Texas High visits Fayetteville for Friday clash of gridiron unbeatens
BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON
FAYETTEVILLE – While the much-anticipated Arkansas-Texas college football game isn’t until Nov. 16 at Razorback Stadium, we’ll get a high school preview in Fayetteville this weekend.
Texas High (3-0) will visit Fayetteville (2-0) Friday night at 7 p.m. in a battle of prep unbeatens.
The defending Class 7A state champion Purple Bulldogs were off last week after a 30-23 win at Broken Arrow, which followed a 48-13 win over Cabot to open the season.
The Tigers have cruised to three easy wins, including last Friday’s road victory over Midlothian Heritage 51-13 and will continue Fayetteville’s challenging non-conference slate.
“It’s tough,” Dick said. “Cabot is a great team, Broken Arrow is a great program and has been for many years. Now playing a team like Texas High and the guys that have coming here will be an unbelievable challenge for us.
“But I think it gets us ready for conference play and the late part of the year when we play some of those teams in the playoffs environments and adversity.”
Texas High is ranked No. 4 in Class 5A Division II by the Dallas Morning News.
The Tigers put up 575 yards total offense its its win over Midlothian Heritage with 329 of that coming through the air.
Senior quarterback and SMU offer David Potter (6-5, 220) has tossed 8 touchdowns for Texas High while Stephen F. Austin pledge Javari Johnson is rushing for 106.3 yards per game and junior wideout Shavante Montgomery is over 100 yards receiving per contest.
The Longhorns also have a big-time 2027 offensive lineman in four-star freshman Qua Ford (6-5, 285), who has offers from Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, SMU, Arizona State among others.
“They have a lot of great athletes and it will be a vey tough challenge for us, but I think our guys will be ready to get after it, especially after having the week off,” Dick said.
The Purple Bulldogs also have plenty of talent with quarterback Garyt Odom (6-1, 170), wide receiver and Arkansas baseball commit Jaison Delamar (5-11, 210) and junior safety Kyndrick Williams (6-1, 195), who committed to the Razorbacks on Thursday.
Odom, the son of former Arkansas defensive coordinator and current UNLV head coach Barry Odom, has passed for 447 yards and ran for 135 so far his season.
“He is doing a great job,” Dick said. “He saw something different last week, something he hadn’t see his whole career, with the defies that Broken Arrow ran.
“The first week against Cabot, I think he threw for 385 yards and ran for right at almost 100 and last week it was kind of the opposite and we didn’t really have to throw the ball. I think he threw for 100 and ran for 60 or 70 and we rushed the ball for about 340 yards.”
Odom took over for Minnesota signee Drake Lindsey, who passed for 3,9116 yards and 52 touchdowns last season with just four interceptions for a 13-0 team.
“He (Odom) has been really, really productive and I would say pretty efficient for the most part whether he is passing or running,” Dick said. “He is taking the things the defense is allowing him to take.
“He is a little bit different than Drake in that he has the athletic ability to extend plays and defenses have to account for him in the run game, but he can hurt you with his arm as well.”
Delamar had 7 catches for 169 yards in the opener against Cabot after a junior season where he caught 89 passes for 1,478 yards and 17 touchdowns.
Senior tailback Christian Battles (5-11, 225) has rushed for 249 yards and six TDs in the first two games.
“I have been pretty pleased with our offensive line in how they have blocked up front and done a great job,” Dick said. “We had 250 rushing against Cabot and then 30 against Broken Arrow.
“What I think our running backs have done is just play really physical. They have run the ball with really good determination and finished runs.”
Dick assessed his team’s first two outings of the season.
“The first game I thought we handled adversity really well with thing we couldn’t control,” Dick said. “We had a lighting delay at Cabot. I think we came out and played fast and we executed really well to start the game.
“We kind of lulled off in the middle, but I think after the lightning delay and after halftime that our kids came out and really played well and just executed the bases stuff that we needed to.
“Last week against Broken Arrow, we dealt with some self-inflicted adversity like penalties and not playing super well in the first half.”
But Fayetteville showed up for the second half.
“I thought defense played lights out the whole game. Really holding those guys to 23 points because we put them in some tough situations there.
“But we were fortunate to score 30 points in that last 15 minutes, kind of woke up and put some things together and executed at the end from am offensive standpoint.
“It was an ugly win, but it was a win. I have learned over 20 years to just accept those, move on and be glad that we found a way to win.”
Bentonville move-in Daxton Horton and fellow linebacker Rhett Tidwell have shined on defense.
“I think Daton Horton – what we call our star in that he is middle linebacker and safety – he has got three interceptions and had 12 tackles last week,” Dick said. “Our other inside linebacker Rhett Tidwell has played really, really well has also played really, really well and had 12 tackles against Broken Arrow, too.”
Photo by John D. James
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