By JOE DODD
The second longest regular season winning streak in Gilmer history ended last Friday with the Buckeyes' 28-14 loss to Kilgore after winning their past 27 regular season games. Before the loss to Kilgore, Gilmer's last defeat came at Daingerfield three years ago when the Tigers ended the Buckeyes’ longest regular season winning streak at 30 games.
The challenge facing this year's team is quite different from the one that faced the 2005 team according to Gilmer head coach Jeff Traylor. “The last time we lost a regular season football game we had an open week and then a game against Sabine. This time we're going to Daingerfield,” said Traylor, who needs two wins to become his alma mater's winningest coach.
Getting one of those wins against Class 2A’s 8th-ranked Daingerfield Tigers won't be easy to do. “We might play our best game Friday and get beat; Daingerfield is that good,” exclaimed Traylor. “They remind me of the teams they had in the early 2000s when we first started playing them.”
That's bad news for Buckeye fans who remember Traylor's teams going 1-2 against the Tigers in his first three seasons. Gilmer fans may also recall some of the names on the Tigers' current roster. “They're all names you've heard of before; Hurndon, Mims and Evans. Those are names you've heard in Daingerfield forever, that you're seeing back out there again, so you know what kind of kids those are,” Traylor said.
Hurndon, Mims and Evans are the same names that populated Daingerfield's roster in the 1980s when the Tigers went 114-15-4 and won two state championships. Now Tiger faithful are starting to talk about a return to those glory years after this year's Tigers pulled off the biggest upset of the 2008 season two weeks ago when Daingerfield ended the Class 3A Celina Bobcats' 10-year home winning streak with a 28-20 victory against the then-2nd-ranked Bobcats.
“It was a great win; everybody is talking about it, the media is talking about it and the community is talking about it, but we've got to go on,” said new Tigers' head coach Barry Bowman. “We've got to move on from that because we didn't play very well this past Friday night. We were really flat and we just didn't have a very good ball game.”
It was good enough for a 29-12 win over Class 3A Commerce, giving the Tigers a 4-0 record for the first time since 2005. That was the year Bowman came to Daingerfield as the Tigers' offensive coordinator. After serving in that capacity for two seasons, Bowman switched sides to defensive coordinator in 2007 before taking over the reins when Randall Hugg left after four seasons at the Tigers' helm.
“Barry's done a great job in getting the kids out to play football again in Daingerfield,” praised Traylor. “They're so deep. They're not playing hardly any kids both ways, and their backups don't even play both ways, they just have a lot of depth.”
Bowman said the turnaround started last season in the Tigers’ 35-12 loss at Buckeye Stadium. “The second half of that game we thought that we began to grow up a little bit as a football team,” said Bowman about the Tigers who finished 9-3 last season. “That was a turning point for us.”
The turning point for the Buckeyes' rivalry with Daingerfield came when Traylor took over the Gilmer program in 2000. In the 25 years before Traylor, the Buckeyes had only three wins against the Tigers. In eight seasons under Traylor Gilmer has six wins against Daingerfield.
“Jeff and his staff do a great job,” said Bowman, who warned his players not to believe the talk about a down year for the Buckeyes this season. “Everybody tried to get us to buy into the fact that since they graduated the talented senior class that Gilmer had last year, that this was going to be a bit of a down year. But from the things I've seen on film, I don't see this as being a down year in Gilmer at all.”
While the 10th-ranked Buckeyes are 3-1 on the season, Gilmer did suffer a loss to Kilgore last week, only their second regular season loss in the past six seasons. “I'll be interested to see how we respond playing our second road game in another hostile environment,” Traylor admitted.
Bowman said the Buckeyes will be ready. “I fully expect that whatever mistakes Coach Traylor and his staff feel that they made in the ball game will be corrected and I'm sure that their focus and concentration may be just a little bit extra this week due to the fact that they did lose last week,” said Bowman.
Traylor agreed with Bowman. “I will be shocked if we don't play better Friday. We know Daingerfield is a great opponent, and we know how hard it's going to be to win over there, but we know that we are going to play a lot better.”
“We have three keys going into this game: be tougher than them, do your job and keep your composure,” continued Traylor. “In big games it’s always about being tough, because there is going to be big hits. And when you get in big games you want to do a little bit more, and you can't, you've got to do your job. We have to do our jobs better. We lost our composure a little bit [against Kilgore]. We didn't do the small things that matter.”
That will be important if the Buckeyes are to avoid losing back-to-back games for the first time since Traylor's first season. That year it was Daingerfield who whipped the Buckeyes 35-14 the week following Gilmer's loss to Spring Hill.
