The gist
- Final: Gilmer 67, Center 29 on Thursday night at Roughrider Stadium. The Buckeyes are 6-2 overall and 2-1 in District 8-4A Division II. Center is 0-8 and 0-3.
- 55-7 at halftime. Three touchdowns in the first 79 seconds, per the Gilmer Mirror, then 28 points in the first quarter and 27 in the second. The starters sat the second half.
- Zade Taylor: 155 passing yards, two touchdown passes, 55 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown. That is nine straight games with at least one rushing score. Freshman Kaden Canady caught both touchdown passes.
- A winless team scored 29. Center came in averaging 13.4 points and had never topped 21. Backups or not, that is 22 second-half points to an 0-8 team with No. 1 Carthage coming to town.
What happened: a fast start, then a half nobody should be happy with
A week after a 58-56 loss to Pittsburg on Yamboree Friday, a loss that turned on a field goal with no time left, Gilmer went to Center on a short week and settled it almost immediately. The Gilmer Mirror counted three touchdowns in the first 79 seconds. Gilmer led 21-7 with 2:31 left in the first quarter and 28-7 at the end of it, then scored four more times in the second quarter to lead 55-7 at the half.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gilmer | 28 | 27 | 0 | 12 | 67 |
| Center | 7 | 0 | 15 | 7 | 29 |
Quarter scores from the Shelby County Today live updates.
Gilmer pulled its first string at halftime, per fans at the game, and the backups played the rest of the way. Center won the second half 22-12.
The game was played Thursday because of the statewide officials shortage, a move the Gilmer Mirror reported last week. It was also the first district game ever between these two schools. Gilmer now leads the all-time series 13-1 and has won 12 straight against the Roughriders. The Buckeyes are 3-0 at Roughrider Stadium. The other two were 63-6 in 2007 and 56-17 in 2017.
Our preview picked Buckeyes 38, Center 24. Right team. The offense beat that prediction by 29 points, and the defense allowed five more than we guessed.
The guys who did it
- Zade Taylor (#2), senior QB. 155 yards passing with two touchdowns and roughly 78 percent completions, plus 55 yards and a touchdown on the ground. MaxPreps' season sheet now has him at 1,026 rushing yards and 919 passing. A 5-6 quarterback with a thousand yards rushing and nearly a thousand passing is the engine of this offense.
- Kaden Canady (#10), freshman WR. Two touchdown catches for 39 yards. That gives him seven receiving touchdowns and nine total this season, and he scored on a kickoff and a punt return last week. He is a freshman.
- Kipton Neighbors (#5), junior WR/S. MaxPreps has him at 374 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns for the year, plus 307 receiving yards. Center's preseason book said the Roughriders were thin up front. Neighbors running between the tackles is what that looks like.
One note we are not going to guess about. As of Friday morning MaxPreps had not posted a Center line for junior running back Tayveon Horne, who arrived needing 74 yards to reach 1,000. If he sat, we want to know why before we write about it. If his line was just not entered yet, we will update this post when it is.
The defense: 29 points to a team that had not scored 22 all year
Center is 0-8. It came in scoring 13.4 points a game, and its best night all season was 21. Gilmer gave it 29, and 22 of them came in one half.
Yes, the starters sat the second half. That is not the excuse it sounds like. A district game is still a district game, the backups are the depth this team needs in November, and Center scored on them three times and converted a two-point try. A 55-7 halftime lead should hold a winless team to a field goal the rest of the way, not hand it its season high.
And the starters do not get a pass for one clean half against the worst offense on the schedule. Points allowed by game: Pine Tree 52, Chapel Hill 31, Kilgore 50, Sulphur Springs 38, Sunnyvale 28, Pleasant Grove 27, Pittsburg 58, Center 29. That is 313 points in eight games, 39.1 a night. Eight games in, this defense has not held anyone under 27.
Ismael Camara, kickoff man
It looked like Gilmer had Ismael Camara kicking off at Center. Yes, that Ismael Camara: the 6-7, roughly 343-pound five-star lineman committed to Texas, who also plays fullback and defensive line. MaxPreps now credits him with an extra-point try this season too.
We are all for it. Against Pittsburg the onside kicks started right as a 21-6 lead started slipping away, and short kicks have been a theme all year. If Camara can put the ball deep, kick it deep and cover it. Make an opponent drive the length of the field. The onside-and-pray approach was part of how this team lost a district game, and a kicker who can reach the end zone ends that conversation.
By the numbers
- 411 points in eight games, 51.4 a night. Gilmer has scored at least 33 in every game.
- Six wins in the last seven games, averaging 53 points in those games, per MaxPreps.
- 109 consecutive games with a score, and 254-17 since 2000 when scoring 30 or more, per the Gilmer Mirror.
- Center's 29 was its season high. The Roughriders came in scoring 13.4 a game and allowing 37.3.
Around the district
The race is bunched. Carthage came into the week 2-0 and hosts Pleasant Grove on Friday night. Gilmer, Pleasant Grove, Pittsburg and Spring Hill all came in 1-1, and Center is now 0-3 in the first year under head coach Jack Alvarez. Alvarez won a Class 5A Division II state title at Ennis in 2014 and has more than 200 career wins. That record will not stay 0-8 forever, but this was not the week.
Our take
A 38-point win on the road is a win, and the offense did exactly what it does. But this was not the game Gilmer needed. The game Gilmer needed was 67-7, a winless team held to nothing for four quarters, and a defense walking into Carthage week with something to show for it. Instead the week ends with an 0-8 team posting its season high, and the defending state champions next.
The offense can score with anybody in 4A Division II. It scored 56 against Pittsburg and lost. If the defense plays Friday the way it played the second half Thursday, 67 will not be enough either.
Next up: Carthage, Friday at Jeff Traylor Stadium
Gilmer hosts Carthage on Friday, Oct. 30, at 7 p.m. at Jeff Traylor Stadium. Carthage is the No. 1 team in Dave Campbell's Texas Football 4A Division II Top 10 and the district leader. Then it is a trip to Spring Hill on Nov. 6 to close the regular season. The preview drops Thursday. It will start with the defense.