What’s gonna happen in …
August 18th, 2007, 12:55 am · Post a Comment · posted by Armando
The most popular question I’ve heard over the past week or two is something along the lines of “Who’s going to win District 32-5A?”
Being that 32-5A is almost exclusively in Cameron County, it’s a hot topic.
My answer? I’m not sure.
Everyone points to Weslaco and their star, Mishak Rivas. A good pick, especially if they played like they did a year ago. Coach Tony Villarreal and the Panthers were oh-so-close to taking the crown last year. But Los Fresnos pulled out a hard-earned win in one of the greatest games I’d ever seen. Despite that, the purple and white made it to the Alamodome and put up a heck of a fight.
But now teams aren’t satisfied with just going to San Antonio. They want to go further. Weslaco has got the weapons and ground game to do it. Will they? Only time will tell.
Then you’ve got San Benito, with a new, athletic quarterback in Abel Aguirre, a solid group of targets and an always tough Mario Peña-coached defense. They’ve lost a few key players, but it would not surprise me one bit if they made a serious run. They’re very athletic and have one of the best sets of coordinators (George Espinoza and Claude Bassett) in the Valley, in my opinion. Bad thing for Greyhound fans? They’ve only got four home games this year.
Los Fresnos? Well, there are a lot of questions there. They had all the answers last year, with one of the greatest quarterbacks I’ve seen in person in Jeremy Springer, and an all-star supporting cast, like a mammoth o-line, wideout Rivera and running back Luis Campos on offense. All but the o-line got their diplomas and are gone. They may not start out hot, but if the new kids get rolling for coach Scott Ford, Los Frensos will be in the hunt. Falcon fans will get to see San Benito and Weslaco travel to Leo Aguilar Memorial this year.
Finally, you’ve got the Brownsville Five (Pace, Porter, Hanna, Rivera and Lopez). One of them’s got to make the playoffs by default. It was disheartening to see the state of football in Brownsville last year. I only visited Sams Stadium a couple of times (not enough, if you’ve ever been privy to their hospitality) and both times longtime AD Joe Rodriguez was visibly disappointed. You could tell it hurt him to see the losses piling up. I like the new hirings at Hanna (Tom Chavez) Rivera (Jim Helms) and Porter (Robert Valdez). While I think any team from the Valley’s largest city is at least a year or two away from contending for the title, I do know that Brownsville football will be a heck of a lot better in 2007 .
See, I told you I wasn’t sure.
