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Just a thought here and I understand there might be some controversy around this. I think Crosby's implosion and PNG's ascension should teach us a couple very important lessons. 1) We overvalue the effect of athletes (bo's and joes) on the success of a program and undervalue the effect of coaching. 2) Great coaches will get the enrollment involved and working. At the end of the day the single most important thing for late playoff success is depth and coaching. Yes losing a great QB/RB/WR/LB can end a season early but if you don't have depth at all the "not superstar" positions and if the backups aren't just as willing, able and wanting to play as the starters you cannot have success at the highest levels. I think this is true because of a couple of reasons, Winner win. If you are successful and win others want to be a part of that, from that 6'8 300 lbs kid that's never touched a football to that 5'6 kid who will run through a wall to get his chance. They all are important and they all need to feel like part of the team. If you win then no one cares about being the backup. If you win people will be happy to just be on the team. If you win you can have 65 athletes on Varsity every single year. Even a team without elite athletics' talent can execute plays at a high level if they are well coached. Practice times, culture of work, and accountability set the standards for developing 14 year old's into athletic 17 years old's. That being said great coaches can overcome program deficiencies that previously existed. Crosby and PNG prove this. PNG has no more talent now than it has for the last decade. Crosby has no less talent than it has for the last decade. It's about how that talent is coached, brought through the system, and executes daily. My ramblings.

Science teaches - to have a fire you need three things… fuel, air, and ignition source. I’d argue that to have a TOP TIER football program, you need athletes, coaching, and community support. Sometimes you end up with a really talented bunch of kids or a really exceptional coach and it’s the last thing that you needed… but not “the biggest reason for our success.” You can look at the recent local rises and falls of historic programs and take your own conclusions, but the fact remains… you’ve got to have all three to be consistently successful. Did Coach Rowe at Bellville finally learn how to coach over the summer? No, he’s got a good group of kids. PNG has shut a lot of mouths that said “you’ll never see another SC from mid-county-they don’t have the athletes.” WOS is an example of what a great coach (or a not-so-good coach) can accomplish with a group of good athletes. It takes all three (talent, coaching, and support) with the first two being almost equally important and the last being a minority third.

Your opinion: When the new coach was hired at WOS, the talent just happened to fall off at the same time? Or could there be another reason for their team’s downfall from what they’ve been used to?

Only folks who never coached will say this lol

We always vote for the lesser of evils. Haley isn’t my first choice but she is definitely in the lesser of evils category.

He wasn't gonna walk away from a 2000 yard rusher and senior led team destined to win the DC. Especially considering they wanted him and made exceptions to put off the official hiring process.

NDN Press will be audio only APPROVED: NDN Press has been APPROVED to broadcast this Saturday’s state final game with South Oak Cliff. While the broadcast will again stream to our website, it will be AUDIO ONLY, as the UIL broadcast partners have exclusive rights to live video of the game. The bottom line is that our student broadcast team — which has called every game this season — WILL be allowed to finish out on the biggest stage of the season! Kickoff is scheduled for 11 a.m. The NDN Press pre-game show will begin at roughly 10:45 a.m., with Kaiden Lunceford (‘27), Clayton Proffitt (‘27) and Ella Owens (‘26). As always, you also catch the state final action live on Cool 92.5 FM, with Francis, Lance and Rachael. 💜 We had 8.4K watching last week — a NEW RECORD viewership audience, despite moving from YouTube to an embedded stream on our website. No matter how you get your broadcast info — from the official PNG Radio & NDN Press teams, we will bring you all the up-to-the minute information on Game Day. We thank you for listening and supporting the broadcasts that support our community. We will do our best to bring another great broadcast as we take SHOWTIME back on the road! 💜🤍💜🤍💜 #PNGproud #AlwaysBeFaithful #CaptureLife #txhsfb #StudentMedia #ItsShowtime

No one is forcing you to be in this thread, trust me I'd rather you not be.

