2025 TNG Class 6A State Preseason Top 100

Unveiling the Top 100 teams in the state combining offseason research with historical TNG computer data, presented in relative tiers

After another long offseason, it’s finally time to unveil our 2025 TNG Preseason Class 6A Preview, officially kicking off the fourth season of our coverage. We are incredibly grateful that you’ve found us, and your support is truly humbling. We hope that you’ll enjoy what we have in store for you.

To get started with the 2025 preview, we’ll begin with our Preseason Top 100! Our preseason rankings are based on the Elo ratings we’ve developed over the years (more on our process here) with some slight offseason adjustments to account for returning production and production lost to graduation.

This year we’ve decided to present the ratings in relative tiers in order to better contextualize the placement of teams and to have a chance to briefly comment on each tier. We hope you’ll enjoy the added details.

Remember, these preseason ratings and rankings are just a starting point based on our offseason evaluations attempting to give our computer model a solid baseline to operate from. If we’re off on your team’s preseason evaluation, the computer will quickly correct our offseason adjustment errors once actual games are played.

Without further delay, let’s take a look at our 2025 Preseason Class 6A Top 100! We’ll start by walking through it in tiers and at the bottom we’ve posted the Top 100 in a single graphic.

Tier 1: Best of the Best (OVR 92+)

Often, folks will want to see the past year’s champions automatically at #1 to start a new season. While we do certainly understand that sentiment, we try to do things a little bit differently, acknowledging that each new season and each team within a program is an entirely different entity. We try to combine the immediate data from last year, each teams’ typical historical baseline rating, and each team’s returning talent to project how things may look.

From all of the factors we consider, it’s hard to see anyone but Carroll at #1. The Dragons lost a very competitive contest against Vandegrift in the D2 title game and Coach Dodge’s bunch returns nearly everyone from that team. Carroll returns 12 of their 14 All-District players on offense and 10 of 14 on defense. It’s extremely rare for any team to return that much proven production, let alone one that was highly competitive in a state title game. QB Angelo Renda is back along with RB Davis Penn, WR Brock Boyd, his four other top receivers, and four offensive linemen. It’s not hard to see why Carroll rates as our #1 offense. The Dragons did lose DE Jack Van Dorselaer, but return essentially everyone else on defense. Carroll even returns specialists Gavin Strange and Zac Hays.

Duncanville at #2 is simply a reflection of their ridiculous baseline performance over an extended period of time and acknowledges the incredible amount of talent that they have in the pipeline. It’s also a reflection of the fact that a number of the usual suspects are also in a rebuilding cycle, as Duncanville is…however brief that may be. With the likes of Zach Turner, Ayson Theus, Trenton Yancey, KJ Ford, and Braylon Edwards back, to name a few, plus a seemingly endless assembly line of future D1 stars in waiting, the Panthers aren’t going anywhere for several years.

Vandegrift at #3 may come as a surprise, but it shouldn’t. On offense, QB Miles Teodecki, RB Justin Moore, WR Brock Chilton, WR Gavin Koester and three offensive linemen return for the defending D2 state champs. Vandegrift does have a bit of rebuilding to do on defense, but they have a nice core of returning talent and they’re a program that’s set an extremely high floor on that side of the ball. An argument could be made that they should be #1, or at least ahead of Carroll, but Carroll got the slight nod due to the overwhelming number of players they return.

Tier 2: Potential Champions (OVR 90-92)

The teams in this tier are all capable of making a state run, possibly even winning it all. As you can see from the OVR and Elo ratings, there’s not a whole lot to separate this pack of contenders. #4 North Crowley would only be favored over #13 Atascocita by about a FG in our rating system. Compared to most years, this is a very deep pool of potential state contenders.

North Crowley could’ve very easily been included in the previous tier, but we had to cut it somewhere and 92 OVR seemed like a natural break. While North Crowley has incredible talent in the pipeline and they now got a taste of what it takes to win it all, they do have to replace 21 key players including several multi-year starters, not to mention they lost their offensive architect, Eli Reinhart, who left to takeover HC duties in Hutto. Any team would have an incredibly difficult time matching their previous output with all of those factors in place, but it’s clear that North Crowley is still going to be outstanding.

Allen, Westlake, Longview, and North Shore all check in just behind North Crowley, all garnering a starting OVR rating of 91.2. While Allen and Longview are ascending, Westlake and North Shore appear to be in a, likely brief, reloading pattern. The Chaps and the Mustangs have long established a penchant for remaining elite no matter what they lose to graduation and this season should test both programs’ abilities. Allen and Longview ride in on the backs of successful playoff runs, stout defenses, and a wealth of talent on the way.

Next in line are the likes of Summer Creek, DeSoto, Katy, Lake Travis, and Atascocita; long-established programs that with a couple of questions being answered could vault directly into state title contention.

All of the teams in this tier, at least in our eyes, could just about be ordered to your preference and we’d probably agree with you!

Tier 3: State Darkhorses (OVR 86-88)

Notice that Tier 2 included OVR ratings from 90-92 and this one covers OVR ratings from 86-88 illustrating a pretty clear gap between this group and the next one above. Now, there’s only about a TD separating #14 Prosper from #13 Atascocita, but still. The teams in this group all fit a similar mold in that they’re obviously excellent, but maybe aren’t quite as established as the teams just above them, or there are a few more question marks relative to the Tier 2 squads. These are teams that we could be underrating, who are also talented enough to possibly win their region.

Tier 4: Deep Run Potential (OVR 84-86)

As we get deeper into the rankings the tiers expand in size, and within this tier are a group of teams that are all capable of playing 3-4 rounds deep in the postseason. Another thing to think about as we go deeper into the rankings is that the specific order of teams within a tier are less and less significant. You could almost throw these same ten teams in a hat and draw a random order and it would probably still look pretty good.

Tier 5: Double-Digit Win Potential (OVR 82-84)

Even though the tier above was labeled “Deep Run Potential”, it’s definitely possible that one of these squads could make a deep run (3-4 rds+) of their own, but the chances start to diminish. We could be drastically off on a select team or two, but calling this group “Double-Digit Win Potential” speaks to the fact that these teams are still really, really good.

Tier 6: Possible Giant Killers (OVR 80-82)

This group being named “Potential Giant Killers” speaks to the fact that these are really good teams that are capable of springing a major upset, but that are probably going to be underdogs as they get beyond Week 12.

Tier 7: Quality Squads with Upward Potential (OVR <80)

The final 35 (!) teams in this year’s TNG 6A Preseason Top 100 are only separated from top-to-bottom by about a touchdown. Any one of these teams could play their way into the tier above and the teams in this group is going to fluctuate wildly throughout the season. In general, teams rated in this group are all “playoff quality” even though a number of them aren’t projected into the postseason based on the district they play in. These are all still good teams that are capable of beating just about anyone on the right night.

Complete Top 100