Five Cinderella Bids Still in the TXHSFB Playoffs

Teams are listed in alphabetical order

Athens Hornets

Athens has broken every offensive school record in the 2025 season behind one of Class 4A’s most dynamic passing attacks, which has led the program to its third double-digit win season since 1959.

Senior QB David Richardson is a three-year starter whom Athens head coach Zac Harrell describes as one of the toughest players he’s ever coached. Richardson’s sophomore season ended prematurely with a broken collarbone. As a junior, he played seven games with a Lisfranc injury, which typically sidelines players for six months. 

“I’m not sure I’ve ever coached a kid that wants to win as badly as he does, or has overcome what he’s had to,” Harrell said.

Now fully healthy, Richardson has lit up the scoreboard throwing to wide receivers Emanuel Moore and Julious Brewer.

Moore (6’3, 190) broke the school record for touchdown receptions and is hovering around 1,200 yards and 16 touchdowns this year. Those touchdowns often come in the biggest moments. Moore caught a 4th-and-7 pass with the game on the line against Sunnyvale in the third round and had the walk-off touchdown catch against Krum in the second round.

“He makes the most contested catches of anyone I’ve ever seen,” Harrell said. “When the game’s on the line, he wants the ball.”

Brewer, meanwhile, has over 1,400 scrimmage yards as a slot wide receiver and running back.

But Athens’ offensive line is the unsung hero of the record-setting season. The group, which consists of five seniors among the six rotational players, has surrendered just five sacks this year.

While Athens’s offense is lauded, Harrell knows his defense has been thrown under the bus on message boards he refuses to read but people show him anyway. The Hornets gave up 49 points to Gilmer in the first round, 42 points to Krum in the second and 36 to Sunnyvale last week. 

But the unit has made the game-winning play every week. Against Gilmer, it stuffed a 4th down attempt from the four-yard line. Krum had the ball with three minutes left in a tie game, but Athens forced overtime and then forced a fumble in OT. Rhys Groom intercepted a Sunnyvale pass after it drove into the red zone with 18 seconds remaining. 

“The bottom line in the playoffs is you’ve got to make the plays to win the game. We’ve played three dang good teams in the playoffs. All three games, we’ve had to make a stop at the end of the game to win.”

Barbers Hill Eagles 

Barbers Hill is in its first Regional Final since 1976, and this is only the third time since that year that the Eagles have advanced past the second round. But put away those glass slippers, because head coach Cody Simper assures they don’t fit. 

“We’re not going in hoping that we can win; we’re believing that we can,” Simper said. “I know you mentioned earlier that this is a Cinderella story angle, and that’s great for everybody else. But that’s just not the way we see ourselves.” 

Barbers Hill was predicted to finish third in District 9-5A DI. The Eagles lost 39 seniors and returned just 29 varsity players, with only three starters back on each side of the ball. All the new faces, combined with a new coach, made them an unknown. 

Simper took the job in February after compiling a 106-55 record over a 15-year career with stops at Corpus Christi Ray, Corpus Christi Veterans Memorial and Cypress Woods. Within the first weeks at Barbers Hill, he saw what no one else outside the locker room could - this program’s want-to.

“You can’t sell something to people who aren’t willing to buy it,” Simper said. “And we had a group of kids and a community that were hungry for some change.” 

Perhaps Barbers Hill wasn’t predicted higher because nobody could’ve foreseen the rise of senior WR Tripp Davis. When Simper arrived at Barbers Hill, Davis wasn’t even in the football period. He suffered three season-ending injuries within the first game of his freshman, sophomore and junior campaigns, and had opted to sit out his senior year to prepare for college track. But he came to every summer strength and conditioning workout, and Simper told him he’d done just as much work as anybody on the football team. Neither Davis nor Simper knew how much he’d play, or even if he’d start, but they were both willing to give it a shot.

Davis is the team’s leading receiver with 71 catches for 1,376 yards and 16 touchdowns. He was named the Player of the Game on Dave Campbell’s TexanLive broadcast of Barbers Hill’s 34-30 overtime win over Pflugerville Weiss.

Barbers Hill is set to rematch Port Arthur Memorial in the 5A DI Region III Final, after losing to the Titans 34-6 on October 10.

Leonard Tigers

As a longtime assistant coach at Allen, Justin Dozier became desensitized to December football. It became the expectation, the new normal. But now, as the head coach at Leonard, in the midst of the second-farthest playoff run in school history, he’s more thankful to play a game this week than ever.

“Whenever I left Allen, I got back to reality,” Dozier said. “Playing in the fourth round is not normal. This is something special. And I’m just so happy for our players, coaches and community.”

Really, he’s happy he gets more time with this group of players. This senior class is the first that’s spent all four years of their high school experience with them. They’ve gone from wide-eyed freshmen thrown into the fire of the varsity stage out of necessity to program leaders. In 2025, they’ve cemented their legacy by going from projected fourth in District 7-3A DII to the fourth round of the playoffs. 

