The gist
- Final: Gilmer 67, Center 29. The Buckeyes are 6-2 overall and 2-1 in district after a Thursday road win at Roughrider Stadium that was decided before the halftime whistle.
- Zade Taylor was surgical when they let him throw it. Seven of nine, 155 yards, two touchdown passes — a full line in a half of football.
- The kicker kicked off deep this time. One of the exact special-teams points the Pittsburg loss cost Gilmer; the staff addressed it this week, in a game where the margin never asked a kickoff to matter.
- Eight games in, 313 points allowed. That is 39.1 a night. Center was 0-7 entering Thursday and still put up 29, with 22 of them coming after the starters sat.
What happened
Preview week set a 28-point mark against a Center team that had been outscored by better than three touchdowns a night. The margin came in at 38. The number held up; the game did not need the fourth quarter to prove it.
By the account of fans following it live, Gilmer led 55-7 at the half. The starters came out of the Pittsburg loss focused — the right posture for a team whose five-game winning streak had just been snapped by a field goal at the gun — and they stayed on the field long enough to make a point before Coach Metzel pulled them for the second-string reps that are useful this time of year. Center scored 22 of their 29 against those reps in the second half. That is the shape of the game, and it is why it was never going to be a measurement.
Zade Taylor finished 7-of-9 through the air for 155 yards and two touchdown passes. That is the stat line of a quarterback who got everything he wanted on the handful of throws the game plan asked him to make, in a half where the run game was already enough. K. Johnson had a 50-yard reception for Gilmer — one catch, long gone. C. Brooks ran it eight times for 85 and a score, better than ten yards a carry on a night when the back-end rotation got meaningful snaps. Center's Joseph Mitchell led the Roughriders at the half; by the end of the night he had company in the box score. His team is young, his staff is new, and the talent gap was obvious on the first drive.
What was new in this game, and worth measuring, was special teams. In the live Smoaky thread the first thing a fan noticed was that Gilmer's kicker, after an extra point, booted the kickoff about sixty yards. Then a question followed, the kind of question that is the whole subtext of Gilmer's week: why not with a minute to go against Pittsburg? The answer this staff gave on Thursday was the only answer available — they fixed it. We will see if it travels.
The guys who did it
- #2 Zade Taylor, QB. 7-of-9 passing, 155 yards, two touchdowns. A clean half, and the kind of efficiency that is possible when the game script lets the quarterback pick his spots.
- #33 C. Brooks, RB/ILB. Eight carries, 85 yards, a touchdown — 10.6 a pop. Backfield depth is a luxury only teams with real offensive lines can enjoy, and Brooks is cashing in on both.
- #15 K. Johnson, WR. One catch, 50 yards. If you watched it live, you remember exactly what the lane looked like after he caught it.
- The offensive line. 400-plus rushing yards a night does not happen without hats on hats early. Ismael Camara at fullback — a 6-7, 343-pound Texas commit — collapses a point of attack on his own; put four names you know next to him and this is what the box score looks like.
- Special teams. The kickoff coverage unit answered a question the Pittsburg game asked out loud. The staff heard it.
The standard is December, not the scoreboard
The cumulative number is the cumulative number: eight games, 313 points allowed, 39.1 a night. We said it in the gist, we will say it once more here, and then we are done saying it this week. Carrying an argument forward is not the same as re-running it.
What is worth saying this week, differently, is that 22 of Center's 29 came against second- and third-string defenders in a bleed-the-clock second half. That is not a scold — that is what the second half of a 48-point game looks like, and the Buckeyes should play their backups when they are up 48. The real alarm is still the first-half tape in the Pittsburg loss. Center is not that tape; Carthage will be.
The forward-looking math. Carthage averages better than 50 points per game, is 7-0, and lives at #1 in the Texas 4A Division II rankings for a reason. If Gilmer's first-half defense from Thursday — the one that held a shaky offense to seven — is the one that walks out of the tunnel Friday night, this is a one-score game. If the defense that gave up 58 to Pittsburg comes back instead, Carthage drops sixty.
Around the barbecue
On Smoaky, the loudest reaction to a 48-point district win was not the final score; it was that kickoff. One fan went straight to the question the entire fan base has been chewing on since the Pittsburg game: why kick it short with a minute to go against Pittsburg if the leg could do this? The staff's quietest correction got noticed anyway. Elsewhere in the thread, a Center-side poster pointed out that Thursday was the highest-scoring game of their year — and the East Texas crowd's answer came back as more sympathy than celebration, which is the right register for a 0-7 team installing a new first-year head coach. A different Smoaky regular noted that Gilmer's second and third string still outscored Center's starters by twelve in the second half; that is a both-things-can-be-true number and the thread handled it as such.
The town's reckoning right now is not about Center. It is about Carthage. The playoff race in District 8-4A DII is a four-team scrum below the Bulldogs — Gilmer, Pleasant Grove, Pittsburg and Longview Spring Hill all sitting at 1-1 — and seeding gets decided between now and Thanksgiving. Thursday was supposed to be a get-right game, and it was. Everyone involved knows the game that matters is the one in six nights.
Our take
Enjoy the win. It is a 38-point district road win on short rest after your team's winning streak got snapped by a field goal at the gun. There is no asterisk on it and we are not going to invent one.
The preview said 28 or more and Gilmer gave us 38. We will take credit for that the same way we would own it if the number had been off by thirty. What we were careful about in the preview — that a lopsided district win is not evidence of anything — is still true now that the lopsided district win happened.
The staff fixed the kickoff this week. The question for Friday is whether they fixed the thing that actually costs you a playoff game.
Two things we think, as fans and nothing more:
- Taylor and Tayveon Horne are both about to run through 1,000 rushing yards against Carthage. The Joe Dodd pregame notes had Horne at 926 and Taylor at 920 entering Thursday; both of them need less than a hundred against the top-ranked team in the division. That is the kind of math that is better news for the quarterback than it is for the game plan, because the plan to beat Carthage is not "run it ninety times."
- This stream has been loud about the defense for three weeks because this town is not aiming at 6-2. The plans are bigger than that. Carthage is a dress rehearsal for the plans. A win is not required Friday; staying inside two scores is.
Here is what we will hold ourselves to. If Gilmer plays Carthage within a touchdown, the reset was real and the defense actually did travel out of a bad night in October. If Carthage wins by three touchdowns or more, the Pittsburg game was not an outlier — it was a trailer. The next recap grades this prediction, win or lose.
Next up: Carthage at home
Friday, Oct. 30, 7 p.m. in Gilmer. The Carthage Bulldogs come in 7-0, 2-0 in district, ranked #1 in Texas 4A Division II by MaxPreps, and the clear favorite the entire region has been circling since August. Gilmer is #4 in the same ranking. This is the biggest regular-season game on the Buckeyes' schedule and everyone in East Texas — from Gilmer out to Longview and north to Pittsburg — knows it. Thursday was the warm-up; Friday is the real one.