Inside the 25: West Brook, Alamo Heights, Crockett stacked with talent

Editor's Note: "Inside The 25" counts down the '08 preseason top 25 rankings in all five 11-man classifications, taking a closer look at each team in the rankings, starting from No. 25 and working down to the No. 1 teams in each classification.

CLASS 5A's #12: Beaumont West Brook
2007 Preseason Ranking/Final Ranking: NR/NR
2007 Final Record/Playoff Finish: 10-2/DII area finalists
Why They're Ranked: Preseason rankings are very similar to recruiting rankings, in that depending on who you ask, you'll get a different assessment. To illustrate this point, let's take Christine Michael, West Brook's talented RB who has rushed for more than 1,000 yards in each of the past two seasons. When DCTF hit the shelves this summer, we rated Michael a Texas Top 300 player (and top 20 RB), but not on the Super Team, meaning, at the very least, we rated six RBs slightly ahead. But Lone Star Recruiting has Michael as a Top 10 player in all of Texas. There's an obvious disparity, and that's the case with Michael's team as well. While we ranked WB 12th overall, our friends at 5ATexasFootball.com just barely squeezed WB in their poll, ranking the team 25th. We can't speak for what others are thinking, but our confidence in WB comes from several areas, primarily the specialty of coach Craig Stump: the offense. Aside from Michael, there's QB Christian Louis, a 2,000-yard passer last fall, with nearly one-fourth of those yards going to WR Jordan Grant, There's the all-senior OL that returns three starters. The defense returns six starter's (to the offense's eight), and you might expect a drop-off after five members of last year's team signed DI scholarships. But if the defense can just approach the level of last year's unit, WB's offense might be good enough to make up for the difference.