Cougar14.2

I think Flannigan really wanted the job and probably would've been the best hire PNG could've made. I'm pretty sure he's on the back 9 regarding his coaching career and may have been looking to get closer to his eventual retirement destination. He would also get the administrative AD position which he hasn't had since he coached at Crosby which was probably appealing also. I doubt it was about the money, he could've flirted with bigger openings in the Houston area if that was the case. I understand the excitement over the last name but it kind of feels like the Jeff Nations hire by Dayton after he had been out of football for a while. Nations was an elite level OC when Jerry Stewart was there supervising, he wasn't a very good head coach though. I hope it's a grand slam hire for PNG but the main question I have is what kind of staff will he be allowed to bring in/build with a bunch of guys already there that have ties to PNG? Is the PNG administration good with him coming in a firing everybody so he can build his version of a winner?

I don't think you're making that up at all. I'm saying it sounds like a fairytale compared to both sets of my grandparents' stories. My dad worked at the same place I do. When he hired on in April of 1977 as a 19 year old they used to scald the water fountain after he drank from it but he came from nothing so he dealt with it. In the same control center he worked for 37 years there's a picture of my grandpa circa 1950. He was called an "operator" but only made a fraction of the wages because of his color. Both sides of my family come from Louisiana plantations and my great grandpa share cropped in Big Cane on the same fields his family worked. When my grandpa was young the Klan burned down his school and he never went again because they never built another one. Plessy vs Ferguson made that common throughout the south though. Imagine being my uncle and having to fight the world's greatest racist in a segregated military then coming home and not being able to drink from the same water fountain as a German POW? I'm not going to really get more into it than that but that's the soft side of things. To understand the crime situation in the cities you named you would have to first understand the timeline from Reconstruction though the Jim Crow era and the reasons for their flight to those cities. If you're a share-cropper with no education things don't change a bunch because you moved to Chicago or New York. You go there because you can go to a better school or not get a cross burned in your yard for trying to register to vote. I know people like you will never understand this but you don't go from the vast majority of the population not being allowed to learn to read to even where your grandpa was in one or two generations. Not to mention not being able to own property, get a loan or be considered for gainful employment at a fair wage. Imagine how much better off my dad and his siblings would've been if my grandpa was paid a fair wage and could buy a house and property that appreciated in value to hand down? I never said poverty was an excuse, I said it was the main reason along with some other things you would disagree with like much easier access to guns. If you don't understand the reasons just say that because I can absolutely guarantee you've never pulled up in a housing project on the south side of Chicago and talked to the residents like I have, or hung out on Crenshaw or in Inglewood in LA like I have or been in those 40 story housing authority buildings in Brooklyn like I have. You're making generalizations based on sketchy data analysis but I wouldn't expect anything more from you. You can have it though, it's literally not even worth the time anymore these days.

Crosby's average margin of victory in district play last year was 33.3ppg and considering what we bring back I expect similar results in this district if we stay healthy. I think those two games you mentioned will certainly be our toughest but I don't expect them to be near as hard to finish as they were last year. While BH may finish with a slightly better record I don't expect their team to be as good overall. Their stats aren't all the way complete but from what I can make of it they're losing their top 8 tacklers on defense, a couple of good o-linemen, the best backfield I've seen them with and now their top receiver for most of, if not, all year. It's going to take a solid coaching job just to make sure they don't lose to anybody they're not supposed to, especially early in the year. PAM probably had the best QB/receiving group combination in the coverage area, yet they become very Spring Westfield-ish when it's time to score on good competition. It's odd that with that caliber of athlete they don't score more efficiently when called for but it's kind of been their M.O. lately? Still, it will be a long ride down to Jefferson County and it's always going to be interesting with the type game-breakers they can put on the field. Who knows though? Crosby has a history of going through district play undefeated only to lose the last game of the year. Maybe GCM pulls the shocker?

99 is saving us from what? We're getting more benefit from the development of Generation Park in Sheldon which is the main reason CE King's enrollment has exploded. Sheldon is one of our neighboring districts, 99 is miles away from Crosby and doesn't have much to do with the flow of people leaving East Houston to move there which has been happening for 15+ years. If anything Crosby is becoming a less desirable place to live for some due to the traffic and steep rise in housing costs.

That's not really why the coach quit, plus we got a state finals appearance out of the deal along with another trip to semis. I think everybody salvaged the situation for the best at the end of the day.

