ETBLITZ.COM TEAM OF THE WEEK | The Kilgore Bulldogs!
The weekly awards begin this Monday with our very first ETBlitz.com Team of the Week.
And we’re proud to announce that this is an award that will continue throughout the school year – not just football and volleyball season, and basketball season in the fall, but through May, or however long athletics goes for the schools in the ETBlitz coverage area. For the record, that’s (in alphabetical order) Arp, Gilmer, Gladewater, Henderson, Kilgore, Leverett’s Chapel, Overton, Sabine, Tatum, Troup, West Rusk, and White Oak, as well as Kilgore College.
It doesn’t take much to figure out our first winner, although we had three strong candidates.
The winner of the ETBlitz.com Team of the Week Award, the very first, is coach Clint Fuller’s Kilgore High School Bulldogs.
For the better part of the last dozen or so years, Carthage has ruled East Texas football, and you have to tip your hat to them. The Bulldogs – or the “’Dawgs,’” as they say – have won nine state championships in football under coach Scott Surratt. It’s really incredible the run they’ve put together. And the one team that has given them trouble, particularly in the regular season, has been Kilgore.
Now, it’s been a while – no one has given Carthage many problems, to be sure. For their last home loss before last Friday, you’ve got to go all the way back to September, 2016, when the Henderson Lions pulled it off.
And Kilgore almost dealt Carthage a loss in the 2023 season opener, as well, here at R.E. St. John Memorial Stadium. Carthage quarterback Jett Surratt threw three picks, had what would be his worst game of the 2023 season, and still escaped with a 30-27 win, with he and his teammates brushing the fires of defeat off the ends of their jerseys.
This past Friday, at Carthage ISD Stadium, those fires consumed the ‘Dawgs. And they couldn’t put them out.
Four interceptions by Surratt, five total turnovers, two rushing touchdowns by Kilgore running back Isaiah Watters, a huge kick return by Javon Towns that led to another score, and a gritty performance by a Kilgore defense that is likely the best in the state – it was a recipe for disaster for No. 1-ranked Carthage, and the result: a 20-15 supper that the Kilgore Bulldogs fans ate up and brought home leftovers from.
It won’t overturn past memories, to be sure, like the 2013 state championship game, or a road game at Carthage ISD Stadium where Keontay Ingram scored touchdown after touchdown after touchdown after touchdown. But it was a statement: a statement that the Kilgore Bulldogs are serious, more than serious, about making the 2024 season something to remember – you know, like a certain “other” season 20 years ago, one that Kilgore will celebrate together here at R.E. St. John Memorial Stadium on Sept. 20, when the 2004 state champion Kilgore Bulldogs will be honored.
So congratulations, Kilgore High School football, for your 20-15 win over Carthage last Friday night. You are the ETBlitz.com Team of the Week for the week of Aug. 26-30.
Runners-up: Gladewater, for its 21-13 win over No. 2-ranked Daingerfield on Thursday night, and Tatum, for its 29-14 win over No. 12 Winnsboro on Thursday – both of those were played after long lightning delays.
Rankings in this story are indicative of the Dave Campbell’s Texas Football poll.
On Tuesday, the announcement of the first Whataburger / ETBlitz.com Players of the Week of the 2024-25 school year!