The Gordon Longhorns will enter 2025 as the runaway favorite to win their third straight Class 1A-Division I state championship.

The Longhorns lost just two seniors from last year’s dominant 15-0 squad and they boast an incredible three potential Division I prospects in RB/DB Stryker Reed, RB/DB Ry Reed and WR Brayden Walters. Stryker Reed and Ry Reed (unrelated) both were recently elevated to three-star recruits by Dave Campbell’s Texas Football.

With all that talent returning, combined with the fact very few games for Gordon have gone past halftime in the past two seasons, head coach Mike Reed decided to look for a new challenge for his Longhorns in 2025. That challenge will be Gordon will play two (and possibly three) four-quarter 11-man football games in 2025.

Presently the Longhorns have a Week 4 road trip to take on Thorndale, a 2A-Division I opponent who posted an 8-4 record a year ago and in Week 9 they’ll travel to Kerrville for a neutral site matchup with 2A-Division II Brackettville, who was 7-4 in 2024.

“If you are a good 11-man team you can play up a level and it won’t really impact you as far as the playoffs," said Reed, who was the head coach at Throckmorton in 2012 when they played a hybrid 11-man/six-man game against Windthorst. "They have the flexibility to challenge themselves outside of the conference and it makes them better. We don’t have that luxury in 1A for the most part, so we had to be creative. The challenge for us is we have to play a totally different game."

Coach Reed does have experience in the 11-man game as he spent four seasons as Hamilton’s head coach from 2014-2017.

“We have to challenge our kids and compete because we have three potential Division I football players on our team and that’s really unique for our level in a town of 500," he said. "I feel it’s my duty as an athletic director to give our kids that platform and put some real challenges in front of them and this will no doubt be a big challenge. Playing four quarters against a bigger school in a different game is about as tough as it gets."

Gordon plans to suit out 24 varsity football players in 2025 and for these games Reed says they have to make adjustments.

“We don’t even have lineman jerseys," he said. "We are having to buy jerseys just to play these games. We’ll do an install every day in practice to get ready to play 11-man. Our six-man stuff is really established and a lot of our six-man practices are more individual work. So we’ll do more team stuff, good on good to get ready. I’m looking forward to changing things up in practice and seeing how our kids respond.”

Reed says Gordon is still actively seeking a third 11-man opponent to play as its Week 1 11-man game fell through. 

Reed says the goal is to win the six-man state title and he’s by no means taking that for granted in 2025. But he also says the challenge has energized his kids as they head into the grind of summer strength and conditioning.