The Texas 20, No. 12: What's the best region in the state?

[caption id="attachment_17906" align="alignleft" width="300"]Photo by Andy Tolbert Photo by Andy Tolbert[/caption] This is the Texas 20, DCTF’s countdown of the 20 biggest storylines heading into the 2015 football season.No. 20: Is there a college sleeper in Texas?No. 19: Which Texas high school football records will be broken? No. 18: State title games headed to Houston No. 17: Will anyone play defense this season? No. 16: Can Allen keep dominating without Kyler Murray? No. 15: Cameron Yoe’s chase for a fourth straight title No. 14: New coaches at SMU and HoustonNo. 13: Can DeSoto finally get over the hump?Today, we’ve reached No. 12: What will be the best region in the state? This is the sort of question that is infinitely skewed by your personal viewing preferences. If you’re strictly a 6A football fan, there’s very little doubt that Region I offers the most bang for the buck, with 5 teams in the AP preseason Top 10, and the big-name powerhouses (non-Katy division) seemingly always found in the late rounds of the playoffs, like DeSoto, Allen, Dentons Ryan and Guyer, Euless Trinity, Cedar Hill, Southlake Carroll, and on and on and on. Heck, it’s even got old school name power with Midland Lee and Odessa Permian. But if you step back and take a look at all of the top programs from 2A to 6A, and examine all the regions, a funny thing happens. It turns out Region I and the DFW area do not hold as many Top 10 teams as another region. Of the 40 total teams ranked in the Top 10 of the AP preseason poll, a whopping 17 reside in Region III. Region I holds 13, Region II holds 11, and Region IV brings up the rear with 9. Here are the teams that Region III has to offer: Katy, Manvel, Temple, Crosby, Richmond George Ranch, Navasota, West Orange-Stark, Carthage, La Grange, Cameron Yoe, Newton, Kirbyville, Franklin, Teague, East Chambers, Tenaha, and Alto. That’s a pretty salty group. But put another way, if you line up each region’s top teams side by side, who would you take on strength from top to bottom? Screen Shot 2015-08-18 at 5.03.49 PM Here's the thing, there's no question that from top to bottom, Region III is the deepest and most treacherous. That said, Region I is holding three No. 1's and you could argue (we certainly have at DCTF) that DeSoto should be No. 1 in 6A. Throw in the fact that Region I is top heavy with 6A teams and Region III is weighted on the other end by very talented, but not as deep squads, and we're going to lean toward Region I being king this year. And now we will watch as Region III (or Region II or IV) swiftly humbles us.