Every year Dave Campbell's Texas Football magazine is put out and puts rankings on every team from every district in the state of Texas. Many coaches use this as motivation for their team to prove people they deserve the high ranks, or are better than the low ones.
After winning their district championship, despite being picked behind the Woodlands last year, the Lufkin Panthers are projected to finish second in 2012. Panthers Head Coach Todd Quick respect the work the magazine does, but isn't worried about the early rankings.
"Those people do a lot of research and they do their homework," said Quick. "But no ranking takes the place of lining up across from somebody on Friday night and seeing who is going to be the best man.
When asked if he would use the second place projection as motivation, Quick said his coaches don't look to much into the early ranks. But, he also admitted that the players sometimes use the doubt as motivation.
"We don't look at it very much as a staff, we don't put stock in it," said Quick. Our kids are going to look at it sometimes and say well they picked that team over us, and want to prove them wrong, kids do that. But as a coaching staff we don't put a lot of stock in it."
Here are the other highlights and low lights for East Texas area teams.
Deep East Texas Team Rankings
According to pre-season polls in Dave Campbell's Texas Football
5A
Lufkin – Picked 2nd (Behind The Woodlands) in District 14-5A
4A
Nacogdoches – Picked 6th (Behind John Tyler, Corsicana, Whitehouse, Jacksonville and Lindale) in District 16-4A
3A
Diboll- Picked 4th (Behind Carthage, Jasper and Center) in District 20-3A
Huntington – Picked 5th in District 20 3-A
2A
Crockett – Picked to win District 11-2A D-I
Garrison- Picked 2nd (Behind Arp) in District 10-2A D-II
Corrigan- Picked to win district 12-2A D-II
Hemphill-Picked3rd (Behind Corrigan and New Waverly) in District 12-2A D-II
1A
San Augustine – Picked to win District 10-1A D-1
Alto- Picked 2nd in District 10-1A D-I
Tenaha – Picked to win District 11-2A D-II
6-Man
Apple Springs - Picked 3rd (behind Oakwood and High Island) in District 16-6M D-I
