7PM - Football: Vandegrift vs. Cedar Ridge

No, we didn’t just re-run the same article as last year when we also picked Vandegrift vs. Dripping Springs as our first VYPE Central Texas Game of the Week of 2025. Yet, we’d again be hard-pressed to pick a better game on the opening week docket than this one. (Honorable Mention goes to what used to be the Taco Shack Bowl -- now known as the “Shoal Creek Showdown” -- between Anderson and McCallum on Thursday night, 8/28).

Let’s start with the obvious: Coach Drew Sanders’ Vipers are the defensing 6A Division II state champions. And few teams have challenged Vandegrift in recent years quite like Dripping Springs, a program that’s slowly rising up the 6A power charts the way they used to populate 5A. (And credit where credit’s due to Cedar Park for outlasting Vandy in double overtime last year; the only blemish on a 15-1 record.)