The gist
- Final from Spring Hill: Gilmer 55, Panthers 28. District closes 4-1, overall record 8-2, regular season in the books.
- Z. Taylor missed one pass. Eight of nine for 107 and a touchdown, plus 135 on the ground and another score on nine carries.
- Fifteen yards every time he pulled the ball. That is a quarterback stat line that reads like a typo, and it travels into November.
- Bi-district is set, and it is in Mesquite. Gilmer is the District 8 champ and draws North Lamar, the fourth seed out of District 7, Friday, Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. at Mesquite ISD's Hanby Stadium. Two hours each way, and the fan page already has opinions about that.
What happened
Gilmer 55, Spring Hill 28, Buckeyes on the road in the Longview area. MaxPreps has the short version: Spring Hill lost its home district game by 27. By the account of fans following it live, the Buckeyes ran it when they wanted to and threw it when they felt like telling you about it.
The box score lives at #2. Z. Taylor went 8-of-9 for 107 yards and a touchdown as a passer and carried the ball nine times for 135 yards and a touchdown as a runner. A. Phillips caught two passes for 52 yards, which is the kind of 26-yard average that says the deep shot was on the menu. The Buckeyes walked off the regular season on a four-game winning streak with the Carthage win still fresh.
The preview called this one Friday to clean it up before November. The quarterback missed one pass and averaged 15 yards a carry. The scoreboard said 55. Mark the preview graded; the cleanup got done, on the road, in a district game they treated like one.
The guys who did it
- Z. Taylor, QB (#2), the passing game. 8-of-9, 107 yards, one touchdown. The one he missed is the headline. The other eight did the rest.
- Z. Taylor, QB (#2), the ground game. Nine carries, 135 yards, one touchdown. Fifteen yards a pop is what happens when the option read is also the fastest player on the field.
- A. Phillips, WR (#24). Two catches for 52 yards. If you want to know what a 107-yard passing day looked like with a 93 percent completion rate, it looked like two chunk plays and a quarterback finding him when it mattered.
Before the bracket
Two weeks ago the defense gave up 58 to Pittsburg in a loss. Last week it gave up 42 to Carthage in a win. Friday it gave up 28 on the road and won by 27. The direction is right. Keep the quarterback upright, keep the ground game at the number it hit Friday, and the first round is a game you want to play, even if it is a game you have to drive to.
Around the barbecue
If you spent the week on the East Texas football message boards hoping to find a Spring Hill argument, you had to read around a seeding spreadsheet. On smoaky's PG-Pitt thread, the running conversation was District 8 math: who wins Pleasant Grove and Pittsburg, who takes the top seed, which side of the Region II bracket Gilmer lands on. One poster laid it out plain: "Gilmer needs a PG win to secure 1st place. Carthage is hoping Pitt wins as that would secure 1st place for the Dawgs." Our Friday was a district game. Their Friday was a seed. Pleasant Grove answered it, 49-12 over Pittsburg, and the math landed where the Buckeyes wanted it: Gilmer takes District 8 at 4-1 and walks in as the 1 seed.
The other line that stuck: one fan read the bracket out loud and said that barring a "Center or SH miracle," Gilmer, Carthage, Pleasant Grove and Pittsburg were the four teams coming out of District 8. Friday was the SH miracle game in that read. The chalk held. Nothing broke that a fan thought was going to.
By Friday night the conversation had moved to the Gilmer Buckeye Football fan page, and it was not about North Lamar. It was about the address. Bi-district is at Mesquite ISD's Hanby Stadium, two hours from Gilmer and about an hour and forty-five minutes from Paris, and the first reaction was the one you would expect: driving toward Dallas to play an East Texas team is crazy, and a 1 seed ought to be playing at home. The explanation came in by the evening. Per the fan page, the staff tried every stadium between here and there, and every one of those schools is in the playoffs next week and would not rent. Mount Pleasant passed on hosting. Thursday was off the table because North Lamar's band made state. Mesquite was the closest thing left. One more note that settled a few people down: the UIL rule that hands the top two seeds a first-round home game reaches 4A next season. This year, the 1 seed gets a bus.
The other half of the complaint was the opponent. North Lamar went 4-5, finished fourth in District 7, and lost its finale 52-6 at Ford. The fan page's read is that they would have finished last in District 8, and nobody wants to drive two hours for that. Fair. It is also exactly the kind of game a 4-5 team with nothing to lose shows up for, which is the only reason to take it seriously.
Our take
Z. Taylor missed one pass Friday night. One. Eight completions, 107 yards, a passing touchdown, plus 135 yards and another score on the ground at fifteen a touch. That is a quarterback playing the game at a speed District 8 could not catch, on a road night when the regular season was about to turn into something else. If you had not seen him play before Friday, now you have, and you have seen why the Carthage win two weeks ago was not a one-off.
The regular season closed with a 55-28 road win, a 4-1 district record and a quarterback stat line that reads like a typo. This is the team that beat Carthage and the team that is walking into the bracket.
Three takes we will stand behind:
- The ground game is the playoff game. Spring Hill is not Pittsburg and is not Pleasant Grove, but fifteen yards a carry travels. Keep feeding the quarterback the option read and the first round is a formality.
- Twenty-eight on the road is not something to apologize for. The defense has trended in the right direction for two games in a row now. One game is not a trend. Two in a row, against a district opponent, with the ball getting the way the offense is getting it, is a real conversation.
- The seeding chatter resolved in our favor. Pleasant Grove took care of Pittsburg, Gilmer walks into the bracket as the District 8 champ with the Carthage W and the Spring Hill W on the shelf, and the team we see first round went 4-5 and gave up 52 in its finale. The drive is the hard part. The game should not be.
Mark the next post will be held to: hold North Lamar to 24 points or fewer. The defense trended Friday. We find out Friday in Mesquite if it keeps trending.
Next up: North Lamar, in Mesquite
Bi-district: Gilmer vs. North Lamar, Friday, Nov. 13, 7 p.m., at Mesquite ISD's Hanby Stadium. Gilmer is the home team on the ticket and the road team on the odometer. North Lamar comes out of District 7-4A Division II as the fourth seed at 4-5 overall and 2-3 in district, off a 52-6 loss at Ford in its finale. Gilmer comes in 8-2, 4-1 and District 8 champion, on a four-game winning streak with wins over Pleasant Grove, Center, Carthage and Spring Hill.
A few things we already know, and the full preview goes live Wednesday morning. Gilmer has played North Lamar six straight years and won all six, by a combined 307-31, never allowing more than 12. The one common opponent this season is Sunnyvale: Gilmer beat them 49-28, North Lamar lost to them 56-21. Massey's power ratings put the gap at 35 points, and the first number anybody put on smoaky's bi-district thread was Gilmer by 45, with a reply that it could be a halftime score. The other side of it: this is North Lamar's first playoff trip since 2016, they went 4-5 to get there, and they have a cornerback with five interceptions who is the one guy who can flip a game. Come back Wednesday for the whole thing.
Tickets are $6 for adults and $4 for students, sold online, and district, THSCA and senior citizen passes are accepted, per the Gilmer Mirror. The Mirror also has word of a fan bus for Friday night. It is two hours each way. Fill the bus.
The games across the state are already in the picks window, and this is the week the brackets stop being about bragging and start being about November. Make your picks.