Denton RC High School

FIRST and FOREMOST, if you didn't travel to The Colony to watch Ryan drop the Cougars twice on Friday then you missed one heck of a night for high school basketball.

First, the Ryan girls stunned the packed house by beating The Colony behind De'Amber Wilhite's 32 points (Wow, she is good) to force a tie atop the District 5-4A standings.
Then, two hours later, the Ryan boys were dancing on The Colony's home floor after winning 48-46 behind the 3-headed monster of Trey Mohair, Bud Sasser and Adam Choplick to move the Raiders into a tie for first place with the Cougars.

Both wins were impressive.
Ryan boys head coach Bryce Overstreet told me after the game it was one of the best nights of basketball he has ever been a part of.

And surprise, surprise! There's two Denton ISD players on the team. Any guesses?

Yep, Ryan QB Scotty Young was named to the second-team offense, and Guyer DT Taylor Bible was named to the second-team defense.

Both players will sign with their respective colleges in the morning and these are just one more piece of icing on a huge piece of cake full of accolades. Congrats to both for their fine careers.

Well, as you might have read in the DRC today, Guyer quarterback J.W. Walsh has orally committed to Oklahoma State, which means, of course, he has more than a year before he can officially sign his name on the dotted line.

Walsh got the offer at 3:30 p.m., and called Mike "I'm a man, I'm 40" Gundy at 7:30 to commit. Then he gave me a ring. Pretty quick turnaround, quicker than normal anyway.

Walsh already had offers from Kansas, Arizona, Arizona State, Houston, Iowa State and Baylor, but had a list of four "dream schools", as he called them: Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and TCU. All those schools had shown great interest in Walsh, and I'd imagine at least two more of those would have offered him. Texas was down to Walsh and Connor Ash, and one of them was set to get that offer next weekend at Texas' junior day.

But all along, Texas and Oklahoma State were on the top of his list, and he took the chance when he got it.

"When you have two schools you really like and one offers you, you can hold out for the other school even though they might not offer, so it was just perfect timing on their part," Walsh said. "There's nothing I don't like about the school. They just got brand new facilities and it's unbelievable. It's close to home and I just felt like I was excited and thought this was place for me."

This is a note that did not make Tuesday morning's newspaper. But I felt like it should be addressed.

Guyer won't face local rivals next season
Since Lake Dallas and Ryan are not on Guyer's district schedule next season, Wildcats head coach John Walsh had hoped he could convince Young or Florence to play his team in nondistrict play. He didn't get his wish.

"Rivalries are about tradition," he said. "When you begin a rivalry that turns into atmosphere the Ryan and Lake Dallas [games] did you hate to lose it. It's kind of a downer right now, but we'll just go find some other rivals."

Florence and Young said they both entertained the idea, but when it came down to it, they wanted to do what was best for their programs.

"We talked about it," Young said. "But realistically we just didn't see it happening. It comes down to numbers and they are a much bigger school than we are."

Florence added: "It just didn't work out. We had talked about it but we just found other teams to play."

Denton ISD athletic director Ken Purcell is sad to see the rivalries take a break.

"You're always disappointed to lose a great rivalry like that, but that's just the way the cards fall," he said. "There's not much you can do."

OK folks, first of all, just to refresh everyone's memory, this is a forum for you guys to have it out, but let's keep the language PG. So no more words that rhyme with "growing a rack" or ummm, starts with a p but nothing really rhymes with.

Anyway, on to what matters:

As we know, Guyer will be 5A in the fall and has its schedule drawn out for the 2010 season. After I'm done with this post, I'll go back to "Part 1" and update it with opponents' 2009 records and whether or not I think the game will be a win, even though that's basically for my own amusement because it's impossible to say right now.

Like all the coaches I spoke with today said, Guyer will be plenty competitive in football next year. They will be a playoff team barring unforeseen circumstances, and would match up with District 8, which is the LISD/Allen/Plano ISD district, likely the toughest in the state.

