The gist
- Kilgore at Gilmer, Friday at 7:30 PM — the first home game of the 2026 season for the Buckeyes.
- Gilmer walks in at 1-1: a 52-40 loss at Pine Tree (Longview) and a 54-31 win at Chapel Hill (Tyler).
- The number nobody in Upshur County wants to talk about: 41.5 points allowed per game through two weeks.
- Our lean: Buckeyes at home, but the defense has to finally show up for this one to feel comfortable.
The matchup
Kilgore comes to Gilmer this Friday, September 11, at 7:30 PM for a non-district date that East Texas high school football fans have been waiting on for two weeks. This is game three of the 2026 season and the Buckeyes’ first home game of the year — the openers at Pine Tree (Longview) and Chapel Hill (Tyler) took Gilmer on the road for back-to-back drives out of Upshur County.
The record sits at 1-1. Gilmer dropped the opener 52-40 at Pine Tree and then bounced back a week later with a 54-31 win at Chapel Hill (we broke that one down here). That is 94 points for and 83 against in two games — a Texas 4A offense humming at 47 a night and a defense bleeding at 41.5. That is the story of the season so far, and the district slate that opens October 9 at home against Pleasant Grove will not forgive it.
Kilgore is the third of three non-district tune-ups. Next Friday it is a trip to Sulphur Springs, then Sunnyvale comes to Gilmer on September 25, and then the real thing starts. Nothing about the district road is easy — Pleasant Grove, Pittsburg, Carthage, Center, Spring Hill — and a defense that gives up forty a night in September is a defense that gets sent home in December.
Around the barbecue
Over on smoaky, the Kilgore-Gilmer thread reads like a genuine toss-up. Kilgore-leaning posters point out that the visitors lost basically every trench player they had, their quarterback and an all-district-caliber corner from last season, and then opened the year with a rough night against Pleasant Grove — the poster consensus is that a rebuilt roster needs a couple of weeks to bond, and Gilmer catches them in the middle of that. One Kilgore-side voice took the visitors “in a close one,” but a Gilmer poster’s line stuck: the Buckeyes might not lose again until Sunnyvale.
The Buckeyes might not lose again until Sunnyvale. — a Gilmer voice on smoaky
The other conversation Buckeye Nation is still having is coaching and personnel decisions coming out of the Chapel Hill trip. Those are fair questions, and they are being asked loudly. Message-board chatter also has a starting corner back for Friday, which would help the pass defense find a floor. We will leave the depth-chart argument on the message board — but at some point the results decide it.
Key to the game: Gilmer has to force a punt. The Buckeyes have played four halves of football and given up 83 points; if this turns into another 90-point track meet, home crowd or not, that is a real problem heading into district play.
Our take
The offense is going to score. That much is decided. Through two weeks these Buckeyes have averaged 47 points against real East Texas competition, and by everything the message boards are saying, Kilgore’s rebuilt front is not the group that reverses that trend. The passing game keeps hunting one-on-ones, the run game keeps working off it, and the ball keeps ending up in the end zone.
The defense is where the game is decided. You can win at 54-31, but you cannot make a habit of it — points allowed like that in district would land Gilmer in the wild-card conversation instead of at the top of it, and playoff opponents do not cough up 54. Friday night is the first real chance to show that Chapel Hill’s four touchdowns of yield-back was the exception, not the rule.
Prediction: Gilmer 41, Kilgore 24. The scoreboard says home team, and the extra week of tape and finally sleeping in their own beds matter, but we want to see a stop that closes a Kilgore drive short of the red zone before we start pushing the district title button.
The offense will keep cooking. Friday is a referendum on whether the defense grows up.
Kilgore at Gilmer, 7:30 PM Friday, first home game of the year. Make your picks and meet us on the sideline.