Traylor said that the Tigers’ offense is as good as the 2000 and 2002 teams that went three and five rounds deep in the playoffs respectively. “Their offensive line is very athletic all the way across the front,” said Traylor about the Tigers' senior dominated offensive line.
That line has provided protection for sophomore quarterback Tyler Boyd (5-10, 175) and junior running back KoKo Smith (5-10, 185), who lead Daingerfield's offensive attack which averages 30 points per game.
Defensively, Tigers' senior linebacker Julius Hurndon (5-10, 170) is the star of a defense that allows only 11.5 points per game. In the upset of Celina, Hurndon had a 50-yard fumble return for a touchdown that gave Daingerfield the lead, and then an interception at his own 5-yard line with thirty seconds to play to seal the Tigers' victory. “I'm extremely impressed with their athletic ability and how they run to the football,” commented Traylor.
Traylor is well aware of the challenge facing his Buckeyes, since Traylor has only left Tiger Stadium with one win in his entire playing and coaching career.
“To win in Daingerfield, you're going to have to play really good. I expect to play really good Friday night, I don't know if that's going to be enough, but I expect us to play really well Friday night.”
Game Notes
• Daingerfield leads the all-time series against Gilmer with a 30-22-0 record.
• Gilmer has won the last three meetings between the two teams.
• Gilmer quarterback Stump Godfrey has 48 career touchdown passes and needs one touchdown pass to become Gilmer's career leader, passing Manuel Johnson.
• Gilmer quarterback Stump Godfrey needs 134 passing yards to move past G.J. Kinne for 3rd place in school history.
• Gilmer quarterback Stump Godfrey needs 32 total yards to move past Jamell Kennedy for 4th place in school history.
Bounty Hunter of the Week: Ben Griffith
Special Teams Player of the Week: D.J. Stanley
Offensive Scout Team Player of the Week: Exavian Johnson
Defensive Scout Team Player of the Week: Ben Martin
Mirror Photo / Mary Laschinger Kirby
KILGORE’S FRANK REDDIC, touted by some as the best running back in East Texas, piles into the Gilmer line behind the blocks of John Swanson (75) and Taylor Carter (44) on Gilmer’s Marlon Granville (20) and Hayden Holmes (33). Reddic led all rushers in Kilgore’s win over Gilmer last Friday night. The Buckeyes attempt to return to the win column Friday night on the road against the Daingerfield Tigers.
The second longest regular season winning streak in Gilmer history ended last Friday with the Buckeyes' 28-14 loss to Kilgore after winning their past 27 regular season games. Before the loss to Kilgore, Gilmer's last defeat came at Daingerfield three years ago when the Tigers ended the Buckeyes’ longest regular season winning streak at 30 games.
The challenge facing this year's team is quite different from the one that faced the 2005 team according to Gilmer head coach Jeff Traylor. “The last time we lost a regular season football game we had an open week and then a game against Sabine. This time we're going to Daingerfield,” said Traylor, who needs two wins to become his alma mater's winningest coach.
Getting one of those wins against Class 2A’s 8th-ranked Daingerfield Tigers won't be easy to do. “We might play our best game Friday and get beat; Daingerfield is that good,” exclaimed Traylor. “They remind me of the teams they had in the early 2000s when we first started playing them.”
That's bad news for Buckeye fans who remember Traylor's teams going 1-2 against the Tigers in his first three seasons. Gilmer fans may also recall some of the names on the Tigers' current roster. “They're all names you've heard of before; Hurndon, Mims and Evans. Those are names you've heard in Daingerfield forever, that you're seeing back out there again, so you know what kind of kids those are,” Traylor said.
Hurndon, Mims and Evans are the same names that populated Daingerfield's roster in the 1980s when the Tigers went 114-15-4 and won two state championships. Now Tiger faithful are starting to talk about a return to those glory years after this year's Tigers pulled off the biggest upset of the 2008 season two weeks ago when Daingerfield ended the Class 3A Celina Bobcats' 10-year home winning streak with a 28-20 victory against the then-2nd-ranked Bobcats.
“It was a great win; everybody is talking about it, the media is talking about it and the community is talking about it, but we've got to go on,” said new Tigers' head coach Barry Bowman. “We've got to move on from that because we didn't play very well this past Friday night. We were really flat and we just didn't have a very good ball game.”
It was good enough for a 29-12 win over Class 3A Commerce, giving the Tigers a 4-0 record for the first time since 2005. That was the year Bowman came to Daingerfield as the Tigers' offensive coordinator. After serving in that capacity for two seasons, Bowman switched sides to defensive coordinator in 2007 before taking over the reins when Randall Hugg left after four seasons at the Tigers' helm.
