Breaking down the area's district races
Looking at 2-5A D-II, 4-3A D-I and 6-2A D-II that start this week
It’s time for district football for about half the area’s teams. I’m a proponent of bigger districts so the fact the area has four seven-team groupings excites me.
Here’s some analysis of the districts that start this week:
DISTRICT 2-5A DIVISION II
What pigskinprep.com predicts: 1. Lubbock-Cooper; 2. Memorial; 3. Abilene Wylie; 4. Abilene Cooper; 5. Amarillo Palo Duro; 6. Plainview; 7. Legacy
Records: Lubbock-Cooper (3-1), Memorial (3-1), Palo Duro (3-1), Abilene Wylie (2-1), Plainview (2-2), Abilene Cooper (1-3), Legacy (0-4).
My thoughts: Injuries have hampered Legacy’s season and Plainview historically hasn’t been able to hang with its district counterparts, so in my mind, this is a five-team race fighting for four berths. I think Lubbock-Cooper is a comfortable favorite – the Pirates’ lone loss was by nine points to a Frenship team that is rolling right now. There’s no shame in Memorial’s only loss (24 points against Frenship) and Wylie’s only loss (22 points against Stephenville). Abilene Cooper may be 1-3, but those include single-digit defeats to Azle, Abilene and San Angelo Central. The Cougars are scoring a bunch (37 ppg) but giving up more points than I would’ve thought. Palo Duro has been the biggest non-district surprise as the Dons swept the three Amarillo ISD teams and narrowly lost to Canyon. They’ve been playing low-scoring games so I’m interested in seeing if they can win a shootout. Memorial has an interesting schedule because it plays the four biggest games first (with a bye thrown in) before ending with Plainview and Legacy. So we’ll know after this week (home vs. Abilene Cooper) and next week (at Palo Duro) where the Mavericks stand. Go 2-0 and they’re in great shape. A 1-1 mark means they need to beat Wylie in a few weeks. I’d argue the Abilene Cooper at Memorial game this week is the area’s best matchup.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Zach Duncan's Red River Roundup to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.