JR1

When you look across the state, most of the schools that make deep runs in football struggle on the hardwood at the 3A level. The rare school that can do both, Argyle for instance, has a group of kids that are basketball only. We have the same thing at Madison. We only have three players on the varsity that crossover from football and that's a pretty high number for us as we usually have less than that playing both sports. Thankfully our AD realized that trying to get kids to play just football was a detriment to the athletic program as a whole and it didn't last too long. Our QB this past year spent the entire summer playing on a traveling AAU team so the transition from football to basketball isn't a big deal for him since he was playing all summer long. Next year's QB is on the varsity basketball team as a sophomore and is a big contributor. He's just a great athlete though and I expect to see him walk right out onto the football field and not be behind any of the football only kids once basketball is done. Kids that can jump from one sport to the next and play them at a high level are somewhat rare these days at 3A schools.

Unless he's grown since I saw him play during district, he's not 6'5". He is in the 225-230 range though.

I watched him play in person this year. He will be the best lineman in the state in the Class of 2013 and one of the best nationally. He plays with great technique on both sides of the ball and he's already a man among boys on the field. I don't know what's in the water up there in Celina, but goodness they always have some great linemen and that kid looks like he might wind up being the best of the bunch.

There are a lot of schools at the Class A level who do not have football teams. One that comes to mind is Lenorah Grady. They won a Class A championship in basketball and lost the Texas Cup matchup against Normangee I believe it was a few years back. Thank goodness the UIL did away with that comical setup.

I knew about the racial makeup of both schools. One of my favorite teachers in high school was from Windthorst. She was and is an awesome person though. Quite the volleyball and basketball player in her younger days. Her husband, Dan Antilley, who is from Graford and was a head basketball coach (They met during a game that he was officiating when she was still playing in college.) for several years in the 90's before leaving the profession, said she could dunk a volleyball. Not bad for a woman who is about 5'9" or 5'10".

Bartlett, a team with several black players on the roster, wins a close one in a big playoff game. At the conclusion of the game the Bartlett fans had the nerve to go onto the field to congratulate their players on a big win. Afterwards they are walking off the field and exit the stadium by walking through the bleachers on the homeside to get to the parking lot. Several morons from Falls City, for whatever reason, proceed to use the N word repeatedly as soon as the Bartlett fans get within earshot. The fans from Bartlett were just walking to their car and they were called the N word and every other name in the book. To their credit not a single one of them responded to the racial slurs being thrown in their direction. One guy from Falls City had the decency to step up and tell them to stop acting like that. It was a completely pathetic display of stupidity and ignorance that I've never seen before or since at a high school sporting event. It was just sad to see that there are places like Falls City who still have so many folks who think and act like that solely because of the color of someone's skin.

Well that's not good. I saw Falls City play Bartlett in 1998 at Nelson Field in Austin. I decided after that game that I'd never root for them to win another game ever. I still can't believe the ignorant racism I witnessed from their fans at the conclusion of that game. That's one place that I'll never, ever visit or even drive anywhere near.

What a performance today by Morgan and that offensive line. Those kids up front are just too good. Goodness they gave Morgan all the time he wanted today to throw the ball.

I'm trying not to laugh at the comments about Carthage being outcoached, but it's hard. Coach Surratt and his staff had the perfect gameplan for today's game and they were never seriously threatened by the Trojans. Coldspring is finding out the same thing everyone else they've played in the playoffs has found out. Dealing with that offensive line for four quarters is darn near impossible. Throw in Morgan having the greatest passing performance in a state championship game in the history of this state and you've got way too much for the Trojans to have to overcome.

I don't know that I'll be in attendance today because I've been a bit under the weather for around a week now, but I do hope y'all are able to get win #18 in a row today. A friend of mine is coming up from Sinton to see y'all play and I told her she's really going to enjoy watching your team play today. A win today would cap off one of the best runs of playoff dominance by a 3A team in history. I really do hope your Bulldogs find a way to win just one more game so you can get a 3-peat. With your coaching and the caliber of players y'all have I expect you to do it. I think Morgan and Holland will both have a good game today and that ridiculously good offensive line of yours will be the difference. Good luck to all of the Bulldog fans today and I hope you have another fun trip up to the Metroplex and that the ride back is spent celebrating a monumental accomplishment. God Bless and be safe out there on the road today.

Haha thanks DD. I just felt pretty confident that the things your Bulldogs were and are good at were better than the things the Lions were good at. I expected y'all to win that game and I expect you to win tomorrow as well. It turned out your coaches did a great job exploiting Brownwood's biggest weakness according to my friend who was at the game. I've seen enough Shipley coached teams over the last decade to know that they do not match up well with big physical teams that can run the ball like y'all do. I hope that we're able to play y'all again next season in the playoffs. I enjoy watching us play against great teams like Carthage even if we wind up on the wrong end of the scoreboard.