“Barry's done a great job in getting the kids out to play football again in Daingerfield,” praised Traylor. “They're so deep. They're not playing hardly any kids both ways, and their backups don't even play both ways, they just have a lot of depth.”
Bowman said the turnaround started last season in the Tigers’ 35-12 loss at Buckeye Stadium. “The second half of that game we thought that we began to grow up a little bit as a football team,” said Bowman about the Tigers who finished 9-3 last season. “That was a turning point for us.”
The turning point for the Buckeyes' rivalry with Daingerfield came when Traylor took over the Gilmer program in 2000. In the 25 years before Traylor, the Buckeyes had only three wins against the Tigers. In eight seasons under Traylor Gilmer has six wins against Daingerfield.
“Jeff and his staff do a great job,” said Bowman, who warned his players not to believe the talk about a down year for the Buckeyes this season. “Everybody tried to get us to buy into the fact that since they graduated the talented senior class that Gilmer had last year, that this was going to be a bit of a down year. But from the things I've seen on film, I don't see this as being a down year in Gilmer at all.”
While the 10th-ranked Buckeyes are 3-1 on the season, Gilmer did suffer a loss to Kilgore last week, only their second regular season loss in the past six seasons. “I'll be interested to see how we respond playing our second road game in another hostile environment,” Traylor admitted.
Bowman said the Buckeyes will be ready. “I fully expect that whatever mistakes Coach Traylor and his staff feel that they made in the ball game will be corrected and I'm sure that their focus and concentration may be just a little bit extra this week due to the fact that they did lose last week,” said Bowman.
Traylor agreed with Bowman. “I will be shocked if we don't play better Friday. We know Daingerfield is a great opponent, and we know how hard it's going to be to win over there, but we know that we are going to play a lot better.”
“We have three keys going into this game: be tougher than them, do your job and keep your composure,” continued Traylor. “In big games it’s always about being tough, because there is going to be big hits. And when you get in big games you want to do a little bit more, and you can't, you've got to do your job. We have to do our jobs better. We lost our composure a little bit [against Kilgore]. We didn't do the small things that matter.”
That will be important if the Buckeyes are to avoid losing back-to-back games for the first time since Traylor's first season. That year it was Daingerfield who whipped the Buckeyes 35-14 the week following Gilmer's loss to Spring Hill.
Traylor said that the Tigers’ offense is as good as the 2000 and 2002 teams that went three and five rounds deep in the playoffs respectively. “Their offensive line is very athletic all the way across the front,” said Traylor about the Tigers' senior dominated offensive line.
That line has provided protection for sophomore quarterback Tyler Boyd (5-10, 175) and junior running back KoKo Smith (5-10, 185), who lead Daingerfield's offensive attack which averages 30 points per game.
Defensively, Tigers' senior linebacker Julius Hurndon (5-10, 170) is the star of a defense that allows only 11.5 points per game. In the upset of Celina, Hurndon had a 50-yard fumble return for a touchdown that gave Daingerfield the lead, and then an interception at his own 5-yard line with thirty seconds to play to seal the Tigers' victory. “I'm extremely impressed with their athletic ability and how they run to the football,” commented Traylor.
Traylor is well aware of the challenge facing his Buckeyes, since Traylor has only left Tiger Stadium with one win in his entire playing and coaching career.
“To win in Daingerfield, you're going to have to play really good. I expect to play really good Friday night, I don't know if that's going to be enough, but I expect us to play really well Friday night.”
Game Notes
• Daingerfield leads the all-time series against Gilmer with a 30-22-0 record.
• Gilmer has won the last three meetings between the two teams.
• Gilmer quarterback Stump Godfrey has 48 career touchdown passes and needs one touchdown pass to become Gilmer's career leader, passing Manuel Johnson.
• Gilmer quarterback Stump Godfrey needs 134 passing yards to move past G.J. Kinne for 3rd place in school history.
• Gilmer quarterback Stump Godfrey needs 32 total yards to move past Jamell Kennedy for 4th place in school history.
Bounty Hunter of the Week: Ben Griffith
Special Teams Player of the Week: D.J. Stanley
Offensive Scout Team Player of the Week: Exavian Johnson
Defensive Scout Team Player of the Week: Ben Martin
Mirror Photo / Mary Laschinger Kirby
KILGORE’S FRANK REDDIC, touted by some as the best running back in East Texas, piles into the Gilmer line behind the blocks of John Swanson (75) and Taylor Carter (44) on Gilmer’s Marlon Granville (20) and Hayden Holmes (33). Reddic led all rushers in Kilgore’s win over Gilmer last Friday night. The Buckeyes attempt to return to the win column Friday night on the road against the Daingerfield Tigers.
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