A great read from one of our young reporters Carter Yates [Hidden Content]

If PA didn’t have the talent that they have you wouldn’t even be mentioning them with the likes of NS. If had the right coach with no talent PA would still get their butts kicked only diff is it’d be a lot worse.

Let’s look at PAM. In my opinion they should be the NorthShore of 5A. They have talent all over the field. That talent can’t seem to equate to a deep playoff run. If PAM had the right coach, they would dominate. This is an example of where Coaching matters more than talent. You can have all the talent in the world, but with no guidance, you aren’t going to make those deep runs.

I've noticed a similar change in the dynamic among the fans, too. Y'all know I went to Alabama. At Alabama, there's immense social pressure to never rush the field or go overboard in response to a win. The crowds will get very involved at key moments in the game, but after the win, it's three rounds of "Rammer Jammer" and then we exit the stadium in an efficient and orderly fashion. The general response an Alabama fan will give you if you ask about it is something along the lines of, we don't get overly excited about any one win because we always expect to win. Perfection, competing for a championship perennially and consistent, disciplined execution are the norm there. Whether it's an out-of-conference game or a national championship, winning is our business. We act like we've been there before because we have been there before, we're there now and we know we'll be back there again a bunch more in the future. It's nice to see that culture shift take hold at PN-G.

I think y’all are changing the narrative…of course coaching matters but we’re talking about the MAIN ingredient it takes to win. Why do yall think college football programs spend the most money on recruiting? Let’s look at all the teams who made the state title game in 6A…what do they all have in common? Plenty of Division 1 talent…again 90% of having a successful football program is TALENT! Jimmy & Joes> X&O’s Barber’s Hill hired the coach from Allen who won multiple state champions & what happened? Did he forget how to coach when he got there? Katy lost in the second round for the first time in forever…did Gary Joseph forget how to coach? I can go on & on, again only people who’ve never coached will tell you coaching matters over talent lol At NS we ran a 4-3 Cover 0 scheme…which allowed us to put 7 in the box and sit our DB’s on an island with no help over the top! Being a secondary coach it helped that I had 5 Division 1 players in the secondary including guys like 5 star Denver Harris & 5 Star Devin Sanchez at corner. Do yall think NS would be able to run defense like that without talent? Now imagine if we had a bunch of slow a** average joes out there at DB.

Just an observation on the last 2 semi games. Last year when the clock struck 0, the players went wild celebrating and rushed the field. All that work and they achieved their goal to get to state. This year when Shea took the knee in victory formation, there were hugs and handshakes. A lot more subdued and businesslike celebration. They expected to win and expected to be back at state. They have unfinished business to take care of. It may take a near perfect game to win, but I don’t doubt they can pull it off.

Smalley to BC Peevey to OF Heard it here first!

Hear me out… maybe it takes Coaching and Talent?

Bout Carthage? until the Lord of the Rings came along they had 1 appearance in state title game in the early 90s. He takes over and suddenly a record breaking juggernaut is created with the same bloodlines and talent that has always been there.

Why then, did PnG get obliterated in the 3rd round in 2021 (we could barely make a tackle), bring back most of the same key players, and go straight to state the next year? And then, with a new crop of guys, we go straight back? Conventional wisdom said the Mid County schools had no hope to recreate the success of the 70s. Look at us now. The main variable that changed was the coaching. PNG went from a team that couldn’t even sort of hang with the best, to a team that could beat the best. Coaching is the most important factor, most of the time. I refuse to believe that West Orange suddenly doesn’t have good players. What - was there a chemical leak in the hospital nursery exactly sixteen years ago? Did the gene pool change? What about Hampshire Fannet? They went from bottom-dwelling nobodies to a disciplined, smart, tough, athletic unit - They just happen to have good players now?

Damn we don't agree on alot but you right on this one. 💯

Stats from yesterday's game. Bottley was balling. Clearly getting in b-ball shape now. Lamarcus Bottley: 19pts, 5 assists, 4 steals, 3 rebounds Jared Harris: 18pts, 8 assists, 5 rebounds Payton Jones: 15pts, 3 rebounds Troy Rice: 8pts, 4 rebounds, 1 block

lots of coaches who can't develop the talent they have say this.....