There was some talk that legendary coach G.A. Moore was not going to return to the sidelines next season if Aubrey moved to Class 3A.
Aubrey did move up to Class 3A on Monday along with rival Pilot Point.
Moore told me today he is staying put and will join the Chaparrals for the move from Class 2A to Class 3A.
"As far as I know I am still the coach," he said. "I plan on coaching next year."

Moore has been here before. He knows how to coach at the 3A level and he knows it will be a challenge for the Chaps.
But he was able to work his magic last season in a tough District 10-2A by losing only one regular season game.

District 9-3A will be a tough one and is loaded with area teams. Along with Pilot Point and Aubrey, local teams Argyle and Sanger will be in this district.
Raise your hand if you are looking forward to Argyle-Pilot Point next year? Heck, too bad we didn't get to see those two schools face off last year.

Argyle should really breeze through that district. Head football coach Todd Rodgers won't admit it, but I have a feeling the Eagles will be undefeated in district play again next year.
Pilot Point should get the second playoff spot even though it loses a lot of talent, including DRC All Area MVP Jarman Johnson.
Expect Aubrey and Sanger to fight for the third and final playoff spot out of that district. My nod goes to Moore and Aubrey.

On a side note: Ponder hired a new football coach recently after Patrick McLarty opted to take a position in the administrative offices. The new coach is Rubin Covington, who was an assistant under McLarty.
Covington will lead Ponder into its first varsity football season next year.

Just got home from North Richland Hills. It was my first time to cover a UIL realignment event. Pretty hectic. Pretty cool sight to see.

A nice sight to see for Lake Dallas coach Michael Young, Ryan coach Joey Florence and Denton coach Randy Patzkowski was that Guyer made the move up to 5A.

They are all happy.
And you can't really blame them. Guyer's football program is a lot larger and will be a lot stronger than the three previous schools mentioned.
And let's face it, Guyer belongs at the 5A level.

No longer will Denton, Ryan and Lake Dallas play in District 5-4A. They will play in District 4-4A will 5-4A holdovers Little Elm, The Colony, Wichita Falls and Wichita Falls Rider.

Young was surprised the Falcons did not move into a district away from Denton ISD and Wichita Falls ISD schools. Some "experts" had projected that Lake Dallas, Little Elm and The Colony would move north. But that was not the case and Young is pleased his team will be familar with its district opponents the next two seasons.

Early projection for the district: Ryan, Lake Dallas, Rider, Little Elm, The Colony, Denton, Wichita Falls.

One thing that today's announcement ruined was that some rivalry games will not be on the slate this season.

Guyer wanted to face Lake Dallas and Ryan in nondistrict action but when it came down to it, coaches on both sides could not make it happen. Is this good or bad?

I can see both sides.

It would have been nice to see Ryan and Lake Dallas square off with Guyer for rivalry and atmosphere reasons.

But if you were Young or Florence, would you want to play 5A Guyer? I didn't think so.

Ryan's and Lake Dallas' nondistrict schedules are still no cake walks. Click the jump for Ryan's, Denton's and Lake Dallas' nondistrict schedule.

Well, I just got home from North Richland Hills for the biennial realignment bash, complete with Sunny D Fruit Punch (Yum).

I've got some more running around to do, but will give more thoughts later on, as I'm sure Muench will as well. I mostly concentrated on Guyer, because as we all guessed, the Wildcats moved up to Class 5A and will have a new challenge on their hands in District 7-5A.

The rest of District 5-4A remained intact, but changed its name to District 4-4A.

Funny story, Joey Florence made the rare appearance in blue jeans and boots. He told me it was because he had a feeling Ryan would be going West, and he was dead on. The Raiders will match up with District 3-4A in the first round of the playoffs, featuring Amarillo and Canyon schools as well as Wolfforth Frenship.

