South Dallas breakthrough
South Dallas produced three of the top four champions in Texas high school football in 2022 in a breakthrough for the region and its community.
If you’re not familiar with the Texas high school state championship structure, the highest two levels award four championships.
Honestly, I don’t love the format. The way it works is the top four in every district advance to the playoffs. Of those four schools, the two with the biggest enrollment enter into the division I bracket and the two smaller schools enter the division II bracket.
Seems fair enough, right? But it results in some weird outcomes. Like Austin Westlake dominating division II every few years (2019, 2021) and then getting tossed in with the big boys like North Shore and Duncanville in between (still won in 2020). It feels like a ripoff not to see them play at the higher level more often, not that the system is designed for my own amusement. The part that strikes me as totally off is that a single district could theoretically produce two state champions. Do we really need all these divisions? Why not just have the top two schools in each district go to the playoffs?
Big Duncanville with their waves of blue chip recruits under head coach Reginald Samples and repeated defeats at the hands of Jon Kay and North Shore are always in division I because they have a massive enrollment. No easy titles for them where they draw the easier path.
Yet in 2022 they finally broke through and beat North Shore.
They were joined in triumph by the other Dallas burbs. In fact, of the four highest level titles, all four were won by DFW area high schools. Three out four were won by schools in South Dallas in particular. This was an achievement of note within the greater context of Texas high school ball.