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Go! Fight! Win! Presenting the top twenty Texas high school football programs of all time. Let the debate begin.

Article Excerpt
It may be the oldest argument in Texas sports: Which high school football program is the greatest ever? It may also be the hardest to win: How can you compare Abilene High, which won 49 consecutive games in the fifties, with Southlake Carroll, a suburban juggernaut that has won four out of the past five 5A Division II titles? [paragraph] Easy--I looked at the numbers. [paragraph] Great teams win championships, so I started way back in 1920, when the University Interscholastic League first sanctioned a state title game (in what must have been a forgettable matchup, Houston Heights and Cleburne tied 0-0). I assigned schools ten points for each championship and five points for being a runner-up. To reward consistency over the years, I also awarded three points for each district title. (I used overall wins as a tiebreaker.) That formula yielded our top twenty teams, and it helped ensure that a small program had just as much of a chance as a big one, since schools play in classes that are based on enrollment. [paragraph] Finding accurate records going back nearly a century can be tricky; documents get lost or destroyed over time. And though schools are responsible for keeping their own statistics, they aren't always perfectly reliable. A few years back TEXAS MONTHLY called one prominent coach to find out about his team's winning streak. When asked how many games he had won, he replied, "Well, I'm not sure exactly." I did the best I could to match the school's information with other sources, such as the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, in Waco, and Dave Campbell's Texas Football. [paragraph] As you'll see, some of the teams on this list are perennial favorites; others were dominant decades ago but have struggled as of late. But all of them, at the end of their championship seasons, could once say that they were the best in Texas.

1. WICHITA FALLS

TOTAL POINTS: 215

LOCATION: Wichita Falls

NICKNAME: Coyotes

CLASS: 4A

FIRST SEASON: 1911

STATE TITLES: 6 (1941, 1949, 1950, 1958, 1961, 1969)

RUNNERS-UP: 4 (1937, 1959, 1960, 1971)

DISTRICT TITLES: 45

OVERALL RECORD: 614-315-47

The golden age for the Coyotes came under Coach Joe Golding (above), who, from 1947 to 1961, won four state titles and earned an .850 winning percentage. His single-wing offense punished opponents on the ground and in the air. But the Coyotes have always attracted top coaching talent. Wichita Falls has had six consecutive coaches elected to the Texas High School Coaches Association Hall of Honor.

2. PLANO SENIOR

TOTAL POINTS: 170

LOCATION: Plano

NICKNAME: Wildcats

CLASS:...

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