.gif)
For Texas high school football fans, Dave Campbel l’s Texas Footbal l publication is the all-encompassing authority on the high school and alumni athletes that hail from the Lone Star. Every team in Texas can find their name in the pages of the yearly magazine. The teams of Colorado County are no different as they each had their turn to be the topic in the most recent edition of the publication. Texas Football takes a look at each of the varsity programs in the county, Columbus, Weimar and Rice Consolidated, and gives their predictions on the impact performers going into the 2023 football season this fall.
The Columbus Cardinals are predicted to have a strong season according to DCTF as they project the Cards to take the district championship back after losing it to Hitchcock last season. At least for the moment, DCTF has the Cards ranked a few spots higher than their district rivals, taking the no. 4 spot in their preseason 3A rankings. They mention the production of a few players when discussing why they predict such a high ranking for the Cardinals. The name first mentioned is quarterback Adam Schobel, who is moving into his junior year after amassing over five thousand yards and 64 touchdowns through the air since becoming the starting quarterback for the Cards as a freshman. The Baylor commit has increased his production from year-toyear, making a junior year bid to claim himself as the district’s top quarterback a reasonable expectation. Schobel will be backed up by the next name mentioned in the magazine for the Cards, Ty’vone Whitehead. Whitehead returns to the team for his senior season after running for one thousand yards last season to go along with 16 touchdowns. An All-State caliber sprinter during track season, he has the ability to break out for big plays as he had some of the longest runs from scrimmage for the Cards last season. He will look to keep the balance for the Cards on the offensive end, while a pair of defensive players will help keep the team balanced on both sides of the ball. DCTF moves on to discuss the production of lineman Daegan Stevens who will be looking to repeat his All-State level performance on the defensive line after finishing last season with over one hundred tackles that included nine for loss and three sacks. Stevens will have some solid backup himself as John Schobel, last year’s district defensive MVP, will return for an encore after 190 tackles last season. The magazine predicts that Schobel will once again be this year’s defensive MVP.
The Rice Raiders are projected to have an improved season despite DCTF not being confident they will be much higher in the district standings than last season’s performance. The magazine projects the Raiders to finish in the sixth-place spot for the second season in a row. Despite the low projection, DCTF gives reason to believe that at least the product on the field will be much improved from last season. The excerpt concedes that the Raiders “took some lumps” last season during a 3-7 campaign, but also suggests that the Raiders will “begin to turn the corner this season.” The first name mentioned in reference to Rice is that of Roger Gradney who will be entering his senior season. After running in the state track meet as a sprinter in the spring of his sophomore season, Gradney played just a few games of his junior year gridiron campaign after suffering a late injury that knocked him out from athletic activity until the 7 on 7 football action in the early summer. His state-level speed as well as his physical profile and build give Gradney the ability to play at multiple positions for the Raiders. While his position may fluctuate depending on the situation, a few of his teammates will be locking down their respective spots as Dyren Johnson and D’Neriyan Fuller return to play their junior seasons after showing much promise last year. For Johnson, he will be leading a running back room that already saw him take the lead as the main workhorse back. His speed and bigger body helped him fight for extra yards and break out for big plays that helped the Raiders have a much-improved offense last season. While the run game hopes to produce more big plays, Fuller hopes to have an impact as well in the passing game as the Raiders’ top receiver. His connection with graduated Raider Rafael Herrera accounted for many of Rice’s explosive plays through the air and passing touchdowns. While the starting QB has not by any means been decided yet for Rice, Fuller projects to continue being a deep target for whoever is standing under center.
The Weimar Wildcats section of the preseason rundown featured an emphasis on the importance of familiarity coming into head coach and athletic director Wade Griffin’s second football season and first offseason with the team. DCTF reports that nearly every starter from last year’s squad will be returning with hopes of improving on their 3-7 record. Despite the familiarity, Texas Football still predicts that the standings in 2023 will mirror last year’s final district standings with Weimar taking sixth place. With an offensive that nearly exclusively ran the ball last season, the offensive linemen got the shine as Weston Pavlik and Manny Gaytan received the spotlight in DCTF’s excerpt. The powerlifting linemen lead an experienced squad in the trenches on both sides of the ball as Weimar puts as much emphasis on stopping the run on defense as they do establishing the run on offense. Wyatt Lacina, Dreylon McMillian, Huxton Kloesel and Zach Norrell project to return as the main runners benefitting from a veteran line. While the Wildcats finished last district season with only a single win, three of their first five losses in the district schedule were by ten points or less, with just a few plays separating them from potentially securing victory. Texas Football writes that the Wildcats will be hoping that their “experience, size and strength” will be enough to make progress in the ground game despite not having the pure straight-line speed as some of their opponents.
The offseason still has several weeks before players return for camps prior to the season. The coaches of Colorado County will be anxious to see which of these projections will turn into reality for their respective squads.
