With the season finally here, we’re debuting our newest feature, the TNG Weekly Huddle. Each week, by Monday or Tuesday, we’ll review the prior week’s action and then preview the upcoming week, featuring our updated Top 50, a link to updated standings, a sampling of the best games around the state, and breakdowns of our featured games of the week. We’ll also include a complete listing of our model’s picks for every 6A game being played that week at the end of this feature.
Reviewing our Preseason Content:
In case you haven’t yet read through all of our preseason content, we’ll link the key features here so you can easily access them:
Preseason Top 50, Region 1 Preview, Region 2 Preview, Region 3 Preview, Region 4 Preview, Top 5 District Races to Watch, Most Difficult Schedules, TNG Timelines, and Division 1 and 2 Playoff Bracket Projections
If you are still wondering, “What is Elo?” and, “Where did these ratings come from?” you can read up on those topics here: TNG Ratings Origin and Methodology
After Week 1, this section will feature a look back at how our model performed with the previous week’s picks, we’ll review our featured game picks, and we’ll highlight the most interesting results/trends of the week from around the state.
Previewing Week 1:
While all of the preseason research, projections, calculations, and debates are fun, it’s all just a way of passing the time until we get to this point. With actual game action on the horizon, we’ll soon have real on-field data to analyze and discuss and we cannot wait.
Statewide TNG Matchups & Model Picks
All of our preseason work to date has built to being able to deliver this…game-by-game projections with expected win percentages for each team along with expected margin of victory (MOV) for all games involving Class 6A teams.
TNG Matchups & Model Picks: Week 1
The link above will show you every 6A game projection, but we've included our Top 10 Best Games, Top 10 games by combined Elo rating, and Top 10 Close Calls. Sample below (full also embedded at the very bottom of this newsletter) :
This format will also double as our weekly scoreboard, which we'll update a soon as we gather all of the scores. We'll send out an email when we've captured all of the finals, hopefully by late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
It is important to note that for these early matchups, there is a decent margin for error a far as the relative ratings gaps between teams. We put a ton of effort into giving our model the best chance at early success, but we know that there are things we simply cannot account for within each team, and that's more exciting than worrying. It's why they play the games and it's why we watch. The system we have adopted will adjust as results come in and as teams establish themselves. If we're way off on our initial rating of a team, it will get corrected very quickly as teams perform.
Each week going forward we'll review the model’s performance, looking at correct pick percentage, MOV error, and Brier score. Our unadjusted historical model correctly picked 76% of all games played from 2008-2021, so we hope to beat that target by season's end.
Best Games Around the State
There are a ton of great games this week, so let's take a quick tour around the state to highlight some of the best and see what our model says about each. The favorite is listed first with their expected MOV in parentheses.
Odessa Permian (+1) over Abilene (5A), Denton Braswell (+3) over Northwest Eaton, Highland Park (+3) over FM Marcus, Duncanville (+14) over South Oak Cliff (5A), Katy Tompkins (+9) over Cy Ranch, FB Hightower (+5) over Pearland Dawson, CE King (+12) over Crosby (5A), Shadow Creek (+8) over Manvel (5A), Clear Falls (+2) over Pearland, SA Johnson (+2) over Converse Judson, SA Brennan (+15) over Cibolo Steele, and Harlingen (+7) over Harlingen South (5A)
What a week! And those aren't even our most interesting games. In the next section, we'll preview the headliners…
Featured Games of the Week
#16 Prosper at #24 Euless Trinity - Thu 8/25, 7pm, Pennington Field
TNG Model Pick - Prosper 58% chance to win; 3 point favorite
This is one of three blockbuster Thursday night matchups to kickoff the season. Trinity comes into this one on home turf with a new Head Coach in Aaron Lineweaver, but has 6 All-District players returning on the offensive side of the ball facing off against a Prosper defense returning 5 All-District starters on defense. This game is a true toss-up, pitting strength against strength, but our model likes Prosper as a slight favorite due to returning QB Harrison Rosar and WR Hunter Summers giving them the slight edge. Trinity winning this one would be no surprise, however.#10 Lake Travis at #22 Arlington Martin - Fri 8/26, 7pm, Globe Life Park
TNG Model Pick - Lake Travis 65% chance to win; 6 point favorite
These two teams have some recent history in non-district play with Lake Travis taking last year’s game 40-28 and the two teams trading 35-14 score lines in ‘18 and ‘19. Lake Travis enters with the better-looking team on both sides of the ball, most notably with an experienced QB in Bo Edmundson and a defense led by Jacob Henry and Grif Willis on the defensive line. Martin will be a challenge, however led by two-way threat Javien Taviano and 6 other All-District starters back from last year’s squad. Both teams clearly enjoy the benefits of playing each other early on or else they wouldn’t keep doing it. We have Martin modeled to be slightly down from last year, but this game could tell us quite a bit about their prospects for this season. We expect a great game.#9 The Woodlands at #2 North Shore - Thu 8/25, 7pm, GPISD Stadium
TNG Model Pick - North Shore 80% chance of winning; 13 point favorite
Watch it Live on TexanLive
This is THE game of the week, with the highest combined Elo of any matchup in the state (4775). Amazingly, these two Houston powers haven’t played since 2007, but if this one plays out the way it looks on paper it will have been worth the wait. North Shore, clearly, as the defending D1 champs and winners of 3 of the last 4 is the favorite, but a potentially lethal Highlander offense coupled with an improved defense could make this one an instant classic.
