DFW completes the takedown in 6A this year with Duncanville and Desoto winning all the marbles. This is the first DFW sweep since 2014 and 2013 (Allen, Cedar Hill). Most remarkably, Duncanville and Desoto are the first teams from the same district to win state in the two Division format (big school) since 1995 when Converse Judson and San Antonio Roosevelt did it. We explore further in our 2022 State Championship Recap.
The state championship games this year were the biggest examples of the “Jimmys and Joes” you’ll ever see. Desoto won comfortably over Vandegrift, and it should have been 20 points more on the margin. Duncanville – North Shore was the total “freak show” that it has been over the four editions so far. You won’t see more talent than that on the field anywhere else in the country at the high school level.
Athletes and speed everywhere for Duncanville, North Shore, and Desoto. We can talk about what might been happening at mega schools like Duncanville and North Shore in terms of open enrollment opportunity and their unique locations / situations in small ISDs.
Regardless of how it is happening, the talent Duncanville and North Shore have put on the field the past 4 to 5 seasons is unlike anything I have seen in Texas High School Football. There has been little to no drop off over these consecutive seasons, and that is not normal by any metric. Both areas were regarded as proverbial “sleeping giants” before they exploded given their locations in traditional talent hotbeds with consistently big enrollments for a long period of time.
I don’t see how any “regular” program competes with what they are doing right now honestly. By regular program, I mean one whose process would involve building a serious contender once every 3 to 4 seasons if it is lucky (like Katy). Jimmy and Joe wise, Katy is very much regular compared to a Duncanville or North Shore. Westlake is the best placed program to compete at a state level annually as they are a factory in their own right with minimal interference in terms of new schools around them or district politics. But there are very, very few programs in the state capable of producing what North Shore and Duncanville are putting out there right now.
If this is the landscape we are dealing with, programs with aspirations of playing at the highest level displayed by North Shore and Duncanville have to figure out how to compete more effectively in the space / speed game football has become. Part of that equation is having better athletes because the modern game requires the one on one ability. The other part of it is building the right mentality particularly on the defensive side of the ball intensity wise.
When you play against great athletes, you can’t have any liabilities on the perimeter in the physical sense and that’s one of the toughest pieces of talent to find outside of the quarterback position in my opinion. You are talking about someone who needs to be one of the best athletes on the team and also has a street fighter mentality. That’s a big time player you need, and preferably more than one. And I am prioritizing the street fighter over everything else because there are no guarantees class to class talent wise. But we can craft a mentality.
I am not sure what the formula is now, but in the past Katy’s general formula for each class was the best athlete would typically be the running back (or free safety), and then almost all of the next 10 best athletes would end up on defense (typically your defensive backs and linebackers).
I feel like programs who can’t boast complete 4×100 relay teams at RB, WR, and DB would need to load their defense first and foremost. I believe Katy more or less loaded up on defense over the years, so that’s why we tend to look pretty bad when our defenses develop any big weaknesses. The whole wall comes tumbling down so to speak.
Again, I would emphasize strongly the game of football is not just about athletes and especially not camp or underwear Olympic heroes. What North Shore and Duncanville have, and Desoto also proved it had this year, is athletes with the right mentality. Especially on defense, mentality is everything and I can tell you from personal experience that North Shore has always trained in a very specific mindset thanks to David Aymond’s influence on the program. Junkyard dogs.
Each season has me more and more convinced that it’ll be darn near impossible for a multi-school ISD program to get anywhere near what Katy has managed with 9 state championships. When you look at the list of most prolific state champions, they are smaller town programs or single school ISD types. What Katy has achieved in the suburban explosion era I don’t think will ever be done again by a school in a similar situation with the rate things are being built and how attendance zones are changing as quickly as they are.
