The gist
- Carthage at Gilmer, Friday, Oct. 30 at 7 p.m. — Jeff Traylor Stadium, the game East Texas high school football has been circling since August.
- The Buckeyes come in 6-2 after a 67-29 district road win at Center, and host the clear favorite as the home underdog in a Class 4A Division II district game.
- The Center Rewind set the mark we are grading this one against: inside two scores, or the Pittsburg loss stops looking like a bad night.
- Our lean: Gilmer covers the two-score window, loses the game.
The two-score window we set ourselves
The Rewind closed with a specific number. Stay inside two scores, or the Pittsburg game was not an outlier — it was a trailer. That paragraph was written to be graded, and Friday is grading night.
The honest case for the number being reachable: the Center game — 67-29 on the road, eight nights ago — was the first time since the Pittsburg home loss that the Gilmer defense looked like a defense playing a four-quarter game. The 29 Center hung on the Buckeyes is still too many against a one-win team, and we said so Thursday, but it was the first game in a month where the second half was not a prayer. The defense traveled out of a bad October home night. That is not a small thing to carry into a game like this.
The honest case against: Carthage is not Center. Season points allowed, through eight games, sits at 313 — a hair over 39 a night. That is the number that lives inside the two-score window and threatens to blow it open. The home loss to Pittsburg was a sub-.500 team hanging 58 points in Gilmer. If the defense that gave up 58 at home shows up Friday, two scores is not an argument, it is a mercy rule.
So the standard is reachable. It is also not comfortable, and anyone telling you different did not watch the Pittsburg tape.
The matchup
Carthage at Gilmer, Friday, Oct. 30, 7 p.m. at Jeff Traylor Stadium in Gilmer. District game, Class 4A Division II. The Buckeyes are 6-2 overall and 2-1 in district after the Pleasant Grove win, the two-point loss to Pittsburg at home, and the 67-29 road win at Center last Thursday. Season home record going in is 3-1 — the one blemish is Pittsburg.
Carthage comes in as the clear favorite the whole region has been pointing to since August. Spring Hill on the road closes the regular season the following Friday. For now, this is the Upshur County game that defines where this team is going in December.
Around the barbecue
Gilmer fans on smoaky are not asking whether the Buckeyes can win. They are proposing wardrobe. One thread floated a RAHEEM / RAHEEM7 shirt — front and back — worn on the Carthage side at the 50-yard line, which is the kind of thing you only read on a message board in a town that genuinely believes it can beat the division's top team at home.
Carthage fans dropped in with the standing line nobody from Gilmer has a clean answer to: a team that loses a home game to Pittsburg is not going to beat Carthage. The number they offered more than once was Carthage by 14. We are on the record saying 14 is where the night either reads as a reset or doesn't, so at least the two fan bases agree on which number matters.
The quieter conversation is health. Fans are asking whether #6 is back at running back after the Pittsburg injury, and whether #44 and #80 are good to go on the defensive line. One poster called health "a factor," in a way that only works if a lot of the answer is no. We would like the answer to be yes on all three.
Gilmer has the best offensive line in 4A and the best special teams. Gilmer should be favored. — a Gilmer fan, Carthage-Gilmer thread on smoaky
Hold that thought.
Key to the game: If #6, #44 and #80 all take the field healthy, the two-score window is live. If two of three are out, Carthage pulls away by halftime and the window closes before the hand gets stamped.
Our take
Three takes and a number.
One. The Center game was the reset, and it was real. The defense traveled out of a bad home night in October. That is not nothing. That is also not Carthage.
Two. The quiet number in the Pittsburg box is still the biggest number on this team's season sheet. 56-58 at home to a sub-.500 team is a loss that eats everything around it. The only way to make that loss stop being the headline is to stay close to the division's top team on Friday — which is why we set the two-score mark in the first place. It was always a win condition for the season, not for the game.
Three. Jeff Traylor's building — renamed from Buckeye Stadium for the man who went 175-26 and won three state titles here — has been a hard place to beat Gilmer for most of the last decade. In 2020 the same Carthage program came in and won 14-42 at this stadium, and Gilmer still went to the state final that year. A loss here does not end a season. A twenty-eight-point loss at home sends this team into Spring Hill asking different questions than the ones we want it asking.
Our pick: Carthage 42, Gilmer 31. The Buckeyes cover the two-score mark. The Pittsburg loss stays an outlier, the reset holds, and the Spring Hill conversation next week becomes playoff seeding instead of program direction.
You have our lean. Make your pick on daqspickem.com, pour another one, and let's find out Friday night.