Surratt is a great coach but let's not act like most years he doesn't have the most talent in his class. He's not going to Deer Park where he'll be three deep at every position due to them have 4k students and beating Jon Kay at North Shore. Rick Rhoades won three titles in his first six seasons at Cameron Yoe and lost in the title game in his 7th. I'm sure the folks in Cameron thought he was on a similar path and the best thing since sliced bread. He moved up a couple classes to Gregory Portland, had a deeper roster and never even made the playoffs in his five year stint because his talent comparable to the class had dropped so much.

It would be very, very hard to find someone that lived in Katy or Cypress who wanted to move to Mont Belvieu which would be a better comparison size and school district wise versus comparing Arlington to Houston. Mont Belvieu is just refinery workers from Baytown that wanted to live in a more homogenous community. That's why they're mad about those "cheap" $200k houses being built that's allowing more democrats to move in. I was watching the middle school track meet last week and couldn't tell the difference between the Barber Hill and Cunningham's relay teams except for the BH teams were usually in the back.

Well, we can agree that's the case for some parents. I just know if I'm a parent with a big time player that he's much more likely to have success post high school playing at other places so that's where I would take him. Just watched players from Arlington Lamar, Arlington Martin and Arlington Heights all playing on the same team win Super Bowl rings. Forget the superstars like Myles Garrett coming out of Martin, imagine how many "average" kids you have to pump out just hit those numbers? Imagine being Ryan Newsome(mysterious 4* transfer from LD Bell) and transferring to play your last two years at Aledo only to have to come back after you become a pastor and do an event in support of kids other Aledo students were "auctioning off"? I'm good with that, those parents with star kids who prefer that can have it. My kids already make A's so I'll just stop in Arlington and deal with the traffic so he can play against better competition.

Love watching 7v7 but not a huge fan of my kids playing it outside of school settings. Hearing BH may have just lost their best returning player to an ACL at a recent tournament. Hopefully he can have an Adrian Peterson type recovery, I would prefer to beat them at full strength.

I didn't dramatize anything. Watch the documentary. Aledo got two transfers that were ruled eligible. The qb they beat Crosby with was a transfer and was ruled eligible, meaning they legally acquired the kids. This isn't string theory bro.

A northern Houston area high school too?

If you can't understand something as simple as what a good or bad coach is then I definitely don't expect you to understand things like talent acquisition.

They have a higher median income because Arlington ISD has 60k kids in their district and encompasses the type neighborhoods that the star players that end up at Aledo would normally come from. Including the entire area skews the numbers like they would for Houston Stratford and Lamar that encompass the Memorial and River Oaks areas. I do agree that your money goes further in Aledo than it does the upscale neighborhoods in Arlington but the reason people pay the premium is for access and proximity which is exactly why AA is saying people wouldn't move there and come to Aledo instead.

That's definitely a personal preference. I think Arlington is better for exactly all the reasons you just named. Everything is right there without having to drive all the way across Ft. Worth to do anything like you do from Aledo. If more people agreed with you then more athletes besides good football players would move there, that 2% would've risen significantly and Arlington wouldn't be growing faster than Aledo. Entire families would move there and stay instead of just living there while the player goes to school. Crosby has a kid who ended up being the top scorer in the state last year transfer to play on the basketball team and we're far from a powerhouse. We have individual/relay state champions in track and have since the '80s. Does Aledo's basketball team suck because only football parents think the standard of living or academics are better there? What about your track team? I get sending them to the best academic school you can afford but 4* players don't end up there for the math classes. Katy doesn't recruit either but for the last 15 years they've ended up with a 4* back on their roster when they don't produce talent at that rate at any other position. I'm sure the running back transfer from South Carolina powerhouse Dutch Fork they used to beat North Shore the last time they won was just a coincidence? You're never going to convince me parents with star football players are going pass up schools like Euless Trinity, which is the same distance from Ft. Worth as Aledo, to come there for a couple extra playoff games or the debate team. Like I said though, however the players end up there is obviously above board so more power to y'all.

If PNG was going to hire somebody from Katy ISD it should be Paetow's coach BJ Gotte. I think he's going to have a similar run to Brad Butler's at Shadow Creek before Katy ISD breaks up the school to support the growth in the area and Paetow regresses. Might have some Ricky Tullos on him after that.

Your post said "mutual benefit for the families and programs when talented kids move in to play sports". I'm saying there isn't more benefit for a talented kid moving to Aledo than there is Arlington Martin. Schools are relatively the same, Martin plays better competition and produces more players that live up to their star rating when they hit college. If I was a parent of a good football player in that area that's where I would want my kid to play unless there was some other incentive to move to Aledo. Aledo isn't really great at any other boys sports besides football so obviously those are the only players moving in. Much like some college programs were ahead of the curve when it came to the NIL stuff, Aledo has been ahead of the curve on legally acquiring football talent.

