We're counting down the days until football is back in the state of Texas, and we're less than five days away. To celebrate, we're listing five programs in Texas high school football that we'd love to put on a "Hard Knocks" or "Last Chance U" style of program. For anyone unfamiliar, Hard Knocks follow teams and players through training camp to get insight into the team, the program and people that put it all together.

Duncanville Panthers

From head coach Reggie Samples to quarterback Ja'Quinden Jackson to safety Chris Thompson, there may not be a better collection of dynamic personalities and talent than the Panthers in 2019. That only adds to an incredible storyline: the redemption march of a team robbed of ultimate glory by North Shore's Hail Mary in the 6A DI title game last December at AT&T Stadium. Five minutes on an average day with Samples is always entertaining, and we can only imagine what the daily grind is like now that the team is on its most focused mission. As Duncanville focuses on a title run, access to the program has been extremely limited to media, making insider perspective all the more tantalizing. 

Mart Panthers

Few towns this small pack this much talent and tradition per square acre. Mart head coach Kevin Hoffman got the monkey off his back two years ago when the Panthers won the 2A DI title over Refugio, and he further cemented his position with last year's dominant 2A DII title win over Gruver. He's also a heck of a lot of fun to interview and even more fun to watch coach up his kids. The Panthers, who have won seven state championships in total now, made history with the first back-to-back run. With plenty of talent returning, but the team's core having graduated, can they reload quickly enough to make it a three-peat? 

Pleasant Grove Hawks

The Hawks have gone from middle-of-the-road afterthoughts (winning six games in each of head coach Josh Gibson's first three seasons) to one of the most dominant, feared teams in the state, going 29-3 the last two seasons with a 4A DII state championship in 2017 and a runner-up finish in 2018. Pleasant Grove enters this season as the favorite in 4A DII, just received one of the biggest facility upgrades in the state during the offseason, and has a collection of incredible players spearheading the effort, from running back and BYU commit Bruce Garrett to quarterback and three-year starter Ben Harmon to blue chip defensive linemen Marcus Burris and Landon Jackson. The Hawks are the new hotness playing with a revved-up, old school Wing-T offense, and we'd love to be inside those walls in the buildup to 2019. 

Temple Wildcats

There just aren't that many teams in the state with both decades of success on their resume, combined with a rabid, massive fanbase. Temple is one of the few, a place where everyone fairly expects state title aspirations every season, and a squad that usually has the credentials to back up such lofty standards. Wildcat Stadium is one of the most iconic in the state, a can't-miss monolith as you zip by on I-35 in either direction between Dallas and Austin, and "Blue Front, White Back" magic is synonymous not only with the program, but Texas high school football itself at this point. Coming off a disastrous capitulation in the first round of last year's playoffs against Mesquite Horn, and led by a head coach with a true edge in Scott Stewart, we'd gladly watch a few weeks of this storied program recalibrating for another big campaign. 

El Paso Eastwood Troopers

The Troopers have one of the state's most exciting young coaches in Julio Lopez, and his dynamism, coupled with the team's success under his watch, would make the first few weeks of practice a fascinating watch. But throw in the debacle of Plano canceling, then rescheduling the Week 2 clash between the teams, and we'd have loved to be a fly on the wall for the hour-by-hour unfolding of that circus in the wake of everything else El Paso has dealt with in the last month. Few teams and coaches represent the resilience and toughness of El Paso like Lopez and his team, and that's must-see TV for us.