Top 10 Games of the 2025 Arizona High School Football Season

All the talk out on the West Coast when it comes to high school football usually gravitates to California, and rightfully so. But what about a state like Arizona? The Grand Canyon State has seen its fair share of programs continue to make a rise in the national rankings and there’s several programs that are looking to make the argument again this fall.

We’ve put together a list of the 10 best Arizona high school football games of the 2025 season:

1. Hamilton at Basha, Oct. 24

Hard to ignore the elephant in the room when it comes to the Game of the Year in the Grand Canyon State when the Huskies and Bears clash in late October. Last year’s meeting was won by Basha in a 35-20 decision and with the Bears bringing back a talented group, it certainly is setting up to be the must-see game just a couple weeks before the final regular season games. With Basha featuring a very talented offensive group up against Hamilton’s improved defense, this has all the ingredients to being a potential classic.

2. Centennial at Liberty, Oct. 10

This wasn’t a close game a year ago, but there’s reasons to believe this will be a much better contest. When looking at the talent on both sides, Centennial features a talented offensive line, led by 3-star offensive lineman Benjamin Lowther. This one turned into a rout in the first half as the Lions led 24-3 at intermission. With an improved Centennial bunch and this game always bringing out the best in both teams, we see a closer result.

3. Basha at Brophy College Preparatory, Aug. 28

We’d be remiss if we didn’t have a Brophy College Preparatory game within our Top 3 and the Broncos make it when they host the Bears to kickoff the 2025 season. Many wouldn’t truthful if they didn’t believe this could be a contest that decides the tone of the fall for either program, especially that both programs have state championship aspirations. With a slew of former NFL’ers having sons on the team like Arizona Cardinals’ legend Larry Fitzgerald (Devin Fitzgerald), Darren Sharper (Daylen Sharper) and Donovan McNabb (Donovan McNabb Jr.), that alone might have you finding your way to this game between the Arizona powerhouses.

4. Orange Lutheran at Basha, Sept. 5

Arizona versus California. It seems like annually one of these type of matchups have to be included in the Arizona high school football season, as it was last year when Basha faced Mission Viejo last year, losing 31-28 and Liberty hosted Corona Centennial, falling 63-39. We don’t bring up those two scores to scare you away from watching this matchup, because this one certainly has potential to being one of the top interstate matchups on the West Coast. Orange Lutheran will be coming off its second out-of-state games in as many weeks, as the Lancers face Miami Northwestern on Aug. 23.

5. Brophy College Preparatory at Liberty, Oct. 24

Another late October matchup that really caught our eye is when the Broncos and Lions meet, bringing together two of the Open Division’s top contenders. The last time Brophy College Prep and Liberty squared off was in 2022, when the Lions ran away with a 48-10 win, coincidentally in October of that year. Now with both teams on paper looking more on each other’s level, this could bring out the offensive fireworks in Peoria.

6. Hamilton at Chandler, Nov. 7

Now before you laugh too hard after seeing how last year’s meeting went (56-14 win for Hamilton), history tells us this game is always one of the better tilts. In a 3-game period between 2020-2022, the scores between the Huskies and Wolves were decided by a touchdown. We assume with this game being right before the AIA playoffs takes place that this could be one of the top regular season finales.

7. Hamilton at ALA Queen Creek, Aug. 28

Hamilton on our list for third time? You bet when revisiting the opening week of the season and seeing what games are taking place. Not having the Huskies’ opener against a solid ALA Queen Creek team seems like a mistake. The Huskies’ defense is led by a pair of Oklahoma commits that also are brothers in Beau and Niko Jandreau. The Patriots enter the season as Arizona’s No. 7 ranked team in the state, according to the Massey Ratings.

8. Chandler at Centennial, Aug. 29

Setting the tone early is always what coaches are looking for out of their teams and for the Coyotes, that went completely haywire in 2024. Centennial started the season 0-4 and finished with an even 7-7 mark. Facing a pretty talented Chandler team to start the season and picking up a win would certainly show a difference compared to a year ago. The last time these two met was in 2023, with Centennial just barely upending Chandler, 29-28.

9. Pinnacle at La Cueva (N.M.), Aug. 29

Not many 2024 openers played out to be any better than when Pinnacle and La Cueva faced off. It would be La Cueva pulling off a 39-32 double-overtime thriller to start off last season, and you have to imagine that’s replaying in the minds of coaches, players at Pinnacle. One of New Mexico’s best programs going head-to-head with an Arizona power we think merits placing them on our list.

10. Mountain View at Highland, Nov. 7

There’s really no recent evidence that this game would be one other than that they’re a couple of the state’s better programs, because the last time these two teams was a decade ago. If you’re someone that remembers that 2015 meeting between these two, it was Mountain View coming away with a wild 66-65 victory. Could shades of that game come back in the 10-year anniversary since the last time these clubs squared off?