Southlake Carroll's prolific receivers face North Crowley's vaunted secondary in elite showdown
· Yahoo Sports
North Crowley lost a five-star recruit at cornerback and may still have the best secondary in Texas.
Visit playerbros.org for more information.
Southlake Carroll, meanwhile, features one of the best wide receiver trios in the state and has a new quarterback who is receiving plenty of college interest.
They will go head-to-head Friday night as Southlake Carroll plays at North Crowley at 7 p.m. at Crowley ISD Stadium. It is a matchup of two top-10 teams in the state rankings, with North Crowley (1-0) at No. 4 and Carroll (1-0) at No. 6.
North Crowley had to overcome the loss of Texas pledge John Meredith III after one of the premier players in the country was ruled ineligible for transferring for athletic purposes. He reclassified to the Class of 2026 so he could start college a year early and play for UT this season, but North Crowley still has an elite defense.
Sophomore cornerback Braylen Cunningham returned an interception 65 yards for a score in last week’s 26-0 season-opening win over 12-time state champion Aledo, and that secondary also includes four-star UCLA pledge Jerry Outhouse Jr. and three-star Arizona State pledge Elijajuan Houston. It was the Aledo debut of quarterback Tre Williams, a transfer from Lewisville who holds seven college offers, and North Crowley held him to 14 for 32 passing for 165 yards and an interception while handing Aledo its first shutout loss since 2003.
North Crowley will certainly be tested by a high-powered Carroll offense that erased a 27-0 second-quarter deficit and beat 18-time Oklahoma state champion Jenks 34-33 in Week 1. Three-star Illinois pledge Brody Knowles had seven catches for 180 yards and two touchdowns and Hudson Tomcheck threw for 322 yards and accounted for four touchdowns in his first varsity start for Carroll.
Tomcheck has offers from TCU, SMU, Baylor, Houston, UT-San Antonio, Colorado State, Arizona and Kansas State. He showed why against Jenks, throwing touchdown passes of 19 and 54 yards to Knowles and then scoring the game-winning touchdown on a 3-yard run with 2:09 left.
Knowles and California pledge Blake Gunter combined for 106 catches for 2,073 yards and 25 touchdowns last year, and the team has added another standout wide receiver in junior Dez Bryant Jr., the son of former Cowboys Pro Bowl receiver Dez Bryant. Those three combined for 15 catches for 277 yards against Jenks, and tight end Easton Nied had two catches for 85 yards and a touchdown.
The last time Carroll played North Crowley was in the first round of the playoffs in 2021, with Carroll winning 42-20. Kaden Anderson threw for 217 yards and three touchdowns and Owen Allen ran for 129 yards and three touchdowns for Carroll in that game.
North Crowley has been one of the best teams in the nation the last four years, going 54-4 and winning the Class 6A Division I state title in 2024. Carroll has been just as good, going 55-5 in that span and finishing as the 6A Division II state runner-up in 2024.
Subscribe
Sign up for the Morning Roundup, a free newsletter delivering the latest North Texas news each morning.This article originally published at Southlake Carroll's prolific receivers face North Crowley's vaunted secondary in elite showdown.