comes is a foreign idea to us now.
While I would prefer the favorite role (easier on the nerves), I enjoy seeing the program back in the position of having to punch above its weight, defy the odds and go one week at a time. A program in a mega-ISD just shouldn’t be able to do what Katy has done and maybe never will again. Everything nowadays, in terms of state championship pedigree, is geared towards the more “one horse town” districts with how mega the Katy, Cypress and Fort Bend ISDs of the area and state have become.
Images courtesy of Slone Photography.
