The final week of the regular season is upon us and there are some great games to keep an eye on that will ultimately shape the playoff picture for the Division 1 and Division 2 brackets. We’ll take you through all of the key games in today’s newsletter…
Week 10 Review
In case you missed our Week 10 Review, check it out here to get caught up and ready for the week ahead.
Also, don’t forget to checkout the podcast. In addition to finding the podcast episodes by being a subscriber to this site, you can find our Podcast on Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Please subscribe, comment, and ‘like’ the Pod to help elevate it in the search engines of each platform.
With that, let’s look ahead to Week 11…
Historical Model Performance for Week 11
Top Games of the Week
The model has correctly picked 58 of the last 80 Games of the Week. Which ones will be the upsets this week? Eight 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 five games that fall within a two-point projected margin.
Quick Hits: Games to Watch Around the State
Midland +5, 63% to win vs Odessa Permian - Permian must win to have a shot at the playoffs. If Odessa also beats Midland Legacy, however, it could force a 5-way tie for 1st through 5th at 3-2 in district. In all of our years following high school football, we can’t recall ever seeing a 5-way tie at the top of a district at the end of a season.
Prosper +1, 53% to win vs McKinney - After their wins last week, these two will duke it out for the 5-6A crown ahead of going off to separate playoff brackets. McKinney just wrestled back some positive momentum and they won’t want to let it go, while Prosper looks to complete an outright, undefeated district title.
Conroe +3, 57% to win vs College Park - The true play-in game of Week 11…the winner is in the playoffs, and the loser is out. Both teams have battled through a difficult district schedule to give themselves a shot at playing at least one more game. This Thursday night tilt should be a great one.
Bridgeland +8, 69% to win vs Cy Springs - 16-6A District title on the line. Bridgeland would be outright champs with a win. A Springs win would cap an already wildly successful season which has earned the school’s first playoff berth in 20 years.
Westside +12, 78% to win vs Houston Sam Houston - Westside’s Week 10 win meant that Houston Lamar is now projected into D2, but that will only remain the case if Westside beats Sam Houston to secure their playoff spot.
Katy Jordan +13, 79% to win vs Morton Ranch - Jordan faces the same final game stakes they faced one year ago…beat Morton Ranch and they’re in the playoffs. Mike Gerald and Ryan Hall are exceptional talents running the ball for Morton Ranch and Jordan is coming off a week where they gave up 487 rushing yards to Tompkins. A Jordan win would send Katy to D1, while a Morton Ranch win would send Katy to D2, assuming that Cinco Ranch beats Seven Lakes.
Atascocita +7, 68% to win vs Summer Creek - Could this be the year that Summer Creek finally defeats Atascocita? The Summer Creek defense against the explosive Atascocita offense will be worth the price of admission alone, but this game might well be determined by who wins the battle between Summer Creek’s offense and Atascocita’s defense. The outcome of this game determines nothing but local bragging rights and playoff momentum, but expect to see both teams doing everything they can to win this one.
Alief Taylor +12, 77% to win vs Alief Elsik - An Elsik W gets them to 3-4 in district, likely tied with Strake Jesuit who plays Shadow Creek. Since Elsik holds the head-to-head tiebreaker vs Strake, they’re in with a win, which would send Shadow Creek to D2.
Cedar Park Vista Ridge +5, 64% to win vs Round Rock - THE crucial game likely to determine the ultimate outcome of the 25-6A season-long saga. As best we can tell, Round Rock is in with win and are probably out with loss. If Round Rock loses then McNeil, Westwood, and Vista Ridge are likely in, assuming McNeil beats Cedar Ridge (McNeil is 86% to win). If it is indeed Vandegrift, Westwood, McNeil, and Vista Ridge in the playoffs, or any scenario that sees Round Rock out of the playoffs, then Vandegrift would go to Division 1 and would play Lake Travis in the first round. Considering how the district season has gone, however, the fact that all of the favorites won last week should have us all wary of a chaotic finale.
Laredo United +6, 64% to win vs Laredo Alexander - Both teams enter the final week of the season undefeated in district play as they prepare to battle for the outright district title.
San Benito +9, 71% to win vs Weslaco - The only battle of 9-0 squads in Class 6A. The Greyhounds and Panthers each look to cap off a perfect regular season with a district title. Both squads play great D, but Fabian Garcia could be the difference-maker for San Benito.
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.