Familiar faces atop first AP Texas HS rankings

[caption id="attachment_17735" align="alignleft" width="300"]Photo by Russell Wilburn Photo by Russell Wilburn[/caption] The Associated Press preseason Texas high school football poll is out, and there is little surprise in the No. 1 teams in the state. Three-time defending champion Allen tops the Class 6A rankings, even without star QB Kyler Murray. Aledo — searching for its sixth title in seven years — is the 5A No. 1, while defending Division I champion Navasota is tops in 4A. In the smaller schools, three-time 3A DI defending champion Cameron Yoe is No. 1 in Class 3A, while defending Division I champ Canadian is the 2A top dog. Overall, the rankings are solid — pretty similar to DCTF's preseason rankings! Good job, AP voters! Now let's talk about why the AP rankings are absolutely, positively insane. As Texas high school football fans know, Class 4A, 3A, 2A and 1A are pre-divided into divisions — that is to say, there is a 4A Division I and a 4A Division II, each with their own champion. So what in the wide, wide world of sports is the AP doing with consolidated rankings in those classifications? There is only one set of AP rankings in Class 4A, meaning that they rank the top 10 teams in the class regardless of division. So, in this case, Navasota (a Division I team) is No. 1, and Gilmer (a Division II team) is No. 3. Why? Those two teams will never need to compete against one another. This would be like saying that the Houston Texans are the best team in the NFC, despite the fact that they play in the AFC. It would be one thing if we had a winner-take-all state championship game between the Division I and Division II squads. But we don't, rendering the AP poll below Class 5A more of an exercise in what-if than in reality. This isn't to knock the voters — again, I largely agree with their preseason rankings. But the paradigm in which the Class 4A, 3A and 2A rankings operate just simply isn't reflective of the current Texas high school football structure. Here are the complete preseason AP rankings:

Class 6A 1. Allen (14) 2. DeSoto (8) 3. Katy (2) 4. Cedar Hill (1) 5. Manvel 6. Cibolo Steele 7. Dallas Skyline 8. Euless Trinity 9. Denton Guyer 10. Converse Judson Others receiving votes: Southlake Carroll, Pearland, Spring Westfield, Lake Travis, Dickinson, Arlington Martin, Austin Westlake, Hewitt Midway, San Antonio Brennan.