The 2023 season was a unique football year. Fourteen times in UIL history have more than one East Texas team won a state title in the same year. Of those seasons, it has happened that East Texas teams have won three titles in the same year only four times. 

In 2004 Gilmer (3A-D2), Kilgore (4A-D2) and John Tyler (5A-D1) took their crowns. Four years later, Daingerfield (2A-D2), Carthage (3A-D1) and Sulphur Springs (4A-D2)  earned their trophies. Carthage  and Daingerfield teamed up with Gilmer in 2009, and with Henderson in 2010, in bringing hardware back to East Texas. 

Now Gilmer, Malakoff and Timpson have made 2023 a year of some renown for East Texas football as each returned from Cowboys Stadium with state championship trophies.

It is a good time to take stock of the state of football in East Texas. It is healthy. Across the region, East Texas football offers a balance of unique schemes with athletes of exceptional athleticism. Little wonder the area remains a recruiting hotspot for collegiate programs.   

Of course, as with all complex sports, there is a lot of room for improvement. 

The most troubling trend in all of scholastic sports, but especially in football, is the increased posturing which occurs after the whistle. It goes beyond the ‘look at me’ variety – like pounding one’s chest, pointing at one’s own number or flexing. That is bad enough. 

Posturing takes it even a step further whereby after the play, an athlete will ‘bow up’ or stand over or step over his opponent. What is distressing is that these gestures mean nothing, zero, zilch.

It is troubling to consider that the acts are completely meaningless (and embarrassing). They erode what really is important – what does happen before the whistle. One has to consider that athletes who posture after the whistle don’t fully understand the game, or how the game is won.

The second aspect of the game which became apparent as the season drew on was the inconsistency in calling penalties for hits out of bounds. It should not be arbitrary or situationally dependent, as the boundaries of the field are unchanging. The judgement should be straightforward – once across the boundary, no intentional contact, period.

If the game of football needs a reset, the hit-out-of-bounds officiating would be a great place to start.

Speaking of environment, there is nothing like bureaucracy to subject a crowd to rote dictate. In the sporting world, this is represented by the script read before many games which describes how to properly conduct oneself as a spectator. 

It falls in the same category as asking people to stand, remove their hats and face the flag for the national anthem. The added instruction is not needed.

Most communities and fan bases are pretty good at self-policing. For the minority who are not, no script will make a difference. 

The last recommendation shaped from the 2023 football season is a simple one: uniforms. The trend in uniforms seems to be to make the numbers unreadable. 

Maybe it is the influence of the trendy grey kit, but football uniforms are not meant to camouflage the numbers , but rather to make the numbers identifiable. 

In Wood County, fans are witness to many great performances, readable numbers simply allow the play to be properly accredited – a win-win for all.  

With a memorable fall sporting season behind us, it’s time for the hardcourt.