The gist
- Gilmer (2-1) is at Sulphur Springs on Friday, September 18, kickoff 7:00 PM — the last non-district game before District 8-4A Division II opens.
- The defense has surrendered 133 points in three games. That is 44.3 a night, and Sulphur Springs is the best offense the Buckeyes have seen this year.
- Last week’s assignment, in our own words, was “figure out how to get a ball carrier on the ground.” This is Friday one of the two we said it would take.
- Our lean: a shootout — Gilmer 45, Sulphur Springs 42 — that will not teach us anything about this defense we did not already know.
Friday one of two
The Kilgore recap ended on a specific promise. Two more Fridays to figure out how to get a ball carrier on the ground, we wrote, and that was the whole assignment. This is Friday one.
The scoreboard from that home opener said 64-50 and the win column got a check mark. The tape said a Kilgore team that had scored seven points all season put fifty on the Buckeyes in Jeff Traylor Stadium, and it was not because Kilgore threw haymakers. It was because Gilmer defenders kept getting to the ball carrier and coming off him. Add it up over three weeks of East Texas 4A football: 52 to Pine Tree, 31 to Chapel Hill, 50 to Kilgore. That is 133 in three, 44.3 a night, and Sulphur Springs on the schedule.
Sulphur Springs is not Kilgore. Their fans on smoaky are already saying it out loud — they think their offense is the sharpest thing on our schedule so far, and they are asking whether either team can get to fifty first. After last Friday, we do not get to laugh that off. Either the tackling got fixed in practice this week or it did not, and Friday grades it cleanly. Winning proves the hard week of work took. Losing means the ceiling on this defense is 44 a night, and District 8-4A Division II opens October 9 against Pleasant Grove.
The matchup
Gilmer at Sulphur Springs, Friday, September 18, kickoff 7:00 PM. The Buckeyes come in 2-1 — a 40-52 loss at Pine Tree, a 54-31 win at Chapel Hill, a 64-50 home win over Kilgore — on 158 points scored and 133 allowed. It is the last non-district game before Sunnyvale visits Jeff Traylor Stadium on September 25 and Pleasant Grove comes to Gilmer on October 9 to open District 8-4A Division II.
Per one longtime smoaky poster, the last time these two schools met on a football field was 1979. Whatever else Friday turns into, it is a first look for a lot of people in Upshur County.
Around the barbecue
Gilmer fans on smoaky are doing something rare: mostly agreeing with the other side. Sulphur Springs supporters are calling their team the best offense on our schedule so far, and the Buckeye crowd is not hurrying to contradict them. Both fan bases land on the same read — a shootout where turnovers decide it, where any drive that does not end in a touchdown is a real problem. That is not homerism, that is what the numbers on both sides look like.
The transitive-property crowd is out too. One Sulphur Springs fan ran the math on smoaky: Gilmer and Whitehouse both beat Chapel Hill by exactly 23; Sulphur Springs beat Whitehouse by 15; therefore, Sulphur Springs by 15, on the order of 56-41. Nobody on the Gilmer side pushed back hard on the shape of it. Fans on both sides keep coming back to the same reminder, though — this is a non-district game that will not shape the season by itself. October 9 is the one that counts.
The tackling either got fixed by Friday or it did not. Sulphur Springs will tell us which, and the answer will still be the answer on October 9.
Key to the game: get one defensive stop that is not a self-inflicted opponent punt or a fourth-down failure. One stop where a Buckeye defender actually finishes a tackle in space. That is the whole thing.
Our take
The optimist’s read is honest and fine: 158 points in three games is real, this offense will score on anyone Sulphur Springs runs out there, and if you are going to win a shootout, this is the roster to win it with. Fine.
The realist’s read is that we already know what this game looks like, because we have watched three of them: a lot of points, a lot of them handed away, a fourth-quarter possession that decides it. Winning that way on Friday grades the same as losing it, because Pleasant Grove will force the same test three Fridays later with better people.
The pick: Gilmer 45, Sulphur Springs 42, in a game where the offense drags the defense across the finish line. That is not a compliment.
The falsifiable marker to hold us to in October: if Pleasant Grove hangs 40 on this defense on October 9, Gilmer loses that game. Not “might.” Will. Which is why Friday in Sulphur Springs is about more than a non-district win over an opponent we have not seen since disco was on the radio.
Two more Fridays. Then it counts. The house went 1-0 last week, on the scoreboard. Make your picks and meet us on the sideline.