The high school football regular season is officially over across the country.
As Bill Belichick would say, we’re on to the playoffs.
That’s right. Hard to believe, but the postseason is underway for a large portion of the country, with everyone else to follow suit next week. Over the next few weeks, champions will be crowned all over the place.
Feels like we just started this journey back in August, and here we are — less than three weeks from Thanksgiving — ready to jump into the postseason. Time flies when you’re having fun!
I’ve taken it upon myself here at OutKick to highlight at least one high school football play/ player/ story each and every weekend during the season. These guys are all about to be millionaires with the silly NIL rules, so we might as well get ahead of the curve and start identifying them early.
It’s been quite a ride. No matter how old you get, nothing beats high school football. In a world of NIL deals, it’s the last pure form of amateur athletics left.
So far this season, we’ve seen a wild Hail Mary in Florida, an entire California team get suspended because the mascot shot the bird to some fans, a giant running back in Kentucky smashing heads, the best running back in the nation out of Tennessee, and just last week, an 88-84 playoff game out of Illinois.
88-84!
Today, let’s head out to South Dakota (FOOTBALL COUNTRY!) and check in on the wildest walk-off touchdown I’ve personally ever seen.
Check out the IQ on this kid:
Just the best. Again, it doesn’t get much better than high school football. You guys can have your Saturdays and Sundays. Give me a Football Friday any day of the week.
The best part? That game-winner was for a trip to the 9A state title game in South Dakota. Lordy. What a feeling!
Let’s dive in …
I count three laterals before the final touchdown, which, frankly, isn’t a ton. It’s a pretty tame play in terms of laterals. Pretty short and simple.
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Until, of course, you get to the kid at the end who made a 200 IQ decision to win the game when he acted like it was an incomplete pass. The defense was lulled to sleep and started to celebrate, only for this genius to then scoop the ball up and race down the sidelines for a game-winning score.
The ball was very clearly thrown backwards, so there was no real question. The defense obviously had a different angle, so perhaps it looked like a forward pass to them.
But that doesn’t matter. You play to the final whistle. You put a helmet on a helmet, and a hat on the ball until the ref makes you stop. Just because the receiver stopped playing doesn’t mean you stop playing.
He doesn’t make that decision — the ref does.
And how about the stones on the kicker to make that extra-point with everything on the line? Extra points in high school football are no gimme, by the way. I’d say you’d get at least one miss a game, if not more.
So this wasn’t a layup, and the kid buried it. Warrior.
PS: I hate to point this out, but how about the kid who caught the initial pass getting lit up like a Christmas tree after tossing it back? He was hit so hard, the crowd audibly groaned.
Patriot.