Texas Football

If TexasFootball.com were to produce a 2007 year-in-review, we'd surely ...

• Pick MVPs for every high school district;
• Recount the most memorable games from the high school season;
• Name postseason high school and college All-Texas teams;
• Determine the Top 10 recruits at every position;
• Recap every college team's season.

Would make sense to do all that, huh? Fortunately, we acted on that idea, except instead of hitting the World Wide Web, we've gone to print. Ending a 20-year drought, we are proud to announce the return of the Dave Campbell's Texas Football Winter Edition.

Hitting newsstands starting today (and available for online ordering), the revival of the 2008 Winter Edition takes a look back at a memorable 2007 season, from opening weekend to the Bowl Games to the coaching changes at four programs. The Winter Edition originally ran from 1972 before ceasing in 1986.

Between now and picking up your copy, here's some stuff left on the "cutting-room floor" that just missed making the final cut for the 2008 Winter Edition.

SEASON-ENDING HIGH SCHOOL RANKINGS
We rank the classifications -- from six-man up to Class 5A -- now that all the results are in the books. And speaking of in the book: you'll have to pick up a copy of the 2008 Winter Edition for the complete season-ending final Top 25s. For now, you'll have to follow this link for the Top 10s.

2008 ALL-TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL TEAM
Last January, we were looking for something to write about on our site. Then we had a lightbulb moment: We have a Super Team, a collection of the finest recruiting talent. But we didn't have all-star team that combed every classification to honor the top seasons by high school players -- no matter if they were on recruiting radars or not. So we came up with the 2007 All-Texas High School Football Team. Now, we can officially say this is an annual honor list. Because the 2008 Winter Edition includes the 2008 All-Texas High School Team, a two-deep that gathers the top performers from the 2007 high school football season. Making each selection provided the greatest challenge we faced with the entire magazine, but here's the rationale behind our picks for the 2008 All-Texas High School Team.

GAMES OF THE YEAR
We probably wouldn't have to give too many hints when it comes to the game of the year. It involved a defending national champion against one of the most storied programs in Texas high school football history, and the game unfolded (with many twists and turns) on the same turf as America's Team. In the winter book, we also picked the best game (in our humble opinions) from every week of the season. That was pretty tough. Especially when you see the list of games we had to pass on.

PHOTO SPREADS
One of our main objectives for this winter edition was to get more photography in the magazine. We accomplished that for the most part -- the thumbnail to the left is a sized-down version of an incredible shot of Frenship's defense stopping a Plainview runner. But we still had to make some cuts and didn't get as many photos in as we dreamed. So click on one of these links below for a look at photos we considered for two-page spreads:
--College photo spreads
--High School photo spreads