Craig Loston can't wait to play college football with his cousin. But just for good measure, the Eisenhower safety got one last dig in Sunday night. Pitted against Cypress Ridge quarterback and future LSU teammate Russell Shepard in Sunday night's Under Armour All-America Game, Loston made a late hit on his cousin on the first play of the final contest in which they'll be opponents — at least for their collegiate careers. Shepard started for the Black team and ran for a touchdown in a 27-16 loss to the White at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Fla. Loston verbally committed Friday, confirming a poorly-kept secret.

  Greg Timmons made himself one of the more popular players leading up to the U.S. Army All-American Bowl. He got some deserved face time once the game started, too. Touted as the West Team's top receiver entering Saturday afternoon's game, the Eisenhower senior was a frequent target of quarterback Tyrik Rollison early, but the West dropped its second straight All-American Bowl game, 30-17 at the Alamodome in San Antonio. Timmons, a Texas commitment who caught an 18-yard pass on the West's first offensive play, was thrown to four times in the West's first two series.

  You've voted for more than a week, and the runaway winner of our 2008 Football Play of the Year is Strake Jesuit's Chase Mayo recovering the fumble of Memorial quarterback Davis Miller and returning it 24 yards for a touchdown in the District 18-5A opener between the two teams.   The Crusaders won and ended up going undefeated to clinch the district championship.    This play won with 55.3 percent of the vote.   The rest of the results are as follows: Eisenhower: McGregor 64-yard run vs.

  Gary Thiebaud doesn’t hesitate to call Russell Shepard the best athlete he’s ever coached, nor does he shy from comparing him to current NFL players. Little wonder, then, that Cypress Ridge’s coach is none too sorry to work with the former Rams quarterback for one more week – in Florida, no less. Thiebaud will serve as a defensive line coach and Shepard will play quarterback – possibly among other positions – for the Black Team in the Under Armour All-America Game Jan.

  It was a tremendous run for Hightower throughout the playoffs.

        For most of the past 15 weeks, you’ve faithfully voted each Monday for our Plays of the Week.

  The calling card for a great team is its defense. No matter how many points a defense scores, if the defense can shut the opposing team down, they will still win. That is how Katy wins its championships in football.

{mp3}Podcast-20081222{/mp3}   The lights are out, uniforms are turned in, buses are parked.   The high school football season came to an end with Katy and Allen winning the 5A state championships at Reliant Stadium.

        All season long, Allen has relied on the big momentum-changing play to turn an early deficit into a win.

    Allen scored 14 points in the fourth quarter to upend Hightower 21-14 in the 5A-Division I championship game Saturday night at Reliant Stadium.

            It was a long bus ride home for the Katy Tigers back in September.

  Michael Webber ran for two touchdowns and Will Jeffrey rushed for a game-high 148 yards, and Katy defeated Wylie 17-3 on Saturday afternoon at Reliant Stadium in the 5A-Division II state championship game.

  Athlete’s Connection writer Chad Washington breaks down this weekend’s 5A state championship games at Reliant Stadium. For a video preview with Chad and Dave Purpura, click here: 5A-Division I Allen (14-1) vs.

  Cypress Ridge quarterback Russell Shepard has been named the offensive player of the year in Class 5A by the Associated Press. The LSU commit, threw for 1,458 passing yards and 16 TDs in nine regular-season games.

    We've talked about the four participants in this weekend's 5A state championship games at Reliant Stadium.   Now it's time to dissect the matchups and figure out whether Houston will get two 5A champions.

  Exactly how long until the question is asked remains to be seen. But at the time seven weeks ago, Allen and Wylie football players seemed confident their rivalry clash in the final week of the regular season would steel them for deep playoff runs. If only they knew. With both teams’ playoff berths and positions sealed, Allen edged Wylie 31-28 Nov.

  There’s been one steady player for the Hightower offense the last two seasons - A.J.

{mp3}Podcast-20081215{/mp3}   And so it's down to this.   Hightower and Katy both won their 5A state semifinals Saturday, setting up a Houston-Dallas doubleheader in Saturday's state title games at Reliant Stadium.

        AUSTIN – This could be called the Year of the Hurricane. From the hot, muggy preseason practices, the Hightower football team had one goal in mind: play for a state championship in 2008.