I think the only team of those 4 that is better than Longview is Denton Ryan. They have better personnel than Aledo and College Station and have better coaching than Manvel. They were one of the few smallest schools in 6A and still ran the table in 2018, not to mention played in the semis the year before. John King has been the coach at Longview for 18 years and only won less than 9 games once. That's a pretty salty run over a nearly two decade span.

If that's the way this district finishes 8-5A-D1 going to have a very good shot at going 3-1 in bi-district play.

I think Summer Creek will be better than CE King this year. My co-worker's son plays qb for them and said they lost 17 of 22 starters. They also have a new coach with their old coach moving to an AD only role. Pretty brutal district overall though. Atascocita has been to the 3rd round of the 6A-D1 playoffs seven years in a row and is basically an afterthought. When is the last time no Beaumont public schools made the playoffs?

JT was 5-2 going into the Highland Park game. Started 0-2 against the better teams and then won the next 5 against teams that finished the season sub .500. They didn't beat a team with a winning record all season. McFall is a good young running back. I follow recruiting closely so I've been watching film of all the top '24 backs in the state. He was obviously the best option at qb when the starter went down and y'all still lost your last two games by a combined 91 points. I get the optimism and you may be correct but you said yourself y'all lost talent. I'm just pointing out that it looks like y'all did. I've been keeping up with Chappell Hill since our old coach took over a few years ago and two of my sons used to go to Sherman so I'm just familiar with the area results in general. Again, you may be correct and JT goes 16-0 but recent history says it's more likely that they'll be battling Forney or McKinney North to see who gets to make the long trip down to Crosby for their bi-district game.

8-5A-D1 1. Crosby - Crosby played 31 of a possible 32 games last realignment. Austin Westlake was the only 5A/6A school to play all ‘em all. The move up in class will be a challenge but Crosby is 13-1 the last two years in district play, at this point y’all just need to beat us. 2. BH/PAM - BH has a lot of very good individual skill players returning. You see how far FB Marshall’s great skill players got against BH’s trench play though. BH lost some good trench guys and the best backfield they’ve had in 15 years. We’ll see how they restock. 3. PAM/BH - PAM is the plant workers version of Humble when they were in 5A. Regional final talent with district runner-up coaching. How do you replace Sanders this year when you never showed an ability to develop a second act last year? 4. Baytown Lee - Probably has the best coach nobody in the coverage area talks about because of where he is. I think the kids from back there off the state streets still get in the dance. 5. Kingwood Park - I really don’t know why I think KP will be better than they end up every year? 6. Porter - I think you’re getting into some bad teams here and Porter is just the best of the bunch. 7. GCM - Looks good getting off the bus and if the new coach is any good they should be able to beat Sterling. 8. Baytown Sterling - Somebody has to be second to last in a nine team district. 9. La Porte - Hate is didn’t work out for Coach Tarr but the fishing at Sylvan Beach was probably going to be better than your football team and you ain’t catching **** out there. They should be in the running with Sterling and GCM for the “everybody gets to play game”.

Now that the UIL has both screwed and helped some of us with our new district realignments, I was wondering what some of y’all’s predictions are for your team? Particularly how your district finishes and your team’s placement.

St. Thomas had a qb last year that probably would’ve started for everybody in the Golden Triangle besides PAM and maybe PNG. They’re not constrained on transfers so you don’t know who might show up there between now and next season. Nacodoches is not good but they will be a good test simply because they’re going to have a lot better athletes than the L-Train. Very solid non-district schedule overall though. If Lumberton goes into district play with better than a 3-2 record they may actually be a factor this year come playoff time.

I don’t care about the race of kids either. I was just pointing out a once rural town on the west side of cattle country has a higher hit rate than North Shore in a certain demographic. It’s an anomaly that probably nobody else in the state can copy. There’s no more benefit at Aledo than there is at Arlington Martin who sends more kids D1 in every sport and produces better college players. The statistics just are what the stats is are.

Those are two solid non-district games for BH, especially the Magnolia West game in the trenches which is where you want to be tested early in the season. If BH is going to be good they should kill Montgomery though. They lost their stud back and the coach’s son at qb. That’s being said it feels like with Abseck’s connections they should be playing more marquee games than that?