Thanks for saying that. I like to think I'm a nice person most of the time. Don't put me around too many Lincoln fans and I'm okay...lol. I hope the Little Trojans will be down in Austin again. If not I'll likely be down there because I've gone every year except for one since 1996. If you happen to go, let me know. I really felt good about Carthage winning that game last night for the reasons I listed yesterday afternoon. That offensive line is just too good and it's asking a lot of any defense to have to take that kind of physical pounding for an entire game. Throw in a big, physical back like Holland and you're putting something out there that's going to cause nightmares for opposing DC's. Having a leader like Morgan is probably the most impressive thing. The kid just didn't seem to make a single mistake when we played them. He was fun to watch. They had so many things that pointed in their favor last night (More experience, better coaching, the better field general, etc...) that it seemed like they'd ultimately find a way to win their 17th straight playoff game. It's really a remarkable accomplishment. There's some teams that I would say would have an emotional letdown after a game like that, but this group doesn't appear to have any such problems in that area. I hope they win next week and I'd like to be in attendance if we don't have a basketball game at the same time.

I hope y'all are able to extend your playoff winning streak to 17 games! This will likely be the toughest opponent you've played during the streak. I think you'll enjoy playing at Kincaide Stadium tonight. We play Lincoln there every year in the South Dallas Super Bowl. Traffic is going to be a nightmare though because the Chris Bosh Shootout is taking place all day long at Ellis Davis Fieldhouse in the south endzone. I really don't know where all of y'all are going to park at with that going on because there will be a lot of people at all of those basketball games. I think you can win tonight and I hope you do. I saw Brownwood in the 1st round of the playoffs and they look a lot like Shipley's Burnet teams from several years ago. They love to score early and build a big lead to make you have to get out of your gameplan. If you withstand the early onslaught and are ahead or tied going into the half I feel pretty good about your chances to win this one. If you do what Gainesville and Everman did and control the clock and run the ball early and often it causes Shipley to get frustrated. I watched him try to score as fast as possible in both those losses and it killed them each time. He tried to do the same thing at Coppell and it didn't work there either because he was going against teams that were equal or better than his team in terms of talent and coaching. Y'all have the better lineplay on both sides of the ball, a great leader at QB, the speed to be able to stay with the three WR's for Brownwood, and I'm sure your coaches will take advantage of those strengths. I'd love to get to see this game, but the Little Trojans are playing in the Flower Mound tournament at 8:30 against Flower Mound so I won't be able to attend (Our varsity assistant really wanted to see this game as well.). I have a friend that'll be updating me so I hope that by around 10 or so tonight that the winning streak will have reached 17 games. Safe travels to all of y'all that are on the road to Dallas and I hope it's an enjoyable trip back home after what is hopefully a win. God Bless and be safe.

You can't miss the stadium. It's right there off the highway on Polk Street. It's a really nice facility that has an 8000 seat basketball gym right behind the south endzone.

I'm not surprised at all that Wylie won this game. While CUJO has a great history, Wylie has a pretty nice recent history. AHMO lives to see another day. They really benefitted from Wylie East opening, thus allowing them to play in 4A again.

I like fans like you who can find something nice to say no matter what happens during the game.

A friend of mine who wasn't a fan of either team said something along these lines to me. "Argyle is a dirty team. I've never watched a team get more personal fouls than this.". Congratulations Carthage on your 16th straight playoff win. Go out and beat Brownwood for your 17th playoff win in a row!!!!

Carthage fans I just want to say that I'm proud of y'all for making it back to the state semi-finals after beating Argyle. Y'all are something else on that football field. Gosh I love teams that win playing some old school, run you over and you can't do anything about it, football. What I wouldn't give for my Little Trojans to be able to enjoy the success y'all have on the gridiron. I will be pulling for you 100 percent in the state semi-finals and depending upon the location, I'll be there to watch if the Little Trojans basketball team doesn't have a game the same night. You guys and gals should be very proud of what your Bulldogs have done this season as well as the prior two seasons. I hope that your playoff winning streak is at 18 games by the end of the season! I enjoyed reading the responses in this thread. I'll respond to them this weekend. My Little Trojans have to play the #22 team in 5A in basketball at 11am in the Beaumont YMBL tournament in Fort Bend Hightower (We beat New Orleans Walker 80-51 and Beaumont West Brook 71-51 in the first two games down there to get a shot to knock off an elite 5A school.) and I need to get some sleep so I'll be up to listen to the internet broadcast of the game since I couldn't make it down there for the game. This is a huge game for us on Saturday morning because if we win we get a rematch with Kimball in the championship game. They beat us 79-68 on Monday on their homecourt. That 6'7" QB, Bryce Pearson, didn't get to play because he had an injury in the game against y'all. He will play this weekend as will Ron Wilcots, who was one of his WR's in the game last Friday, as will another WR who played against your Bulldogs. Thanks for the kind words from each of y'all though about my Little Trojans football team following our game with your Bulldogs last Friday night. I really do appreciate it and I wish each of you the best and I hope you're able to take out Brownwood next week. You definitely have the coaching staff to pull it off! :)

