What's Up with Wills: Look Out for Naaman Forest

Naaman Forest is a program on the rise. The Rangers had a great football team last year that lost in the playoffs to a very good Longview team. Naaman is back for more. Wins over Whitehouse and Lewisville. But last week's 34-13 drilling of Mesquite was one of those scores that makes you pause when flipping through the newspaper. The Rangers are a very good team. They are physical and athletic. There is depth. This is a sleeper team as far as going four or five or even six rounds in the playoffs. "We have a chance," Rangers coach Bill Patterson said Monday. "We're still in non-district, but we played pretty well obviously. Mesquite has a good football team. But we have five tough games before our open week." Just look at the Rangers' running back situation. Jonathon Miller, headed to Oklahoma, had 211 yards and five touchdowns last year. He had 26 carries. That might not happen again this season, at least once district starts. Naaman has another runner it needs to keep involved, Demario Broadnax, who already has seven touchdowns. His presence should help Patterson keep Miller fresh and around the 20-carry mark. Both are physical runners. "Anybody that knows Jonathon knows he doesn't mind sharing the load," Patterson said. "He's a team player all the way." Naaman plays a tough Plano West team and then has a treacherous four-game stretch against Lakeview, Sachse, Rowlett and North Garland before an open date. Then it's Garland after that. Then we can see what kind of playoff team Naaman will be this year. GAME OF THE WEEK -- Euless Trinity at Allen There's no doubt that Allen can present Trinity with some of the same problems Plano gave the Trojans last year in the state semifinals. Allen has a good balance on offense and has a running threat in quarterback Matt Brown, who is having a sensational start to the season. The most interesting thing I'll be watching for is how Allen's defense plays. It would appear judging the Eagles on their first three games that they are much improved on defense. But Trinity challenges you physically and athletically. It should be a great atmosphere at Allen, one of the last old-school football environments. Look for Allen's band to even be a factor in this one. HOT TEAMS Skyline. The Raiders get a big victory over Arlington Bowie and show that they can throw the football a little. Skyline QB Javia Hall completed 17 of 22 passes for 215 yards and four touchdowns. They took advantage of an injury to Bowie quarterback Christian Matthews, who weird is shouldn't miss much time. Colleyville Heritage. It doesn't really matter how poorly Plano East is playing right now. When you beat -- if I'm not mistaken -- the biggest school in all of 5A by a score of 63-7, you are doing something right. Colleyville has really developed a great summer program, its seven-on-seven teams are always good and that has carried over into the regular season. Highland Park. The Scots score 71 points in their third game, an offense that returned zero starters. That's almost unbelievable, but proves yet again that Randy Allen is the best coach in the state. VYPE HOT TEN TEAMS Each week will rank the area teams in order of who has the best chance to win a state championship: 1. Euless Trinity. Dominant win over Cedar Hill in a game some experts said could be an upset. 2. Plano. Developing reputation as second-half team. I think it's a good thing. 3. Southlake Carroll. Rained out. 4. Highland Park. What the Scots do week in and week out is amazing. 5. Carter. The Cowboys just keep getting better. 6. Everman. Just win baby. 7. Allen. Has something to prove against Trinity. 8. Garland Naaman Forest. The dark horse in 5A 9. Celina. Has to recover from 28-20 loss to Daingerfield 10. Skyline. If the Raiders' offense is this good, watch out. VYPE HOT 10 TOPICS -- ONLINE 1. The word is that Bowie's Christian Matthews might not play this week against Fort Worth Wyatt, but should be ready to go next week in the district opener against Arlington Martin. 2. Plano seems to be getting Rex Burkhead more and more involved in the offense, and Burkhead responded last week against Hebron with 376 all-purpose yards. He had 29 carries. But It still seems like Plano can be more creative with the ways they get Burkhead the ball. Maybe some more play action just to open things up for him if nothing else. 3. Forney running back Peter Smith is on a roll with three consecutive games over 200 yards. I saw Smith in his scrimmage against Corsicana and was impressed by didn't know he had this kind of ability. He is raising his stock as a recruit. He had 250 yards last week against McKinney North as Forney is 3-0 for the first time since 2001. 4. Garland and Lake Highlands played one of the games of the week with a 40-38 Owls win the ultimate result. Both offense moved the ball at well. Lake Highlands botched a field goal at the end. But one person I talked to who was at the game said that the Wildcats appeared to win the game on a late touchdown catch by Dionte Barrett, but the call was blown by the officials. 5. Get impressed by Richardson Berkner if you will. 3-0 start. JIm Ledford can really coach. Just find out how many college coaches stop by to ask about the midline dive. 6. One game to mark down on your calendars is Plano-Wylie on Oct. 3. As one Plano parent told me, Wylie always plays incredibly hard against us. Actually, the Pirates do that against everyone. 7. Denton Ryan is on a scoring roll with 71 points last week against McKinney and the Raiders took a knee four times in the final seconds. One former coach at Ryan told me that head coach Joey Florence told him this is the best offense the Raiders have ever had. Now that is scary considering the Justin Willis-led units. 8. Mickey Moss has Rockwall-Heath off to a 2-0 start. Duly noted. 9. Note to officials: Don't call holding on the backside with a team one yard away from a touchdown. It is a bogus, meaningless call. 10. DeSoto and Duncanville are playing this week in a non-district game which is ridiculous in its own right. But it's also insane that this game won't get talked about at all this week. Expect that to change in the next few years as this will return as one of the biggest area games of the season. The Randomness that is me 1. Yes, Ohio State took on the chin with another humiliating loss. You have to respect the Buckeyes for scheduling Southern Cal. But the Buckeyes and Beanie Wells should just slide right off the radar screen now. 2. Southern Cal is going to roll now. I am a huge Pac 10 fan, and last weekend was a disaster for my favorite conference. UCLA got drilled. Arizona State and Arizona were upset. Washington was crushed by OU. Stanford lost to TCU and Cal to Maryland. And the worst of all -- Washington State getting destroyed by Baylor. Oregon State and Oregon won, but the Ducks barely got out of Purdue and the Beavers played a doormat. 3. Baylor though might have the newcomer of the year in college football in Robert Griffin, who is doing what Tech's Michael Crabtree did last year. 4. Jay Cutler stars while Vince Young and Matt Leinart don't even play. Cutler can make all the throws and the other two simply can't. I'm not sure how good Denver is, but Cutler might be one of top two or three quarterbacks in the league.