Well, here we are in Week 10. It’s hard to believe that we’re this deep in the season, but one good thing about that is the fact that we are going to be treated to some blockbuster matchups in the coming days. This week, we have #1 vs #4, #2 vs #3, and a whole host of decisive district battles and playoff berth deciders coming our way. We’ll get you ready for all of that in today’s newsletter…
Week 9 Review
In case you missed our Week 9 Review, check it out here to get caught up and ready for the week ahead.
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With that, let’s look ahead to Week 10…
Historical Model Performance for Week 10
Top Games of the Week
The model has correctly picked 52 of the last 70 Games of the Week. Which ones will be the upsets this week? Six out of the ten best games this week are projected to be within single-digit margins. The table below lists the top games on this week’s schedule in terms of our GameScore metric.
Closest Calls
It’s always fun to take a look at the tightest games in our model projections and this week gives us 7 games that fall within a two-point projected margin.
Quick Hits: Games to Watch Around the State
Midland Legacy +12, 77% to win vs Midland - Although Midland is the undefeated squad coming into this game, Legacy is a fairly large favorite in the model. Midland hasn’t won this rivalry since 2016 and is looking to overturn a 48-3 loss in this game last year. This one is likely for the district title.
Crowley +2, 56% to win vs Boswell - Boswell needs to win this one to break free of a potential 3-way tie for fourth place that would see them out of the playoffs; a win here and they’ll get in.
Southlake Carroll +11, 75% to win vs Byron Nelson - We finally get to the game of the year in 4-6A with both teams putting up video game numbers on the rest of the district thus far. Carroll has outscored district foes 61-12 while Byron Nelson has put up a 56-13 margin on its district opponents. Carroll won last year’s game 38-23 on the strength of their running game. This game could tell us quite a bit about each team as they head toward the postseason.
Denton Guyer +12, 77% to win vs McKinney - A few weeks ago, this projected margin might have seemed a little crazy, but in recent weeks Allen dominated McKinney and then Guyer beat Allen. McKinney will want to regain momentum quickly, as they’ll have Prosper next week. Meanwhile, Guyer seems to be rounding into form just in time for the postseason.
Prosper +2, 56% to win vs Allen - Speaking of Allen and Prosper, those two square off with Prosper’s position atop the district at stake. Prosper has won two in a row in the series, but this will be, by far, their toughest game since Week 4 against Guyer. The underlying metrics actually favor Allen in what should be a great one.
Duncanville +5, 63% to win vs DeSoto - The game of the year. Perhaps the regular season game of a generation. We created our GameScore metric this year to assess the quality of each game on the schedule and we applied it all the way back through 2007 and this is the highest rated regular season game, by far, of any game in that time period. This is the first matchup of defending state champions within a district since Judson and Roosevelt met in 1996. Duncanville has dominated the series in the last 5 years, winning by an average margin of 40-20…and this may just be their best team yet.
Willis +1, 52% to win vs The Woodlands - Willis has yet to play a game closer than 45-17, but they’ll get their toughest test of the season, by some margin, this week against The Woodlands. DJ Lagway and his crew vs Mabrey Mettauer and his…don’t miss it! This one should be electric and we won’t have to wait long; Jeremy has the call this Thursday night on the Conroe ISD Youtube channel.
New Caney +7, 68% to win vs. College Park - College Park must win this one in order to make their game against Conroe next week a play-in game for the district’s fourth playoff berth. A New Caney win would keep them alive in the playoff race since they hold the tiebreaker over Conroe.
Houston Memorial +2, 54% to win vs Houston Stratford - A good ole classic cross-town rivalry game, and the computer likes a close one. This should be a great occasion at Tully Stadium, as it always is, and the winner will claim the top D2 seed in the district.
Katy Tompkins +5, 63% to win vs Katy Jordan - Jordan needs to win to assure themselves a playoff spot without making their Week 11 game vs Morton Ranch a must-win. The Warriors need to regain momentum after their shocking loss to Taylor last week. Tompkins, on the other hand, has gotten healthy and has been on a bit of a roll.
North Shore +8, 70% to win vs Atascocita - The other headline-grabbing matchup this week pits #1 vs #4 in our latest Elo rankings and it should be a great one. Atascocita nearly dropped a shocker to CE King last week, but was able to pull out an OT victory. This one will likely come down to the trench play, as it often does, and North Shore looks to have an advantage there again, especially on defense. North Shore will need their defensive front to be an advantage, because Atascocita has the #1 adjusted-scoring offense in the state thus far. Atascocita will be looking to get their first win in the series since 2017 in this battle for the district title and for the top seed in the D1 bracket.
Summer Creek +11, 75% to win vs CE King - The other great matchup in 21-6A features the extremely impressive Summer Creek defense against the CE King offense, which has been far better than most anticipated thanks to the play of QB Darius Clark-James. Summer Creek has proven themselves throughout the year, but will want to keep that momentum going as they head toward a deep run in the D2 bracket. In fact, these two are very likely to meet again in the Region 3 D2 final.
25-6A - The key games to watch this week are McNeil vs Stony Point, where the Mavs are a 5pt favorite, and Westwood vs Manor, where the Warriors are a 9pt favorite. Stony Point and Manor would be nearly out of contention with losses in these games, but the favorites wouldn’t be assured of a spot even with a win. The district appears headed toward a number of complicated tiebreaker scenarios, the most likely of which features a 4-way tie between Round Rock, Westwood, Vista Ridge, and McNeil for 2nd through 5th places. In that scenario, McNeil is likely in but the fate of the other three won’t be decided until Vista Ridge and Round Rock play, next week.
Full Weekly Scoreboard
Finally, here are the picks for all of the games this week! Which ones has the model missed on? Which look most exciting to you? Check the last two columns on the right to see how each game stacks up compared to the rest of the games on the regular season schedule, according to our GameScore.