While the high school football season might well be over, in Texas it’s never too late to talk football. On Sunday we will be recognizing the achievements of area football athletes and programs, but there were also a lot of stories around the state that are worth noting, some of which have local ties.

One of those belongs to Rogers, which is a good place to begin. While Ennis quarterback Graham Harrell practically rewrote the record books, setting state records for career passing yards (12,511), career touchdown passes (167), and single-season TD passes (67), Philip Beck of Crosby caught 16 passes in a playoff loss to La Marque to give him 124 on the season, which broke the state single-season record of 122 set by Rogers’ Josh Whatley in 1997. But with more and more teams moving to the spread offense, it wouldn’t be surprising if that mark fell during the next few years.

On the way to that mark, Beck and Crosby had a bi-district battle with Houston Davis. That in itself is not significant. But the turnaround Davis has made in the past few years is. Davis still holds the state mark for most consecutive losses, dropping 80 consecutive games from 1986-93 — a record not likely to be broken anytime soon. But there is hope at Davis, as the program found the playoffs again, its fourth visit since 1995. However, the school hasn’t won a playoff game since 1940 and is 2-9 all-time in the playoffs, including a 124-0 loss to Waco in 1927, the biggest defeat in playoff history.

There are plenty of other schools that would have been more than happy to even get the chance at the playoffs, including Groesbeck. The Goats finished District 19-3A at 5-2 and earned a share of the district championship, got the raw end of the tie-breaker system, and became the first team to earn a district title and not qualify for the playoffs since Texas implemented the three-school playoff format. Crockett, Mexia and Fairfield also finished at 5-2 and made the playoffs on a point system, a pretty bad deal for a Groesbeck team that heading into the last week of the regular season sat alone atop the standings.

Another team that missed the playoffs was Brenham, which is only significant for two reasons. First, in 2002 the Cubs lost 38-8 to Denton Ryan in the Class 4A Division II title game. While it does happen, it is rare to see a state finalist not even make the playoffs the following year. The second reason is that former Bartlett head coach Craig Agnew took over as the defensive coordinator in Brenham this season after a two-year stint as Llano’s head coach. Agnew was one of three coaches to lead Bartlett to state championships in the 1990s.