Follow the jump for Guyer's schedule, and keep checking back for updates throughout the day.

So, in today's editions of The Dallas Morning News, Brandon George wrote a story in advance of Monday's realignment, which both myself and Matthew Muench will be attending at Birdville.

Brandon's story is the first I've seen in any print whatsoever that says Guyer will stay at Class 4A with confidence. So yeah, I'm saying I'll be surprised if Guyer heads into Tuesday as a Class 4A school for the next two years. Every prediction I've seen has the Wildcats moving up to Class 5A, even though that would require the 5A cutoff to drop for the first time in ages. Guyer's enrollment number of 2,074 is smaller than the cutoff was two years ago, so based on that alone, it would seem Guyer is safe.

Guyer junior quarterback J.W. Walsh took a trip down I-35 today to Waco and spent the day with Art Briles and Baylor's offensive staff, and left with a scholarship offer.

Walsh would be a good fit in Baylor's offense if he can get over the fact that he's going to school in Waco. In all seriousness, it's a little funny because Briles and John Walsh used to be huge rivals in the Stephenville-Brownwood storied rivalry when Briles was winning state titles for the Yellowjackets. So far, it's safe to say Briles is one of those high school coaches who has made a very successful jump to the college level, though let's not kid ourselves, he was an assistant for a short time before moving up to the top dog position.

This makes Kansas, Arizona, Arizona State, Iowa State, Houston and Baylor as schools who have extended offers to Walsh, who is set to be one of the top QB prospects in the country next year.

The Denton boys and girls basketball teams will not be bussing to Wichita Falls this afternoon for its scheduled doubleheader against Wichita Falls Rider.

Snow and icy road conditions have forced the games to be rescheduled until Saturday.
The boys will face Rider at 3 p.m. while the girls will tipoff at 1 p.m.

And again, just to show what kind of talent we had in this area this year, there are two Denton ISD players on the team, which is one of the most prestigious, longest running All-America teams in the land, the Parade All-American, which is in its 47th year.

One of seven quarterbacks on the team? You guessed, one Scotty Young of Billy Ryan HS.

One of 18 total "linemen" (I guess OL and DL are lumped in together), one Taylor Bible of John Guyer HS.

See the complete list here, as well as the top 50 Parade All-Americans of all time. You'll notice some pretty big names on that list.

Congrats to Scotty and Taylor. I'm guessing this will be in the Sunday edition of the Parade insert in your newspaper this week.

As you'll read about in Saturday's editions of the DRC, Friday's 67-64 Guyer loss to Wichita Falls Rider hurt the Wildcats. Really badly.

It wasn't the fact that it was their fifth straight loss. That's hard, but that's not why it grates at them so badly.

Guyer had the game won. The Wildcats were winning by six points with just more than three minutes to go before head coach Nathan Moses made what he called a mistake -- making a substitution with Rider inbounding the ball under its own basket.

Sharp shooter Christian Sagar broke free, caught the inbound, and drained a 3-pointer to cut Guyer's lead in half spurring a 13-0 and possibly Guyer's postseason hopes.

Former Lake Dallas quarterback James Franklin, yes, I can call him "former" now as he is now a student at the University of Missouri as of Monday, is getting all kinds of love from Tiger Nation.

The first-class, heady dual-threat monster has a chance to earn some playing time next season even, and it's highly unlikely he'll redshirt. I think of all of the Division I signees we will have, Franklin has the best chance to make an immediate impact.

Check out what the folks in Columbia have to say about Franklin, as you can tell, they're pretty excited to get him.

Just got finished talking to Ryan quarterback Scotty Young via the wonders of Facebook chat, and the record-setting senior has decided to stick with his original oral commitment with Texas Tech after the well publicized firing of iconic head coach Mike Leach at the end of December.

The new hire, Tommy Tuberville, will be bringing with him a bit more balanced offense under OC Neal Brown than Leach's "Air Raid" offense, but Young was sold after a visit from Tuberville, Brown and former Tech QB/graduate assistant Sonny Cumbie.