        They're back.

  Ending weeks of speculation, former Cy-Fair running back Sam McGuffie confirmed Friday that he is leaving the Michigan football program. Rivals.com first reported McGuffie's departure, and that was confirmed by a number of Detroit-area media outlets. Speculation that McGuffie, who suffered at least three concussions this season and was knocked out of the team's regular-season finale loss to Ohio State, was finished at Michigan picked up after he did not attend the Wolverines' season-ending banquet last week. "It's just been weighing on me for a while," McGuffie told Rivals.com.

{mp3}Podcast-20081211{/mp3}   With two rounds of the high school football playoffs remaining, Chad Washington and Dave Purpura have less and less to discuss every week.   The stakes are higher, though, and we'll take a look at what's on tap this weekend as Hightower plays San Antonio Clark and Katy faces off with Smithson Valley in the 5A state semifinals.   Listen and enjoy!

            Russell Shepard said before the postseason that the only honor he was missing after the third of three phenomenal seasons at Cypress Ridge was a 5A state championship.   After a career in which he accounted for 8,360 yards and 100 touchdowns, Shepard wasn’t disappointed with one of his many consolation prizes.   As many expected, the LSU commit was named the Touchdown Club of Houston’s Offensive Player of the Year at its yearly banquet Wednesday night at the JW Marriott in the Galleria.   “You never know about winning these awards,” Shepard said.

All season long, Hightower football coach Shane Hallmark kept telling his team that they weren’t ready yet to win a state championship. But now with his team ready to head to Austin to play San Antonio Clark in a 5A Division I state semifinal at 4 p.m.

  {mp3}Podcast-20081208{/mp3}   The 5A playoff field has been trimmed to eight teams statewide and only two locally.   Katy and Hightower, two teams few could call surprises, won Region III this past weekend while Klein Oak fell short in Region II.

  In the largest event of its kind in the entire country, The Touchdown Club of Houston will honor its Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year as well as the Coach of the Year in a banquet Wednesday night at the JW Marriott. The Athlete’s Connection will be there to bring you complete coverage.

  The only tie between London Hamilton and celebrity status is the manner in which he was named. "My mom was in London and she thought the name was real nice," said Hamilton, a senior running back for Hightower, of a scenario reminiscent of how former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham named her first-born.

      During one stretch of the regular season, Hightower football coach Shane Hallmark kept telling his team that they weren’t ready yet to win a state championship.   Saturday afternoon at Tully Stadium, he finally saw that his team is two wins away. After watching his Hurricanes defeat Pearland 38-21 in the 5A-Region III, Division I championship at Tully Stadium, Hallmark said he was proud in his team’s effort all year to earn a right to play in the state semifinals against San Antonio Clark next Saturday at 4 p.m.

    Wide-eyed, pie-in-the-sky looks don’t put down stakes in Missouri City.

  Different week, same story.   Katy rolled past La Porte in every aspect of the game to clinch the 5A-Region III, Division II championship with a 42-0 win Saturday afternoon at Rice Stadium. The Tigers will face longtime playoff rival Smithson Valley in a state semifinal at 2 p.m.

        CORSICANA, Texas — Once the Copperas Cove Bulldawgs started rolling, Klein Oak couldn't stop them. Led by William Wright's 194 rushing yards including scoring runs of 49 and 18 yards, Copperas Cove blasted the Panthers 45-7 for the Region II title in the Class 5A Division II playoffs at Tiger Stadium on Friday night. "Our team kept their intensity tonight," Copperas Cove coach Jack Welch said.

  A look at this weekend’s 5A regional finals, with the picks of staff writers Dave Purpura and Chad Washington: DIVISION I Pearland (12-0) vs.

          The regional finals are so big, we had to go on camera to preview them!     Join Dave Purpura and Chad Washington as they preview this weekend's three 5A regional finals involving Houston-area teams.

  Throughout the season, few outside of the east side of the Houston area has mentioned La Porte as a strong team.   {mosimage}Maybe that's because the Bulldogs started the season with a 1-4 record, including losses to Baytown Sterling, Pearland and Deer Park. But after a 42-9 drubbing at the hands of the Oilers, La Porte has won seven games in a row, including last week’s 27-17 win over Madison to advance to the Division II Region III-5A title game against Katy Saturday afternoon at Rice Stadium.