Jacoby LaCook is the senior class’s headline name. La Cook, a QB and DB, doesn’t come off the field. But he’s one of the many two-way starters, along with seniors such as WR/LB Allan Cass and RB/LB Luke Wymer. They’ve steered Leonard’s ship through troubled waters in the playoffs. In an upset over Holliday in Round 2, LaCook followed up two punts with six total touchdowns. Last week, the Tigers avenged a regular season loss to Blue Ridge despite muffing an onside kick.

Of all the teams on this list, Leonard, on paper, is the most improbable run. The Tigers have 25 varsity players. Two current defensive starters played JV all season. Sophomore Jaden Bush was the JV center as a freshman, the JV QB this year, and is now starting at varsity inside linebacker. Freshman Joseph Howard has fought valiantly to fill a team need.

“There’s so many opportunities that we had to throw our hands up, and we didn’t,” Dozier said. “That’s what I love about this team. I love every single thing about this group of kids. They fight. They have grit.”

New Braunfels Unicorns

As New Braunfels’ storybook season rolls on, more and more people tell head coach Brad Molder how his 2025 team has changed the narrative around the program. Now in his second year, Molder’s team has earned back-to-back third-round berths since 1986. This season’s 11-2 record is the first double-digit win total since 2009. 

But Molder has plenty of experience with December football. He was most recently the head coach at La Vernia for two years, spent a decade as the offensive coordinator at Schertz Clemens and 12 years with Converse Judson. He’d love to say he expected all of this, but even Molder had questions about his team in the preseason, projected to finish third in District 13-5A DI. The defense had a plethora of new faces, including three sophomores.

First-year starters like MLB Rocco Desanto and CB Kingston Brown, however, have played like veterans. Desanto has 103 tackles, 8 TFL and 6 sacks, but his biggest impact is as the emotional leader of the team. Brown, a sophomore, has 13 passes defended and has taken away the opponent’s best receiver week after week.

New Braunfels’ offense, however, will be the key to victory in the 5A DI Region IV Final against Smithson Valley. Smithson Valley won the Class 5A DI State Championship last year, and there’s a belief in the San Antonio area that the defense is even better in 2025. New Braunfels lost to Smithson Valley 27-14 on October 24 after digging itself a hole with an opening drive interception that set Smithson Valley up on the five-yard line, then fumbling away its next possession after driving to the one-yard line. 

Don’t mistake those turnovers for a season-long issue. Senior QB Levi Golla has been an incredible offensive manager, posting a 23:3 TD/INT ratio. He has three dynamic receivers at his disposal in Cayden Mills (741 yards, 10 TD), Cameron Pitts (755 yards, 6 TD) and Grant Franklin (565 yards, 4 TD). Mills entered the year as the headliner after a standout junior season. But teams that doubled him opened up opportunities for Pitts and Franklin.

Stinnett West Texas Comanches

In a year when they were projected to finish fourth in District 1-2A DI, Stinnett West Texas is one game away from being one of four teams remaining in Class 2A DI. 

It’s a run so unexpected, it had us at the Dave Campbell’s office scrambling to find out when Stinnett West Texas was last 13-0?

“I was afraid you were going to ask me that,” head coach Jeff Smith said.

When you’re in the middle of making history, you don’t have a lot of time to look back upon it. 

Turns out, this is the Comanches’ first 13-0 start since a 14-1 run to the state semifinals in 1989. Smith, Stinnett West Texas’ offensive coordinator from 2014-17, returned to the program for the 2023 season. After a 3-7 inaugural season, the Comanches’ fourth losing season in a row, Smith’s squad set the foundation with a 7-4 campaign in 2024. 

It’s fitting that this is the first run since the 80s, because Stinnett West Texas has a throwback offense. This team embodies West Texas Tough after forging itself through 6:50 a.m. strength and conditioning workouts. 

Senior QB Cayde Winters is the team’s emotional heartbeat. He has thrown for 1,150 yards and 15 touchdowns, but he’s elite as a runner with 2,169 yards and 37 touchdowns. 

“He’s very charismatic,” Smith said. “The kids love Cayde. He’s that player who brings out the best in everybody, because he’s competing so hard and doing everything he can possibly do that the kids do the same.”

While Winters grabs the headlines, his success is also a credit to his massive offensive line. RT Ty Buck (6-4, 275) and RG and head coach’s son, Deacon Smith (6-7, 370), pave the way without wondering who gets the credit.

“It’s really the most selfless group I’ve ever been around,” Smith said. 

On defense, sophomore LB Zach Bryant has emerged as the defensive captain at a young age with 155 tackles on the year. 

“Without Zach, there are times I wonder how we get lined up,” Smith said.