"Went great. Definitely Tech now," were Young's words about the visit.

He said he was looking forward to the renovations Brown would bring and was glad to have Cumbie retained from Leach's staff.

You know that's a relief for Scotty, who had his college plans instantly turned upside down when Tech fired Leach on Dec. 30. He had committed to Tech in March.

Look for more in Wednesday's paper from our boy, Matt Muench.

Be sure to check out the DRC on Sunday to see the 2009 All-Area football team.

As I'm sure everyone on our staff will agree with me on, this year was by far the most insanely talented group of players to choose from we've ever seen. There are a ton of really good players on the second team, and a few more that are nowhere to be found.

Some tough decisions had to be made, as was evidenced by a near-three-hour meeting that didn't even resolve everything. At last count, we had 19 Division I commitments in the area, which is absolutely unheard of.

Let's hope this isn't the case, but breaking news just now said that Louisiana Tech head coach Derek Dooley is set to replace Lane Kiffin at Tennessee.

How does this affect Burton? Well, the Guyer defensive standout orally committed to Kansas earlier this year, before former coach Mark Mangino ate his scholarship offer, pun intended. Then, Burton tore his second ACL in two years and his future was in doubt. Then, Dooley and La. Tech held its offer for Burton and Burton committed, sealing his college future despite the hardship of another catastrophic knee injury.

Now, with two weeks until signing day, Burton's future is a bit up in the air again. It seems to be too close to signing day for it to affect him. Let's hope that's the case. That'd be a sad turn of events for the kid.

This year has been gut-wrenching for high school football recruits with so many high-profile coaching jobs changing this late in the game. It's been a bit unprecedented.

Just heard from John Walsh that Guyer will be playing Waxahachie in Zero Week to start the 2010 football season, and the game will be played at TheOldCoach.com Classic at Carrollton's Standridge Stadium, where Guyer opened its 2009 season with a win over Newman Smith.

In related news, former DRC staffer Jeff Andrews' sports dream just came true.

That makes two "classics" in the first two weeks for Guyer, which means they might not have a home game until district play. Also, it appears Guyer-Ryan is less and less likely to happen should Guyer move up to 5A, which would be unfortunate for the city, district and both schools' fans. But it is what it is.

It's official, the Guyer Wildcats will play in the 2010 Kirk Herbstreit Classic at Cowboys Stadium on Labor Day, and it will be televised on Fox Sports Southwest.

The time isn't known yet, but I believe they played a quadrupleheader or possibly a tripleheader there last year, so it could be any time of day, and the Wildcats will be playing.... drumroll please....

The Cedar Hill Longhorns.

It could be a matchup of a state-ranked 5A team and a state-ranked 4A team, but it will most likely be a matchup of a state-ranked 5A team and a new 5A team getting its feet wet. Either way, it'll be entertaining and will be a great measuring stick for where Guyer stands early in the season.

Ryan quarterback Scotty Young did not get his wish. The coach who recruited him at Texas Tech, Lincoln Riley, was not retained by new Red Raiders coach Tommy Tuberville on Wednesday.

So now, "What will Scotty do?" is the question.

Last week he told me it would be hard for him to stay committed to Tech if Lincoln Riley was not part of Tech's coaching staff.

Since it is a dead week in recruiting, Young cannot talk to coaches from Tech or any other school until Friday.

He told me he plans on talking to Tech coaches, including new offensive coordinator Neal Brown on Friday to see where they stand and then he will make a decision.

This has to be tough news for Scotty to hear that Riley is gone.

Since March he has been committed to Tech and over the last month everything has turned into a mess up in Lubbock. If he does decommitt he will have to start the whole recruiting process over.

Word on the street is Notre Dame will be making a move to try and snatch up Young.

I'll let you know more once I hear from Scotty.