Size vs speed in Texas high school football

On3 imageby:Ian Boyd08/31/21

Ian_A_Boyd

District 26-6A in Texas high school football is typically a launching pad for the two of the biggest powers in Central Texas’ 6A class, Lake Travis and Westlake. These two schools have been prominent for a long time but have gained additional notoriety by serving recently as quarterback factories for high level college programs.

Westlake hired Todd Dodge of 2000’s Southlake Carroll fame in 2014 and he was able to immediately coach Sam Ehlinger at quarterback, now he has blue chip Cade Klubnik (committed to Clemson). Lake Travis has been a quarterback factory for years and years now with a ridiculous lineage of signal callers.

That’s two straight decades now of P5 caliber quarterbacks at one high school, a truly unbelievable run. Their head coach is Hank Carter, who took over for Chad Morris back in 2010, and has maintained a steady pipeline of topnotch offensive assistants (he specializes in defense himself). The current offensive coordinator is Tommy Mangino, son of the legendary Mark Mangino, who took over in 2020 when his predecessor Will Stein took a job as a receivers’ coach at UTSA.

The current quarterback is Bo Edmundson, who took over a year earlier than expected in 2020 and threw for 1,409 yards in seven games.

Both of these schools took the field this last weekend and revealed an interesting dichotomy in styles and personnel. Their inevitable showdown in the regular season, and perhaps the playoffs, will be compelling not only for its inclusion of big time talents but for the contrast in styles.

Westlake: Size and strength

Technically one of the fastest players on the field when the Westlake Chaparrals take the field on a given Friday night is their own quarterback, Cade Klubnik. He’s run the 200m in 22.23 seconds and ran for 583 yards and 15 touchdowns last season as the maestro in a power-option heavy offensive attack.

But aside from Klubnik, the 2021 Chaps are defined much more by their size and power than raw speed. In particular, along the lines.

The offensive line was massive and very integral to their championship run in 2020 and now includes the following starting five:

  • Left tackle: Bray Lynch. 6-foot-4, 275 pound senior. 3*** recruit
  • Left guard: Michael McKelvy. 6-foot-0, 255 pound senior.
  • Center: Jack Griffin. 6-foot-0, 250 pound senior.
  • Right guard: T.J. Shanahan. 6-foot-5, 300 pound junior. 4-star recruit.
  • Right tackle: Conner Robertson. 6-foot-4, 294 pound senior. 3-star recruit.

If you’re not familiar with the world of high school line play, this is a massive and intensely talented group. They’ll help Westlake run the ball despite losing both star running backs from 2020 and protect Klubnik as he finds receivers like the 6-foot-2 Jaden Greathouse (4-star prospect), 6-foot-3 Keaton Kubecka, or 6-foot-3 Pierce Turner.

While Klubnik is the only gamechanger in terms of speed, they have considerable size across the entire unit.

Meanwhile the defense is powered by a bookend duo of Colton Vasek (6-foot-5, 220 pound junior) and Ethan Burke (6-foot-7, 220 pound senior). The rest of their crew is smaller and faster, they play a lot of Cover 2 up in the hills and rely on their D-line playing big in the box. An interesting component to watch for this season is middle linebacker.

Last year they had move-in and Duke commit Nick Morris, who really put the finishing touches on their box defense in Cover 2. This season they moved inside linebacker Hunter Henault to running back and don’t necessarily have a 200+ pound enforced to play in the box behind their D-line.

Lake Travis: Speed, speed, speed

The Cavaliers are on the other end of the spectrum from Westlake. Bo Edmundson ran for -39 yards last season and is definitely a stable pocket passer rather than a dual-threat artist. Everywhere else the Cavs are defined by speed.

The big move for them this offseason was adding move-in wide receiver Caleb Burton, a 4-star receiver committed to play football at Ohio State. The Cavs are pairing him with speedy water bugs Noah Byrd (5-foot-8, 165 pounds) and Chernet Estes (6-foot-0, 180 pounds) at wideout while quarterback/skill player hybrid Isaac Norris (6-foot-0, 190 pounds) floats around in and out of the backfield as a hybrid tight end/running back. They rotated sophomore Nico Hamilton and junior Derrick Johnson (also a starting linebacker) at running back.

The offensive line is much smaller than at Westlake, with tackle manned by sophomore Adrian Oratokhai (6-foot-3, 260 pounds) and junior Daniel Sowell (6-foot-3, 240 pounds). Their own defensive ends include 6-foot-4, 220 pound Trey Dorsett and 6-foot-1, 205 pound Max Linhoff playing in front of 190-pound linebackers and multiple 155 pound defensive backs. So much of their ability to match size and strength rests in nose tackle Jayden Nguyen, a 6-foot-2, 290 pound senior. If he’s not consuming double teams and slowing up rushing attacks then their formula of speed everywhere else will run into serious issues.

Size vs speed

People will regularly tell you that “speed kills” and “speed beats strength” but it can only do so if the games’ matchups and strategies allow the outcome to be settled by contests of speed. If the game is settled by a contest of strength…the stronger team will win. I know this is simple but you rarely see games broken down on this basis. If the bigger team wins it’s because football is a grown man’s game and if the fast team wins it’s because “speed kills.” Either are presented as absolutes even when contradictory.

Westlake has gotten the better of Lake Travis in some recent years by working out how to make their rivalry game a contest of strength in which Lake Travis’ speed couldn’t hurt them. The way they did so was with a 3-2-6 flyover defense which erased space from the field and forced the Cavs to beat them by blocking the Westlake D-line, either in the run game or in protection long enough to allow their quarterback to get through progressions against the Chaparral zone.

This year they’ll add the additional components of being able to match tall, long wideouts on short cornerbacks and huge offensive tackles against smaller defensive ends.

If you’re scouting the players involved in this contest, and there are several P5 recruits between these two teams, these strategic matchups really matter. How will these dynamics play out in the 2021 season?

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