TEPPER: Texas high school football playoffs look more wide-open then ever

With three weeks left in the 2017 Texas high school football regular season, the postseason picture is beginning to come into focus. Sure, things can (and will) change, but we have at least a rough outline of what the brackets are going to look like. Like you, I browsed through Matt Stepp’s playoff projections, his predictions for what the brackets will look like. There are a few small things I disagree with him on, but overall, I think Stepp’s got the overall shape of the playoff picture pretty squared away. But while rolling through the projected brackets, a nagging thought struck me: Uh…where are the favorites? Think back to last season. By my count, as the playoffs began, there were no fewer than five teams that could be listed as prohibitive favorites in their brackets — Aledo in 5A Division II; West Orange-Stark in 4A DII; Refugio in 2A DI; Bremond in 2A DII; and Richland Springs in 1A DII. This year? That number might be…zero. Take a look, bracket by bracket — again, going off of Matt Stepp’s subject-to-change playoff projections — and find me the team that you’re absolutely sure is going to win the title. In Class 6A, Division I might be the most loaded bracket in recent memory, so while Katy, Allen, Converse Judson, The Woodlands, Lake Travis, Spring Westfield, Sachse and others look like state title contenders…there can only be one. 6A Division II is, in many respects, the opposite — a lack of an alpha dog opens the door for anything from a Klein Collins or Hewitt Midway breakthrough, to a DeSoto repeat. In 5A, Manvel looks like as good a pick in any in Class 5A, but from perennial powers like Cedar Park and Highland Park to resurgent squads like Angleton and Denton Ryan to deep sleepers like Colleyville Heritage and Dripping Springs, it’s far from a sure thing. 5A Division II might have the closest thing to a “prohibitive favorite” in Aledo, but there are landmines everywhere — be it Grapevine and Abilene Cooper in its own region, Frisco Lone Star or Mansfield Legacy in a semifinal, or Corpus Christi Calallen or Fort Bend Marshall in a title game. 4A Division I has a lead dog in defending champ Carthage, but the division is so loaded with contenders that it may go as many as 16 deep. West Orange-Stark is the king of 4A Division II until someone says otherwise, but they’ve never faced a group of teams like they’re likely to face, including Cuero, Pleasant Grove, Graham, Sweetwater and Geronimo Navarro. How sure are you of how 3A Division I will shake out? Wall has the most impressive résumé, but the margin between them and say, George West seems awful thin — that’s parity at the top. And don’t get me started on 3A Division II — I count no fewer than 12 teams that I could picture winning that title. There are three teams in the conversation for the 2A Division I crown right now — any order you want to put Mart, Mason and Refugio is fine by me. And that’s not even counting teams like DeLeon, San Augustine and Abernathy, who would love to ruin your bracket. The 2A Division II slate looks more open than it has in past years thanks to Bremond returning to the pack, and that could open the door for teams like Muenster, Tenaha, Albany, Burton, Wellington, Milano, Falls City, and so on. And while six-man football tends to have more of a divide between the contenders and the rest of the pack, that’s not so this year. Class 1A Division I has at least one bona fide contender in each region (something we haven’t always been able to say), while Richland Springs looks at least human in 1A Division II, especially with the rise of teams like Strawn, Milford, Valley and Balmorhea. Any of those teams strike you as locks to hoist the hardware come Christmastime? Me neither. And that’s what should make this year so mesmerizing to watch.