What's Up With Wills: Wylie Coach Predicted State Run

Editor's Note: Todd Wills writes on Greater Dallas and Collin County high school sports players and teams every Monday on VYPE.com/collincounty and VYPE.com/greaterdallas. By Todd Wills When Wylie lost to nationally-ranked Plano, 38-31, way back on Oct. 3, Pirates coach Bill Howard offered a thought to Wildcats coach Jaydon McCullough as they shook hands after a thrilling game. McCullough, in an interview a few months ago, told me that Howard told him, "I think we were coaching two teams that will be playing in a state championship game at the end of December." Howard was of course correct about his own team. Wylie will play Katy at 2 p.m. Saturday in the 5A Division II State Final. And Howard was correct that 8-5A would have two teams playing in a 5A state title game -- Allen, which Wylie lost to 31-28 in an anti-climatic last game of the regular season -- will play Fort Bend Hightower in the 5A Division I State Final at 7 p.m. Saturday at Reliant Stadium. Plano had a terrific team, especially on offense led by running back Rex Burkhead, and gave No. 1 Euless Trinity all it could handle in a second-round playoff game last month. The Wildcats' defense just wasn't tuned up for a championship run. So it turned out to be Wylie, with its outstanding defense and solid offense, that was best built for a state title run out of the two teams that met in that October 3rd game at Clark Field. And it may have been that loss to Plano that was the turning point in the season for Wylie, which was 5-0 before that loss. At least that's what Howard says. "At that time I thought we were pretty good, and Plano was really good," Howard said Monday. "We played really poorly in that first half against Plano. And Plano had a lot of media attention and a top ranking. Our kids thought we couldn't beat them. They took advantage of us not being aggressive." Hearing that Wylie, a program built on playing hard and its aggressiveness -- some coaches from Denton and Richardson have said too hard -- lacked aggressiveness in a football game would be akin to hearing Terrell Owens saying he's getting too many passes thrown his way. It's just unheard of. Playing an aggressive style of football is Wylie's calling card. "Our kids were mad at themselves at halftime," Howard said. "We didn't play well on offense, and we still had a chance to get a first down in the fourth quarter and ice the game. "It took our kids a couple of weeks to get over that loss, but after that they realized they had a chance to be a special team." Wylie lost another game a month later to Allen, but that was different, Howard said. It was a well-played, close game, but both teams had already clinched a playoff spot, and an even with a district title at stake, in this day of four teams making the postseason out of each 5A district, winning district has lost its luster. Being a third-place team and making it to the state finals for the first time in 30 years, that's what it's all about for a school like Wylie. And to think Howard called his team's shot back in early October. Remarkable. GAME OF THE WEEK - Celina (12-3) vs. Carthage (3-2) I saw Carthage warm up for a game against Rockdale at Corsicana's Tiger Stadium a few weeks ago and I must say they had an impressive array of athletes. And Carthage has stormed through the playoffs, its latest win a 41-14 thrashing of Giddings. We know all about Celina's eight state titles and the Bobcats going for state-record No. 9. But let's face it, this didn't seem possible a month ago when Celina entered the playoffs with three losses. The Bobcats always seem to peak in the playoffs. Cody Worrell and Troy McCartney combined for 403 yards in last week's 40-12 pounding of Liberty Hill last week. It's very difficult to go against Celina in a state final. HOT TEAMS VYPE HOT 10 TEAMS (OR THREE) Each week we will rank the area teams in order of who has the best chance to win a state championship: 1. Allen (14-1). Doesn't matter who's playing QB for the Eagles. They're going to win. 2. Wylie (13-2). The Pirates have to be a heavy favorite against Katy. 3. Celina (12-3). Celina -- the name speaks for itself. VYPE HOT 10 TOPICS -- ONLINE 1. There is so much to write on about Allen's dramatic 23-21 win over Round Rock Stony Point. Dakarai Pecikonis' game-winning catch. Another huge play by Steven Terrell with an interception return for a touchdown. Running back Jeremiah Williams continuing to play great. But the key again is the mastery of coach Tom Westerberg and his offensive coaches for having their quarterbacks prepared for anything. Westerberg brought in Matt Brown, the Eagles' original starter this season who was injured earlier in the playoffs, in place of Tucker Carter on the game-winning drive. Brown, an excellent runner, gave Allen a dual threat on its biggest drive of the season trailing 21-17. But Brown had to come out of the game -- I guess because he re-injured himself -- so re-enter Carter, who led the Eagles on the game-winning drive that included a fourth-and-four converted by an offside penalty and Carter's lofted pass to Pecikonis with 39 seconds left in the game. 2. As good as Brown and Pecikonis, Nate Bonsu, Jeremy Reeves and others have been this season, Terrell has to be the team MVP. He has been a huge factor against opposing passing game and always seems to come up with a huge play. 3. Wylie has not allowed a point in the second half in its last two games. Keith Whitmire of The Dallas Morning News wrote an excellent article on the Pirates being a second-half wonder in last week's Morning News. Howard gives a lot of the credit to the late Billy Whitman, one of my all-time favorite assistant coaches. I got to know Whitman well when I was covering Wylie for the Morning News and hung out with him one afternoon during inner-school suspension class he was in charge of. Wow those kids loved him. Whitman had a saying, "The team that hits the hardest and the longest is going to win the ballgame." Whitman would be very proud of these Pirates and the way they fight. 