  They've recorded at least five sacks in a game three times. They held one team to negative total yards and another to less than 40. Yet the Pearland defense, which has allowed a scant 11.42 points a game entering Saturday's 5A-Division III, Region I championship against Hightower, doesn't shy from saying "we kind of hide behind the offense." An offense that itself has amassed staggering numbers, scoring more than 43 points per game in cruising to a 12-0 record. But whether because of the nature of the game or an outright lack of celebrity, as it were, the Oilers defense has more than held its own without a plethora of fanfare. "You know how the offense is talked about a lot.

{mp3}Podcast-20081201{/mp3}   So are Houston's top teams - or at least the last teams standing as next weekend's regional finals approach?   You probably already know Hightower, Pearland, Katy, Klein Oak and La Porte have clinched their spots in the 5A regional finals Saturday.

        Different week, same story.  Katy used a strong combination of a ground game and defensive pass rush to keep Dickinson off balanced, and advanced to their seventh straight regional final with a convincing 38-7 win Saturday night at Tully Stadium in a 5A-Region III, Division II semifinal.   The Tigers (10-3) accumulated five sacks while stalling the Gators(9-3) ground game by holding them to negative-4 rushing yards.   “We knew we had to (put pressure on the quarterback, Clay Honeycutt),” Tigers coach Gary Joseph.

          There was not a lot of jubilation on the Pearland sidelines Saturday, mainly because the Oilers know that in the playoffs, you have little time to celebrate your last win.

  Cypress Woods erased most of a 28-point first-half deficit, but lost 35-21 to Dallas Skyline in a 5A-Region II, Division I semifinal Saturday at Waco ISD Stadium. Skyline raced to a 28-0 lead by late in the second quarter.

          The last time Madison’s football team faced a team similar to itself – last week against Strake Jesuit – the Marlins set the tone early by implementing their speed and scoring a defensive touchdown.

        WACO — Using every superlative in the dictionary may not be suitable to describe it.     Tied at 48 with nine seconds remaining, Nic Greene connected with Josh Boyce for a 40-yard touchdown pass to lead Copperas Cove to a 55-48 win over Cypress Ridge in the Class 5A, Division II regional semifinals at Waco ISD Stadium on Friday night.

      It’s the little things that kill.   El Campo found that out first hand as Brenham slipped past them 21-13 Friday night in a 4A regional semifinal at Tully Stadium. The Ricebirds (8-3) made two crucial mistakes that brought their season to an end.

        Hightower never trailed at any point during the regular season.   Now, the Hurricanes have two come-from-behind wins in the playoffs. Hightower returns to the Division I, Region III-5A finals for the second year in a row thanks to a 40-yard field goal by kicker Jake Kane in a 24-21 win over Cinco Ranch Friday night at Delmar Stadium.

  In the 34 years of the Bayou Bucket rivalry between Rice and the University of Houston, Saturday's game will be the first time this game has more than school pride on the line.

{mp3}Podcast-20081126{/mp3} As the number of area teams still alive in the football playoffs dwindles, the stakes get higher.   In today's podcast, which is airing a day early because Thursday is Thanksgiving, Chad Washington and Dave Purpura break down Friday and Saturday's 5A regional semifinal games.

  A look at this weekend’s area-round playoff games for 5A Division I, with the picks of staff writers Chad Washington and Dave Purpura: REGION III Cinco Ranch (11-1) vs.

  A look at this weekend’s area-round playoff games for 5A Division II, with the picks of staff writers Dave Purpura and Chad Washington: REGION II Cypress Ridge (9-2) vs.

{mp3}Podcast-20081124{/mp3}   The area round is done, and now only four weekends of football remain until the 5A state championships Dec.

  {mosimage}From high above Kyle Field Saturday evening, any number of Cypress Ridge football players could have emerged with a fumble recovery during in the third quarter of a 5A-Region II, Division II area-round game against Lufkin. But as bodies cleared, one number stood out. No.

            Klein Oak and Cypress Creek met 10 weeks ago in the season opener for both teams, and Klein Oak pulled out the victory.   Fast forward to the area round of the 5A-Region III Division II playoffs.