Texas Football

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A Word from Our Staff Jake Shaw | Dennis Hall | Travis Stewart

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When you consider how humble its beginnings were, it's amazing Dave Campbell's Texas Football has managed to make it to a Golden Anniversary.

But here we are, celebrating our 50th summer edition magazine -- and in grand style, no less. Colt McCoy, Texas' record-setting quarterback, adorns our cover and sets the tone for a book laden with bold predictions. Texas winning a national championship, TCU breaking into a BCS bowl, Baylor ending a postseason drought and Houston hoisting a conference championship; some people say it’s far-fetched, but we think it's just a perfect storm of extraordinary teams and once-in-a-lifetime talents.

If you have already bought the book and are looking for the expanded playoff brackets we promised, you can find them below. But if you haven't picked up your copy yet, you can find a small taste of the many features and stories 2009's book has to offer. Either way, we hope you enjoy the magazine as much as we did. The past 50 years has gone by fast -- here's to an even brighter future.

-- The DCTF Staff

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--------------- COMPLETE PLAYOFF BRACKETS: 5A-1A --------------

5A-DI bracket  4A-DI bracket   3A-DI bracket    2A-DI bracket  1A-DI bracket

5A-DII bracket 4A-DII bracket  3A-DII bracket   2A-DII bracket 1A-DII bracket

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------------------------------- FEATURE STORIES -------------------------------

A Colt Following
He's more than just a quarterback, more than just a small-school star that somehow made it at the collegiate level. From tiny 2A Tuscola Jim Ned to one of the biggest football powerhouses in the country, Colt McCoy has matured into a once-in-a-lifetime leader.

But he's not doing it alone, either. Flanked by superstars like Jordan Shipley and Sergio Kindle, McCoy's Longhorns have a chance to hoist the national championship trophy -- something they believe they narrowly missed out on in 2009.

Year One
As it turns out, 1960 was a pretty good year for Dave Campbell to start a football magazine in Texas.

It was a big year for Texas Tech, which was joining the Southwest Conference. And it was a big year for some future legends, including new Brownwood coach Gordon Wood, TCU and future Dallas Cowboys star Bob Lilly and rookie McMurry College coach Grant Teaff, who would go on to prominence at Baylor.

Take a trip back to 1960 for our story on the year this magazine was born and the eclectic group of coaches and players who would grace its pages for years.

Fuzzy Math
With the passing of every recruiting class, college coaches are finding new ways to sign -- and somehow retain -- more and more high school football players. Is someone fudging the numbers?

The answer isn't so black and white. New recruiting terms are being invented left and right; from sign-and-place to grayshirting, the Signing Day lexicon seems to being expanding faster than fans can keep up.

And not every coach is speaking the same dialect.

Five Decades of 5A Changes
Over the past 50 years, the structure of Texas high school football has changed dramatically.

In 1960, the largest classification was Class 4A, which included only 108 schools. Now, Class 5A is where the big boys play, and there are 246 of them.

Then, the balance of power was in West Texas and in single-school towns that lived and breathed football. Now, the big cities and suburbs win titles based on sheer numbers and factory precision.

And now? Well, nothing's the same, really.