ARLINGTON — After an explosive first half Wednesday afternoon, the Gordon Longhorns trotted back onto the turf at AT&T Stadium needing one more big play to put the Whiteface Antelopes away for good.
On the first snap of the second half, junior running back Stryker Reed sparked the Longhorns’ offensive fireworks again.
Reed burst through the Antelopes’ defense and raced toward the goal line for a 45-yard touchdown run just 15 seconds into the third quarter.
“I’m going to be honest, I made the wrong read but it all ended up working out,” Reed said. “Once I got past the first line, barely, because I made the wrong read, we had phenomenal downfield blocks. I couldn’t ask for better downfield blocking.”
Reed’s long third-quarter touchdown run was one of many explosive scoring plays for the nearly unstoppable Longhorns, who scored nine touchdowns on 17 snaps to roll to a 70-24 win over Whiteface via the 45-point mercy rule in the Class 1A Division I UIL Football State Championship.
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The victory marked Gordon’s second consecutive six-man Texas high school football state title and extended the Longhorns’ 30-game winning streak that stretches back to November 2022.
“We knew it was going to be tough. We knew they were good. They had won 29 in a row for a reason,” Whiteface head coach Clint Linman said of the Longhorns. “I thought our guys did a good job battling. … But they’re a good football team, and I’m proud of these guys.”
Gordon’s runaway victory in Wednesday’s 1A DI state title game was the perfect representation of how the Longhorns have played all season: a dominant defense complemented by an explosive offense.
The Longhorns boasted one of the state’s grittiest, toughest defenses that led all of six-man football in points allowed per game (7.2) with seven shutouts in 15 wins this year.
Gordon’s defense shined against Whiteface, forcing two key interceptions and recovering a fumble that all directly led to Longhorns’ scoring drives.
The Longhorns only needed 4 minutes and 9 seconds of possession time offensively to wreak havoc, with seven of Gordon’s nine touchdown drives lasting less than 20 seconds.
“This group for me — and I’m getting towards the end of my career — they are the greatest group that I’ve coached,” Gordon head coach Mike Reed said. “They would beat any other team that I’ve coached.”
That’s high praise from Reed, who has coached his fair share of state-title caliber six-man squads.
Before guiding the Longhorns to back-to-back Texas high school football state championships in 2023-24, Reed helped lead Rule and Throckmorton to the top of the sport too.
Reed coached Rule to two consecutive state title game appearances and led Throckmorton to back-to-back state championships after reaching three straight state championship games with the Greyhounds from 2010-12.
“There’s a level of dominance that I kind of want to leave a stamp on this game,” he said. “I’ve been (in) six-man for as long as I can remember, … and I just want to do respect by my community and by my kids and coming in and putting a statement on a season and ending it is just who we are. It’s our brand to just do things right.”
“Every snap of football I’ve ever played has been under him coaching me, so he’s kind of made our football field, just like a second home to me,” Gordon junior Noah Kostiha said. “And really, I spend more time with him than I do honestly with my parents, and it’s just a second home.”
For Stryker Reed, who was named the Offensive MVP for the Longhorns after racking up 177 total yards and five touchdowns, capturing back-to-back state championships at Gordon and playing for his dad — head coach Mike Reed — has been the realization of a lifelong dream of winning state titles together as a family on the field.
But now with two state titles under their belts and 92% of their team’s varsity roster returning, Stryker Reed and the Longhorns will have the opportunity to give Mike Reed one of the few things he hasn’t already achieved as a coach in 2025: an elusive three-peat.
“When I think of his legacy, I don’t necessarily think of all the rings and accomplishments he’s had. I think about how he impacted the kids he coached like not only to win, but to win in a manner that your kids then want to go be coaches, even after he tells them no, just because he makes them fall in love with the game,” Stryker Reed said.
“I fell in love with the game. I would agree that these fellas fell in love with the game. His previous players came and watched the game today because he just made them love the game and because that’s the kind of guy he is.”
