Five BIG Things in Texas High School Football

10/23/13

Its that time again… time for my Five BIG Things! These are the things that stood out for me recently as it relates to Texas high school football. As usual, they are not listed in order of importance – just as they come to me.

1. Bullying... Really? You've all heard the news by now that a Fort Worth Western Hills parent filed a bullying complaint after his son's team lost 91-0 to Aledo.  If Aledo's coach Tim Buchanan had left his starters in and tried to run up the score, I would certainly call him out for being a jerk, but he didn't and he is not.  Not only is the charge an insult to Buchanan and the Bearcats, but it is an insult to Texas high school football.

More importantly, and overlooked by a lot of people taking sides in this story is how this cheapens the term "bullying."   The laws against bullying were put into place for important reasons to defend kids being picked on by other kids... not parents getting their feelings hurt because of a football mismatch.  It cheapens and makes a mockery of those real kids with real bullying problems.

2. "Experts" come up short again – First, let me say I have been involved in media for 30 years and consider myself a professional so this is not aimed at anyone who writes or provides media coverage on any platform.  It is aimed at the perception that the internet is NOT professional.

We occasionally get comments about being "just a website" or "hobbyists," and that is the biggest fallacy surrounding internet media coverage.  The staff at Lone Star Gridiron has more "professional" media experience than any other statewide site and the ten years we've been doing this is just the tip of our experience iceberg.

A tweet came in before last week's game between Dallas Highland Park and Mesquite Poteet.

@pxpdoug: 4 of 5 "experts" on @LSGridiron pick HP over Poteet while 6 of 7 writers for @dallasnews pick Poteet to win.See who knows best 10:30 @TXA21 

If anyone should have quotation marks around the title of expert, it should be traditional media.

As it turns out - Highland Park won the game easily and the poster did give us props in a followup tweet.

@pxpdoug: Highland Park looked incredible beating Poteet 41-26 last night. Congrats to the crew at @LSGridiron for calling it. DMN not so much.

Us beating the "experts" in traditional media is nothing new.  It has been going on since before we started LSG.  It's not their fault - many of their pigskin prognosticators are kids right out of J-school or regional experts that don't have the chops statewide to make solid predictions.  Don't even get me started on what a flawed system the AP polls are!

We'll keep providing you with great insight and analysis.  We'll keep doing better than the johnny-come-latelys with traditional old school media companies.  We'll keep giving props to everyone who does it right.  We'll keep promoting and loving "the greatest sport in the greatest state."

3.  Katy Seven Lakes is for real! – Okay, every team gets a wake-up call at some point, but Katy needed something more than their "system" to get by Seven Lakes in their 17-12 victory.  I was so impressed with the way Katy Seven Lakes played in the loss and rest assured, you will see some action from these guys come playoff time.  Talk about a morale booster!  If they didn't believe in themselves before this game, they should be on fire now.

4. It's almost over 🙁 – Okay, just the regular season is almost over - but that's still kinda sad.  Don't get me wrong, the "second season" (playoffs) is a barnstorming fun ride, but I just want there to be Texas high school football every week, all year.  Is that too much to ask? 

If you haven't taken the opportunity to get out and watch some games...  I can't emphasize how important it is to get going.  Before you know it, we will be sitting in January wondering how we will ever last until August.  Sure, we get a fix with 7 on 7, but its just not the same.

Get out there this week!!!  While you're there - take some photos to send in and call the voicemail line to give a shoutout to your team or give us a wrap up of the game 713-568-6361!!

5. No time for dirt – It seems like once a day we are approached with a "breaking story" or some insight into a scandal brewing somewhere around the state.  Our answer is always the same.  We are cheerleaders for #txhsfb - we do not dish the dirt.

Now, we will call someone out if they are doing something that is bad for our sport, but we don't care about most of the "stories" you see splattered all over the news as they add nothing to the game, give nothing to the fans and just generally leave you feeling worse for having read them.

I understand that everyone slows down to gawk at car wrecks and that it gets "eyeballs" in the media... but that is not our concern.  If we wanted more eyeballs, there are plenty of ways we could do that.  We want to provide useful information to Texas high school football fans - nothing more.

To that end, we are hard at work planning some MAJOR upgrades during this upcoming offseason.   Help keep us pointed in the right direction by filling out our Quick Three Question Survey.  We are excited to show what we've been working on... stay tuned!

Have a great week and stay connected!

by Chris Doelle
Lone Star Gridiron
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