I remember that they had a lot of fans just stay home because they thought that they wouldn't be able to get into the game. The whole thing was kinda silly to be honest.

It had nothing to do with wanting to play in Dallas. Highland Park wanted to play in a bigger stadium that would accomodate all of their fans. The only reason they didn't want to play in Tyler that year was due to the size of the stadium. If Tyler had a bigger stadium they wouldn't have thrown such a fit. I don't defend Highland Park at all because of what they did to a friend of mine and his team when they beat the Scots in the 1999 playoffs, as well as some stuff from a newspaper article that they said about Madison from the Coca-Cola tournament years ago, but wanting to play somewhere besides Tyler was only because of stadium size and nothing else. I did find it pretty funny when they had to go to Shreveport and were summarily spanked by Texas High the following season. That made everyone in the Metroplex who doesn't support the Scots pretty happy.

Sorry I didn't get to post this any earlier, but I went out of town for Thanksgiving to see family down near Austin and it was a 6 hour round trip drive to and from the game. It's nothing like the 1500 mile drive I've made the last two years from Dallas to Los Angeles for the Lakers Victory Parade (Really gotta get moved out to LA by next June to avoid another Victory Parade drive...lol. I'm a 24 years and counting Laker fanatic!), but it wore me out a bit. Just like I did in 2005 after Tatum beat us, I wanted to congratulate y'all on the win and wish you success in your quest for a 3-peat. East Texas football is kryptonite to us much the same way that DISD and Metroplex basketball teams have the same effect on East Texas basketball teams who we are usually kryptonite to. I really don't think I'll ever live long enough to see us or any other DISD team win a 3A football playoff game against an elite East Texas school, but that's okay. We'll continue to play the role of the coyote while you continue to be the roadrunner in our football matchups...lol. I enjoyed watching what a team with very good athletes coupled with very good coaching looks like. You folks out there in Carthage are spoiled to have such a great coaching staff like the one Coach Surratt has put together. It was as fun watching them as it was last time in 2008 when your Bulldogs took on the Whataburger High Bobcats in the state title game. If I were not pulling for my Trojans tonight I would've found myself rooting for the Bulldogs because I like watching teams that will line up and run right over you. Our fans know that I usually keep up with who we will be playing and I did tell them last week that the Gainesville game was going to be our last win of the season. I know my guys and I knew after last week that we just didn't have enough to end your now 15 game playoff winning streak. It was still the best team we've ever fielded, but our best was nowhere near good enough for an East Texas power like the team y'all get to root for every Friday night. I was legitimately surprised we made a game of it for a half, but I knew at some point y'all would assert your dominance and bring an end to our season. I can't complain at all about losing tonight. I've sat through much, much worse (2007 against Vincent McNeil and Roosevelt qualifies as much worse...lol). Tonight was the 71st straight Madison game I've been in attendance at and we've gone 53-18 over that stretch. I'll take that as a fan considering that it took Madison 161 games to get 53 wins in a stretch of mostly bad football that went from 1989 through most of 2004. I will say that the one good thing about the season ending is our basketball team gets our starting center back as well as the WR who wore #18 who is a key guy on our bench. We need both of them for Monday night's game with 4A #1 Kimball...lol. Again good luck and I look forward to seeing y'all play again when I get the chance! Go out and do what Gilmer and Tatum did after beating us and win a state title!

And I will be pulling for Gilmer to win this game. The only time I've ever not rooted for them since I saw them destroy us in 2004 was when they played Velt in 2007. I didn't like Velt but they were the DISD school. Other than that I pull for the Buckeyes to beat everyone else they play because I like their offense as well as their head coach.

LOL...I love how that mantra right there gets repeated anytime someone calls another person out for saying something silly. It's pretty comical to think that my feelings would be hurt over a message board. Like everyone else, I enjoy pointing out a ridiculous statement when one is made.

I see what you did there Grant...lol.

That wasn't a figure of speech. You didn't think there was a DISD fan on here. At least be honest.