4. Howard says that he's been asked several times what "AHMO" means on the front of Wylie's jerseys. Well it's a Wylie tradition with their motto being "AHMO kick your....fill in the blank. Of course Wylie also offers some more politically correct definitions, but you get the point. Wylie could be a win away from putting AHMO on the map much like Odessa Permian first put MOJO on the map a long time ago. 5. It's tempting to pick Carthage against Celina -- the Bulldogs might be the better team on paper -- but it's also tempting to favor the Bobcats after looking at five of their scoring drives in the 40-12 win over Liberty Hill. 82, 80, 88, 80 and 85. Yep, that's what Celina did to a Liberty Hill team that was on a 38-game winning streak and that had defeated Celina, 22-19, in the 2006 Class 3A Division II title game. So go ahead, pick against Celina. I'm not. 6. I do recall an email I got from a Carthage fan before their third-round playoff game against Rockdale: "Pay attention Friday night Mr. Wills. You will be witnessing that 2008 3A Div. II state champion and it won't be Rockdale." Well, that e-mailer is one win from being correct. 7. It's great to see my former colleague David Hinojosa covering Celina in the playoffs for the Morning News. Hinojosa, who left the paper last month, is one of the leading authorities on Celina's eight state titles. Seeing David cover Celina brings back a great memory of a 2003 area-round playoff game David and I covered together between Celina and Gilmer at Richardson's Wildcat-Ram Stadium. That Gilmer team had standout receiver Manny Johnson, now of the Oklahoma Sooners. Anyway, toward the end of the game, with Gilmer about to end Celina's season, an oldtimer of a reporter from Gilmer wearing a fedora said the following, "It's going to be a long drive back to Celina for the Bobcats." Or it may have been their radio announcers. I can't remember. David and I got a huge kick out of and started a dialogue out loud in the press box. I asked David, "Isn't it just like 30 miles from Richardson to Celina." To which he replied, "yep, and you just take Beltline to Preston, hang a right and take 289 all the way into Celina." To which I said. "And they get to pass by that state championship board outside of their stadium." To which David said, "And they'll get to see their six state championship trophies and they won't feel as bad." Good times. 8. OK, here are my state title picks that I made last week: Allen, Wylie, Longview, Everman, Prosper, Liberty Hill, Kirbyville, Cisco, Canadian, Albany and Cayuga. Prosper and Canadian, as you can see in bold, have won state titles. Kirbyville lost in its state title game. Everman, Liberty Hill and Albany have been eliminated. 9. OK, 5A and 4A picks. In 5A Division I, I'm picking Allen over Fort Bend Hightower. Nothing is going to stop Allen now. And in 5A Division II, I'll take Wylie over Katy. This Katy team just isn't your usual Katy team. In 4A Division I, I'll go with Longview to upset 15-0 Lake Travis and Sulphur Springs to beat Dayton. 10. Finally, in 3A Division II I'll stick with Celina over Carthage. In 2A Division II, I'll go with Cisco over Daingerfield. And in 1A Division II, give me Cayuga over Stratford. THE RANDOMNESS THAT IS ME 1. Thanks be to God that the T.O saga is over. Notice I didn't call it the Jason Witten saga or the Tony Romo saga. I'm a Terrell Owens fan as a player. He's not what he used to be but he's still a playmaker. But T.O. went way too far in going to assistant Jason Garrett along with Roy Williams and Patrick Crayton about the Romo-Witten good-ole boy network. Look, I have no problem with them wanting the ball, but Romo should have been in on the discussion. And it could be just as Garrett reacted. Then throw in the way Owens has responded to the controversy and his inability to be gracious after the win over Giants and talk about how great of a player Witten is. Well, that was classless and just tells us what kind of a man this guy is. 2. The Cowboys will make the playoffs. They'll beat Baltimore, and even if they don't win in Philadelphia in the last game of the season, I think enough will happen to get in the playoffs. Maybe another Tampa Bay loss this week to San Diego will do it. 3. "Friday Night Lights." Best episode of the year last Wednesday. I won't give anything away. If Season 3 is it, this one will be remembered. 4. Watch "Chuck." Watch it. 5. Can't wait for bowl season to start Saturday. I love the bowls. But I'm finally swayed toward a playoff.