The Woodlands features Mabrey Mettauer, who is one of the top QBs in the ‘24 class, and he’ll have an explosive set of playmakers around him while operating behind a talented offensive line. The Highlander O will face a North Shore defense in a bit of a rebuilding mode, but a rebuilding North Shore defense is better than nearly anyone’s best defense. North Shore on offense is quite loaded themselves featuring Sophomore Kaleb Bailey at QB along with RB Rashad Johnson and David Amador at WR. Both The Woodlands and North Shore, incredibly, added to their considerable riches over the summer with the transfers of Soph wideouts Quanell X Farrakhan Jr and Deion Deblanc, respectively. This one truly has it all. Don’t miss it.#29 Dickinson at #15 Humble Atascocita, Thu 8/25, 7pm, Turner Stadium
TNG Model Pick - Atascocita 68% chance to win; 7 point favorite
Watch it Live on TexanLiveDon’t let the gap in rankings fool you. With only 175 Elo points separating these teams, they are more similar than a rankings gap of 14 spots may otherwise indicate. The last time these two played, Dickinson nearly upset Atascocita, losing a 22-21 heartbreaker in last year’s playoffs. You can be sure that the Gators will be salivating for this opportunity. It’s a wonder these two scheduled each other given that they could face-off yet again in this year’s playoffs, but these two have proven over the years that they fear nobody. Dickinson, with 6 All-District returnees on D could nullify a potentially explosive Atascocita offense led by QB Zion Brown, but likewise the Atascocita defense is loaded with playmakers to shut down the Gator attack. This should be a slugfest and would be well worth the trip up to Turner Stadium to catch this one live.
#18 Dripping Springs at #13 Austin Vandegrift, Fri 8/26, 7pm, Monroe Memorial
TNG Model Pick - Vandegrift 58% chance to win; 3 point favorite
Both teams come into this one featuring high-powered offenses in what could be a preview of the Division 2 Region 4 final. That’s right, if the season plays out according to our current projections these two would face each other again with a state semifinal berth at stake. But, that’s quite a ways off and both will simply be looking to get their season’s off on the right foot. Dripping Springs may have one of the top offenses in the state led by Baylor commit Austin Novosad at QB who has 9 returning starters back from an offense that put up 52 ppg last year. Despite their offensive promise, given Drippings Springs’ defensive struggles at times last year and given Vandegrift’s proven 6A track record of producing solid defenses, our model gives the Vipers an ever so slight edge in this must-watch matchup.#28 FB Ridge Point at #1 Austin Westlake, Fri 8/26, 7pm, Chaparral Stadium
TNG Model Pick - Westlake 95% chance to win; 29 point favorite
This one may not project to be close according to our model, but we had to include it considering the storylines involved. Westlake, embarking on a quest for a 4-peat after losing record-setting QB Cade Klubnik to graduation and replacing legendary Head Coach Todd Dodge, coming right out of the gate facing a team with the defensive strength and athleticism that Ridge Point will bring to the table was too intriguing not to mention. Ridge Point, in fact, may have the most challenging defense Westlake will face until late in the playoff with DK Kalu at DT plus All-State Safety Taylor Davis and 4 other All-District starters returning (8 defensive starters returning in total). The Chaps, of course, are absolutely loaded on both sides of the ball and their only real question mark as of this moment is what kind of play they’ll get out of the QB spot. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Westlake have a bit of a fight on their hands in this one, but if they come out and blow the Panthers away…well, good luck to anyone else in their way.
Pick ‘Em
If you haven’t yet signed up for our Pick ‘Em contest, click here: Week 1 Pick ‘Em
You have until Thursday at 5pm to get your entries in! We currently have 14 competitors signed up to attempt to beat the machine!
Complete TNG Matchups & Model Picks for Week 1
(listed generally in order by district - double-click image to enlarge) :