IT’S LOOSE! | Kilgore’s 2024 schedule is out; Ragin’ Red opens at Carthage; Pleasant Grove is here; a Thursday game? WOW
Kilgore High School football fans can go ahead and begin planning their fall weekends now.
Actually, they can begin planning their weekends beginning, say, August 16. That’s the first scrimmage that coach Clint Fuller and the Ragin’ Red will have, and it’s a home scrimmage that Friday night against Mesquite Poteet.
The second and final scrimmage: on the road at Center on Friday night, August 23.
Then things get real, and that’s against old rival Carthage, at Carthage, on Friday night, August 30, for the 2024 season opener.
The schedule was released this week, as many football programs in the East Texas region have finalized their fall slate. We’ll be bringing you those schedules for the programs in the ETBlitz.com coverage area here this week – we started with Kilgore, and those that are complete, we’ll have this week right here on the site.
Of course, we’ll look at them more in-depth as the season gets closer.
An old district rival returns on the non-district schedule the second week of 2024, as Whitehouse – there’s a blast from the past – comes calling here to R.E. St. John Memorial Stadium on Sept. 6.
The following week sends Kilgore to face the Black Flag Defense in a rematch of that fantastic game a year ago – Kilgore visits Gilmer on Friday, Sept. 13. The Bulldogs slipped in front of Gilmer last season in the final moments on a field goal by Leo Yzaguirre, then had to survive a near miracle kick return by the Buckeyes as time expired.
And the final non-district game of the schedule?
Well, it’s Pleasant Grove.
That’s right – coach Fuller was once the defensive coordinator for the Hawks, where he won a state championship with his friend, coach Josh Gibson. The Hawks will visit Kilgore for a regular season non-district game on Sept. 20 to close out Kilgore’s non-district schedule.
Then the following week, for the first time in over a decade, Pine Tree is now a DISTRICT opponent. The Bulldogs and Pirates meet just about every season, and once met regularly as district rivals before Kilgore dropped down a classification about 11, 12 years ago. Now, after the most recent University Interscholastic League realignment, Pine Tree has dropped a classification, down to 4A Division I, and Kilgore will visit Pirate Stadium in Longview on Sept. 27 to open District 9-4A play.
The second week of the district schedule has the renewal of arguably Kilgore’s oldest, most intense rivalry, that of the Highway 259 Shootout – its rivalry with Henderson. The Bulldogs and Lions will get it on Oct. 4, and that’s also Kilgore’s homecoming date this season.
The Ragin’ Red will be on the road the following week, and for a second straight season, they’ll play at Chapel Hill (Oct. 11). Kilgore hosts Lindale again, though, this season (Oct. 18), and then the final three weeks of the regular year look like this: at Palestine on Oct. 25, an open date on Nov. 1, and then a rare Thursday night regular season finale, at home against district newcomer Mabank, on Nov. 7.
Mabank was a district opponent a couple of realignments ago, and is back this time, replacing Athens, or Jacksonville, depending upon your point of view: both Athens and Jacksonville are no longer in the district after the UIL reshuffling.
Coach Fuller and the Bulldogs went 12-2 in 2023, going unbeaten in claiming the district championship outright and all alone (6-0) as they have in two of his three seasons at the helm of the program.
We will, of course, have plenty more on the Bulldogs’ schedule in the weeks and months ahead.