It seems like we just started, but we’re now entering the meat of the season, with most districts having already started district play. Below, we’ll get you ready for the big week ahead. We’ll follow the same format as we have presented in the last few weeks: you’ll find links to our Week 4 Review and this week’s podcast, we’ll preview the expected model performance, we’ll preview our Games of the Week, take a look at the Closest Calls, and we’ll walk you through the rest of the key Games to Watch Around the State. Saving the best for last, you’ll find our model’s picks of every game this week down at the bottom of the newsletter.
Week 4 Review
In case you missed our Week 4 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, Apple Podcasts, and we’ll also be uploading each episode (audio only for now) on YouTube. 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 5…
Historical Model Performance for Week 5
Coming off our second record-breaking week of the 2023 season, the model is likely to regress toward the mean Week 5 performance level of picking 78% of the winners. The range of Week 5 model outputs has been pretty large, interestingly, ranging from 71% to nearly 86%.
Top Games of the Week
We’ve had two weeks in a row now where the model has hit on 8 out of 10 of our Games of the Week. Which ones will be the upsets this week? The table below lists the top games on this week’s schedule in terms of our GameScore metric. We’ll talk about the top three games in more detail just below the table.
Featured Games of the Week
Dickinson vs Clear Springs (Dickinson 71% to win, 9 pt fav)
GameScore 67.7, 95th percentile
Fri 7pm at Challenger-Columbia
This key district 23-6A battle features the top two teams in the district, according to our Elo ratings. Dickinson has been very impressive since their opening loss to Atascocita, crushing our model’s expectations each of the last three weeks. John Solomon at QB full-time makes the Gators very dangerous offensively and they’ve been playing really good D too. Clear Springs is coming into this one on a winning streak of their own after dropping their first two against Katy and Shadow Creek. Springs has plenty of weapons to challenge any defense and the Chargers have a good track record against the Gators. In fact, Clear Springs has won 8 of the last 15 meetings, including last year’s which they won 24-20. The average score across those 15 games between these rivals is 32-30. Expect another classic battle.
Shadow Creek vs Pearland (Shadow Creek 76% to win, 11pt fav)
GamesScore 69.1, 96th percentile
Fri 7pm at Freedom Field in Alvin
This one is the second of three potential district title bouts featured in our newsletter this week and despite the margin as projected by Elo, it has the potential of being a nail biter. Shadow Creek has started impressively yet again, with wins over Manvel, Clear Springs, and Bridgeland. Pearland comes in having lost their last game against an immensely talented CE King squad, but has registered victories over Clear Falls and Memorial. The matchup to watch here is the Pearland Offense vs the Shadow Creek defense. These two units are among their respective best in the Houston area and it will be fascinating to watch. On the other side of the ball for both squads are units with potential, but that haven’t quite caught up to their better halves. Both teams come into this one off of bye weeks, so they should be fresh and raring to go. Shadow Creek is 3-0 in this young series, but all three games have been close.
Austin Westlake vs Lake Travis (Westlake 61% to win, 4pt fav)
GameScore 86.4, 99.8th percentile
Fri 7:30pm at Lake Travis
Not that this rivalry needed any additional context, but it just so happens that there’s only one other regular season game this year that registers a higher GameScore than this one, and that other one (Duncanville vs DeSoto) will only be the highest-rated regular season game in 15+ years. The last Westlake-LT game with a higher GameScore than this one was in 2017; a game that Westlake won 21-14, ending a 10 game winning streak for Lake Travis.
There aren’t many games, or rivalries, anywhere in the country that can compare to Westlake and Lake Travis when both teams are good, and this year, they are both rated inside nearly everyone’s State Top 10, including ours. Both teams have been playing suffocating defense and both, coincidentally, are maybe a step or two below their customary offensive output. To put each teams defensive dominance to date into perspective: Lake Travis held Cibolo Steele over 40 points below their season average while Westlake held Ridge Point to four TDs below their average output. Steele and Ridge Point are two of the best offenses in the state and the Chaps and Cavs shut them down.
Whose offense has a better chance against the opposing defense this week? That’s our main question heading into this one. But, we can’t hardly talk about a Westlake game without talking special teams, and the Chaps would appear to have a considerable advantage there, possibly even enough to offset the very real home-field advantage that the Cavs will enjoy. Westlake seems to create a TD or more every game just out of their punt return unit, and they’ve got a kicker in Spencer Barnett that drilled a 59-yarder to seal their victory against Ridge Point.
Westlake has won four of last five meetings with Lake Travis winning in 2019, which was the last regular season loss for the Chaps, who are riding a 32-game regular season winning streak. Can Lake Travis turn the tide and start a new series win streak of their own, or will the Chaps continue their recent dominance? We absolutely cannot wait for this one.
Closest Calls
It’s always fun to take a look at the tightest games in our model projections and this week gives us only four games, coincidentally, that fall within a two-point projected margin.
Quick Hits: Other Games to Watch Around the State
North Crowley favored by 12, 77% to win vs Euless Trinity - a key battle in 3-6A between the top two squads in our projections. North Crowley is possibly quite a bit better than our model is projecting, having outperformed the model each week.
NW Eaton favored by 5, 63% to win vs Fossil Ridge - both teams badly need a win to improve their playoff odds as both project as bubble teams. This one has added significance since the result will help push SLC toward either D2 or D1 depending on who wins.
Lewisville Hebron favored by 1, 51% to win vs FM Marcus - these two squads project 4th and 5th in 6-6A currently and the model sees it as a toss-up; gotta love it. A victory here will be huge for either team.
Wylie East favored by 1, 54% to win vs Sachse - The top two in 9-6A square off for a chance to take the reins in the district title race. You can’t ask for much more than a toss-up game potentially for the title.
Mesquite Horn favored by 14, 82% to win North Forney - North Forney has been quietly crushing model expectations every week, pointing to a potential upset alert for the Jags here.
Pflugerville Weiss favored by 4, 60% to win vs Harker Heights - another potential title tilt pits Weiss against Harker Heights. Heights won last year’s game 21-14. Can Weiss continue their impressive run?
New Caney favored by 9, 71% to win vs Oak Ridge - New Caney solidified their model rating with last week’s battle against The Woodlands, putting Oak Ridge in the position of needing to pull off a mild upset here to keep progressing toward a playoff berth.
Klein Cain favored by 8, 70% to win vs Tomball Memorial - Memorial is 3-0 and has been playing well above model expectations, to their credit. Do they have enough to beat Cain and get into position for the district title? Cain has been impressive in their own right. This should be a great one.
Tomball favored by 7, 67% to win vs Klein - This is yet another game between the currently projected 4th and 5th place teams in district and this one is between a couple of old rivals. We expect this one to go down to the wire.
FB Travis favored by 4, 61% to win vs George Ranch - George Ranch, having beaten Clements last week, can all but assure themselves of a playoff spot if they an knock off Travis, and some of their underlying numbers suggest that they might even deserve to be the favorite here.
SA Harlan favored by 3, 57% to win vs SA Warren - What a great-looking game between two teams vying to knock Brennan off of the 29-6A pedestal. Both teams come in 4-0 and the model sees them as relative equals. This projects as the cream of the crop from San Antonio in Week 5.
Reminder: TNG Pick ‘Em
If you missed our initial Week 5 Pick ‘Em email, or if you haven’t yet gotten off the sidelines to join us in the battle, go to our Week 5 Pick ‘Em page and jump in! Test your wits against us and against our model to see how you stack up.
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.