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| LONGVIEW - Since 2000, there have been 10 teams ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press' preseason college football poll. One eventually won a national title: the University of Southern California in 2004.
Living up to such preseason expectations isn't easy, but the next 10 teams simply need to come to East Texas to find out how to handle such lofty expectations. Area teams Longview, Carthage and Daingerfield are playing for state titles today, while Gilmer is in the afterglow of winning the Class 3A Division I state title last Saturday. Add Cayuga to the mix (Class A Division II), and East Texas could end up bringing home exactly half of the state championship hardware given out by the University Interscholastic League this season. Making it even more impressive is the fact all five of the teams mentioned have had a bull's eye on them since August. Dave Campbell's Texas football had Longview (Class 4A), Gilmer (3A), Daingerfield (2A) and Cayuga (1A) as the top-ranked teams in its preseason polls, while Carthage was ranked No. 2 in the 3A poll in June. In August the Associated Press had identical rankings. Later in August, the Longview News-Journal's 2009 version of the Zone season preview had a headline which read, "Who'll bring home the hardware in '09?" With a Longview Lobo, a Carthage Bulldog, a Gilmer Buckeye and a Daingerfield Tiger on the cover. Topping it off, Carthage and Daingerfield were coming off state championship seasons in 2008, while Longview was a state runner-up. Expectations, to say the least, were high and those are some high expectations to saddle a bunch of teenagers with. How Longview, Carthage and Daingerfield handled this expectations going into today have three things in common...how they handled the preseason, a regular-season setback and preparing for today's final step. Several Longview players said it was interesting how the school and community handled being ranked No. 1. Longview cornerback Alonte Darden said the bandwagon fans were interesting, but he took one such adulations in small doses. "You take in the ranking a little, but you an't let it go to you head," Darden said. "That's when you mess up." Longview linebacker Chris Weaver said his team knew it would take a lot more than just showing up for games to live up to those expectations. "In the preseason, people said we should make it to a state championship game," Weaver said. "It's harder to do it than say it. Last year wasn't an easy ride. It wasn't given to us." Carthage coach Scott Surratt said with 11 starters returning, there was hope, but an element of luck had to be around too. "We had a lot of proven players coming back, but we just had to find guys for the positions that weren't proven. Another big thing was staying health," Surratt said. "We thought the most important thing was to get out skill kids better and stay health, and so far that's happened." Daingerfield coach Barry Bowman also said staying healthy was important. He believed his team had a chance to get back to this point too with 13 returning starters, but there were no guarantees. "This year's team is completely different from last year's, even though we got a lot of the same players back," Bowman said. "You have got to have some breaks too, and fortunately we've had enough breaks to still be playing." Is an early loss actually a good thing when it comes to long-term goals? Longview and Daingerfield got the chance to answer that question. Longview dropped a 28-14 road game to Lufkin on Sept. 18. Longview coach John King said the Lufkin game got his team's attention, and his team found out ti wasn't as good as it thought it was. Senior offensive guard Bryce Redman said the game was a wake up call for the Lobos, and ended up being a good thing. "After the Lufkin games. Lot of the pressure was off," Redman said. "Of course you want to go 16-0, but I think the loss helped us. It redirected our focus." The next week, Gilmer handed Daingerfield a 43-20 defeat. While Daingerfield residents obviously don't enjoy losing to a longtime rival such as Gilmer, the Buckeyes may have done Daingerfield a favor. "Gilmer beat us pretty good, but I thought we played pretty well against them. We fumbled the ball on the two-yard line going in with the score 22-6 and we turned it over again on downs inside the 10, so we left a couple touchdowns on the field," Bowman said. "We knew they were very good and felt like they would be playing for a championship. I guess you could use that as a measuring stick." Carthage has yet to taste defeat, but the Bulldogs did have to rebound from a sub-par game. Surrat said he was not pleased with his team's 21-17 win over Jacksonville on Sept. 25. "We felt like a big turning point was when we didn't play very good at all against Jacksonville, but came back in the end and came out with the win," Surratt said. "We knew this team was special then. With the character of this team we knew in adverse situations like that we were going to come out on top." The scare against Jacksonville, and some internal fixing during the open week that followed turned out to be the trigger for the Bulldogs. Carthage's average victory margin since the Jacksonville game is 24.3 points, encoring confidence on making it back to a state-title game. "We never had any doubts," Surratt said. "We knew what our weaknesses were. We knew we had to get better at the skill positions and defensively at some certain spots, but we knew if we could get to the open week, focus on that and work on it we had a shot." Daingerfield has seen a similar run to Carthage, but with more dominance. Daingerfield has won by an average of 40.3 points since the Gilmer game, beating every team by at least a 21-point spread. "We've played well for the most part," Bowman said. "We've had some times in the last couple of games where we have not executed great, but we've also played better teams in the last couple of weeks." While making it to the state-championship game is living up to expectations to an extent, is it fulfilling those expectations? For Longview players this week, the answer is generally no. Longview quarterback Aaron Johnson said there is excitement making it to a state-title game, but he's not surprised about making it there. Weaver said the expectations are not making it to a state-title game, but winning it, sentiments echoed by receiver Carey Fortson. "Not winning the state championship would be real disappointing," Fortson said. "The goal hasn't been accomplished. There's nothing to celebrate yet." |