Texas Football

A look at the tough choices the DCTF staff made for the All-Texas High School Team.

By Greg Tepper DCTF Associate Editor

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One of the greatest joys of working for Dave Campbell’s Texas Football is also one of its greatest stressors.

The DCTF staff is tasked every year with handing out a variety of awards in the high school and college ranks. From Teams of the Year, Coaches of the Year, Players of the Year, Games of the Year on down the line, it can be a lot of fun to take a 10,000-foot view of the football landscape in Texas.

It can also be, well, very stressful. You always feel pressure to get the right picks, to give these awards to the most truly deserving candidate.

And this year, there was no greater challenge than putting together our All-Texas High School Team for the 2013 Winter Edition of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, in which we select the best players at every position in the state regardless of class.

It’s a gargantuan task. That’s more than 1,400 teams worth of players to consider, and we had to come up with the very best of the best to put on the 2013 All-Texas High School Team.

We announced the first-team selections in our press release for the Winter Edition’s release, but in case you missed them, here they are again:

First-Team Offense

QB \\ Kenny Hill, Sr. \\ Southlake Carroll

RB \\ Adam Taylor, Sr. \\ Katy

RB \\ Dontre Wilson, Sr. \\ DeSoto

WR \\ Jake Oliver, Sr. \\ Dallas Jesuit

WR \\ Austin Collins, Sr. \\ Navasota

WR \\ Marcell Ateman, Sr. \\ Wylie East

OL \\ Kent Perkins, Sr. \\ Lake Highlands

OL \\ Andrew Billings, Sr. \\ Waco

OL \\ Bryan Manley, Sr. \\ Stephenville

OL \\ John Wesley Shipp, Sr. \\ Refugio

OL \\ J.J. Gustafson, Sr. \\ Dallas Jesuit

TE \\ Charlie Reid, Sr. \\ FW All Saints

UTIL \\ Dee Paul, Sr. \\ Munday

K \\ Ben Grogan, Sr. \\ Arlington Martin

Offensive Superlatives

Offensive Player of the Year: Dee Paul, Munday

Best QB: Kenny Hill, Southlake Carroll

Best RB: Adam Taylor, Katy

Best WR: Jake Oliver, Dallas Jesuit

Best OL: Kent Perkins, Lake Highlands

First-Team Defense

DL // Matt Dimon, Sr. // Katy

DL // Edgar Luna, Sr. // Cameron Yoe

DL // Justin Manning, Sr. // Dal. Kimball

DL // Deon Hollins, Sr. // FB Marshall

LB // Sammy Douglas, Sr. // Arlington

LB // Josh Walker, Jr. // Gilmer

LB // Reggie Chevis, Sr. // Hou. Sharpstown

DB // Isaiah Brown, Sr. // Katy

DB // Maurice Smith, Sr. // FB Dulles

DB // Jordan Sterns, Sr. // Cibolo Steele

DB // Ranthony Texada, Sr. // Frisco Centennial

UTIL // Hagen Hutchinson, Sr. // Stamford

RET // Patrick Brown, Sr. // Henderson

P // Rio Schmidt, Sr. // Mason

Defensive Superlatives

Defensive Player of the Year/Best DL: Matt Dimon, Katy

Best LB: Sammy Douglas, Arlington

Best DB: Ranthony Texada, Frisco Centennial

Most Versatile: Jordan Sterns, Cibolo Steele

So, there you have it: the 2013 All-Texas High School First Team. You’ll have to pick up the magazine to see our second-team selections.

But while I have you here, a few of my own after-the-fact observations on our selections:

Small schools rule: Players from Classes 3A and under take up nine spots on our first team, a remarkable number. The headliner, though, is Munday’s Dee Paul getting our Offensive Player of the Year nod. He was, quite simply, the most dominant player in the state, and is well-deserving of the award. I’m also glad that we were able to get guys like Hagen Hutchinson of Stamford, Patrick Brown of Henderson and Rio Schmidt of Mason on the team. They were outstanding this year and deserved recognition.

Katy’s dominance: Only one team in the state had more than one player on our first-team All-Texas High School team, and that’s the 5A Division II state champion Katy Tigers, who notched three spots. When you have the best RB (Adam Taylor), the Defensive Player of the Year (Matt Dimon) and a standout defensive back (Isaiah Brown), it’s easy to see why the Tigers took home another title.

D-Line delight: What a lineup on our first-team defensive line. Matt Dimon was obviously sensational for Katy, as he took home our Defensive Player of the Year award. Edgar Luna was probably 2A’s best defensive player at Cameron Yoe in leading the Yoemen to a title. Justin Manning was a force of nature in Dallas ISD for the Kimball Knights. And anyone tasked with blocking Deon Hollins at Fort Bend Marshall – our preseason Defensive Player of the Year pick – was playing a losing game. What a year for the defensive hogmollies.

QB controversy?: Let’s get this out of the way: there were a whole heck of a lot of great quarterbacks in the state of Texas this season. Our pick of Kenny Hill from Southlake Carroll as the best was by no means a slam dunk, but we felt it was the right call considering how close Hill came to leading the Dragons back to the state title game. It’s not entirely about how far you get your team, but that certainly helped in Hill’s case. (Oh, and our second-team guy wasn’t an easy choice, either. A lot of great quarterbacks got left off this list.)

In all, it was a delight to help put this All-Texas High School Team together. We know not everyone will agree with all of our picks, but trust me: we agonized over these decisions far more than you think.

Greg Tepper is the associate editor of Dave Campbell's Texas Football and TexasFootball.com.

He can be reached via e-mail, via Twitter (@Tepper) and via the DCTF Facebook page.