Note: This story is featured in the 2026 edition of Dave Campbell's Texas Football's Summer Magazine, which you can order here.

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DeSoto coach Claude Mathis is hard on running backs. Really hard.

It’s understandable — Mathis is still Texas State’s all-time greatest running back, holding essentially every one of the Bobcats’ rushing records.

So how he coaches SaRod Baker isn’t personal. Well, it is personal, but not in a malicious way.

“I’m very hard on SaRod because I know what he can do,” Mathis said. “My job is to continue to improve his game, improve his fundamentals, make him a great running back and a great team player.”

Whatever combination of raw talent and coaching it may be, Baker emerged as one of the must-see attractions in Texas high school football during his breakout junior season. But in many ways, it was two different seasons.

Don’t be mistaken: Baker had a fine regular season in 2025 — 1,600 yards and 25 touchdowns, a little more than 8 yards per carry. He was excellent.

But in the playoffs? That’s a different story.

“I haven’t seen that from another player I’ve coached,” Mathis said. “I haven’t seen that anywhere else from opponents I’ve coached against.”

In the postseason, Baker went thermonuclear. In his six playoff games en route to DeSoto’s third state championship in the last four seasons, he ran for 1,606 yards and 21 touchdowns, averaging 10.6 yards per game. That’s right: he ran for more yards in six playoff games — against increasingly excellent competition — than he did in his ten regular season games.

His magnum opus came in the state semifinal victory over state No. 1 and unbeaten Southlake Carroll, in which Baker led a furious second-half comeback to down the Dragons. The final tally: 38 carries, 366 yards and three touchdowns, including a gobsmacking 99-yard score on the final snap of the game to seal the Eagles’ 57-44 win.

“When SaRod just said, ‘Screw this, give me the ball, they can’t stop me’... man, he became the best player on the field,” Mathis said. “‘I’m gonna make you miss, I’m gonna run over you, I’m gonna go around you, I’m gonna go through you. It doesn’t matter. I’m gonna get it done.’

“And he did.”

The numbers obviously speak for themselves, but Mathis said his skillset reminds him of another pretty prolific running back.

“What makes him special is the vision,” Mathis said. “I used to see opponents out of the corner of my eye before they even saw me — and SaRod Baker is the only other cat I know that can do that.”

But Mathis said that Baker’s football IQ often goes underappreciated.

“SaRod knows our offense like a quarterback, inside and out,” Mathis said. “When that started happening, I was like, ‘Hell, we’re actually onto something.’”

Needless to say, Baker’s playoff heroics made him both a viral sensation and a recruiting must-have. The 5-foot-9, 200-pound back racked up more than 35 scholarship offers before committing to Texas Tech in April.

But as he enters his senior season, there’s still more expectations that Mathis has of his star back, even if it doesn’t translate directly to the box score.

“I don’t need SaRod trying to go win every game by himself,” Mathis said. “I need him to play within the system. We’ve got too many great players on this football team for him to have to be Superman.”

But don’t mistake that for Mathis expecting fewer fireworks from No. 5. If anything, he just understands that his opponents will know what is coming.

“You want to stop us? Stop SaRod Baker in the second half,” Mathis said. “I don’t care if you’ve got eight guys in the box, nine guys in the box.”