Who does he want United to play? The Lakers?

Please don't. All of our 1st or 3rd round losses have been to either a regional finalist, champ, state finalist, or state champ. We are not the same and our path is affected by the 1st round district and or region. Dist 7 5A was 3-1 against this district and were the last district standing to get out of the region. 5A Div2 reg 3 has an easier path. Apples and Oranges when you look at the data

So your argument is that Jason Todd's coaching is not up to Jeff Joseph's level? That's nonsense. Todd can run with the best of them in the state and then some. Of course you have to have talent, but coaching is what makes talent successful. Lots of talented teams are going home early every year because of subpar coaching. Not too many great coaches are making early exits because they lack supreme talent. Of course, there are also those coaches who coach 5 division 1 defensive backs and even that level of talent isn't enough to ensure they can stay on the sidelines......

Pop Quiz Who has the highest rated D-1 recruit in this game?

1. Westbrook 2. Benjamin 3. Timpson 4. Mart 5. Franklin 6. Gunter 7. Chapel Hill 8. Bellville 9. Aledo 10. South Oak Cliff 11. Duncanville TIEBREAKER 12. DeSoto

Palestine Westwood 62 Crockett 66

Shouldn't you be making a million dollars a minute somewhere selling vacuum cleaners instead of telling us how non athletic PNG is?

Did I make a post anywhere that states “the only thing needed to win is talent”? Or is this another example of SETX forum misquote and incomprehension? For clarification: Talent > Coaching. No coach can win without players capable of executing the plays. Not even debatable

If he s horrible then you must really despise Biden

I’ll lean towards coaching… but you better have the talent level to go with it. You shouldn’t have to have Duncanville talent every year to win, but you have to have athleticism. But a head coach, perhaps more importantly the staff he hires, and the culture he instills is most important in the success of a program…. Just my opinion.

Rooting for em to get em one tomorrow night.

Thank you very much

You once said if Trump won the election in 2016, you would leave the site. Yet, here you are. UT alum will be back, Democrats can’t be trusted.

This can be said for the other tale of two cities: PNG and Nederland. And the answer is obvious. One coach has been able to develop the talent he has to win and the other doesn’t have the ability to do the same. Remember they have access to the same type kids!

Who do you want them to play? Gorman?

1. Westbrook 2. Benjamin 3. Timpson 4. Mart 5. Franklin 6. Gunter 7. Anna 8. Bellville 9. Aledo 10. South Oak Cliff 11. Duncanville TIEBREAKER 12. DeSoto

What’s with all this who should play who stuff? Looks to me like it was a very competitive game and both teams should have gotten better from it. If your goal is to win championships, that’s all that really matters from a pre-district game.

You have no clue what you’re talking about man.

Hard to argue that.

Thank you very much

Good luck to PNG hope you can bring it home. It's a daunting test in SOC.

Yes sir, we sure did. And we about to beat Bellville.

I think the YMBL had a better field than the LaGrange La. tourney United played in last week. I get what you are saying. I think United "could" play a more tougher schedule and be just fine. But playing a couple of local teams, including Silsbee, doesn't hurt their program. As long as Green and Sigler are coaching those two teams, they will always play each other. That's a fact.

I have had several discussions with local coaches and to a man, nobody thinks it really helps one team over another. Me personally, I think it helps the aggressive defensive team because after each quarter, the foul count is reset to zero. A team can foul more than 5 times in first quarter but not have to worry about their opponent going to the line the remainder of the half. It's got it's pros and cons. I know it takes some getting used to even with the game officials. Heck I have had to correct a couple officials in a couple of games this season. So far this season I have yet to see a game be decided by the new foul format and I have seen over 60 games so far this season.

You offered or you were offered?

Click bait post for Tiger fans.

Good Luck PNG ! Pulling for y'all to win it all ! Y'all are the best team on this side of the bracket . Carry us all and get that Championship !

When does Toby start?

55% and 38% sounds like a potential improvement over in BC.