NationalHSFootball.com – Dallas Jackson, NationalHSFootball.com
Longtime followers of national high school football know the deal: Your placement in the final rankings can sometimes hinge on things outside your control.
Over the next two weeks, NationalHSFootball.com will look at the teams from the start of 2008 through the recently completed 2013 season and place them in an overall Top 25.
Not only will we find out the best team of the HSFB100 era – we’ll find out the best teams. Which years were stronger than others. Which great teams had the unfortunate fate of playing in the same year as an all-time great.
| No. 21 — Allen (Texas) High, 2008 | No. 2 in HSFB100, 15-1 |
Looking Back: The 2008 version of the Allen (Texas) Eagles will be the first of three Allen teams to make the HSFB100-era Top 25. It is also the least likely to have been in this position.
The 2008 team was a balanced mix of seniors and juniors that entered the season with high expectations. It climbed to No. 9 in the HSFB100 rankings entering the playoffs but squarely in its path was the No. 1-ranked Euless (Texas) Trinity Trojans — a team that already downed Allen, 24-14, in September. Trinity was poised to claim a National Championship and the game with Allen was likely to decide the winner of the 5A Division Bracket and ultimately the National Championship.
The Allen offensive line didn’t get enough credit. It was lead by Cedric Ogbuehi who ranked No. 82 by Rivals.com.
The team was lead offensively by four junior offensive lineman and — for most of the season — junior quarterback Matt Brown, who signed with TCU.
Among its lineman, Cedric Ogbuehi, Luke Burleson, and Taylor Pearson went on to play college football.
Brown threw for nearly 2,000 yards with a 28-to-10 touchdown versus interception ratio. He was the teams leading rusher with over 1,100 yards on the season at the time of his injury.
When Brown went down it was another junior, Tucker Carter, that stepped in and guided the team to victory. Carter completed 79-percent of his passes to close the season and threw five touchdowns and zero interceptions.
Also stepping up in the absence of Brown was senior running back Jeremiah Williams. Williams only totaled 638 yards on the season but 180 of those were hard-earned in downing Trinity in the second round of the playoffs.
The team was lead by a trio of senior receivers of which only Uzoma Nwachukwu signed to play college football. It was slot receiver Bradelee Waddell who lead the team with 40 catches while Dakarai Pecikonis lead the team in yardage.
Defensively the team was far from spectacular but it bent and didn’t break.
In the playoff run it gave up 28, 22, 28, 21, 21, and 14 points as the team worked towards a state title but made key stops when they were needed.
Senior defensive backs Steven Terrell and Jeremy Reeves both went on to play college football as did defensive tackle Nate Bonsu but by and large this was a patchwork unit that relied on timeliness and not domination.
Defining Game: This team is not in the rankings without defeating Euless Trinity, plain and simple.
Allen scored on its first four possessions and built a 20-point lead in a contest that figured to be much closer than it was. It forced three turnovers, gave up none, and blocked a Trinity field goal.
Most impressively was the gameplan that used a punishing run attack — which was not always there in the regular season — and check down passes.
Carter completed 16 of 18 passes for 142 yards and two scores while Williams ran for 180 yards on 26 carries.
The team survived a scare the next week against Round Rock (Texas) Stony Point, 23-21, and then closed out the state title in a seven-point victory over Missouri City (Texas) Ft. Bend Hightower.
Rankings Rewind: Allen upset the apple cart as Trinity was in a prime position to run the table and claim the national championship. It nearly dropped the ball the next week against Stony Point which could have unraveled a lot of the rankings.
There are very few examples from the past which come back with a twinge of regret but this may be one of those times. Allen got a major boost from No. 9 to No. 2 by defeating then-No. 1 Trinity and it pushed down Hampton (Vir.) Phoebus almost solely on strength of schedule. Allen was incredibly impressive in winning with a backup quarterback but that Phoebus defense was so strong that it may not have been able to close the deal.
The two were close then and are tied together now.
The Countdown of the Top 25: View the complete list of teams.
The Varsity Board: Did Allen get too big of a bump for knocking off Euless Trinity?
