By Nolan Ruth
X – @RealNolanRuth
A year ago, my predictions for the four private school football teams missed by a mile. It was embarrassing for me how wrong I was. Teams I thought so highly of struggled, and the teams I thought were going to struggle pleasantly surprised me. This year, I am hoping to do much better as I look at the four non-UIL football teams in Parker County.
Willow Park TCA is the only one that plays 11-man football, while Weatherford Christian, Azle Christian and Weatherford Grace Christian all play six-man. Grace Christian is entering its first season in league play as the Colts are now officially aligned in the Texas Christian Athletic Fellowship (TCAF).
There is one thing all of the teams share in common; they all have new head coaches. Not a single coach returns from 2024, leaving some question as to how the season will look for each school.
Willow Park TCA Eagles
The Eagles are being taken over by Scott Campbell who has six prior years as a head coach in the UIL ranks from 2015-2020 with three years each at both Luling and Clyde. In all but one of those years, he made the playoffs. Since then he has been on the staff at Stephenville where he helped lead the Yellow Jackets to a state championship as an assistant coach in 2021.
Campbell comes into TCA after a decent senior class has departed, including quarterback Canaan Kaznowski. However there is a key returning playmaker in Owen Coates who was the team’s leading rusher a year ago and was named Honorable Mention All-Parker County as a sophomore. Coates will have a big role this season as Campbell brings in a Power Spread offense that will rely heavily on his ability to both run and catch out of the backfield.
Nolan’s prediction: 4-6
The tough thing for the Eagles is their strength of schedule, including after a 2-8 season in 2024. However, with a program that has been on a steady rise back to its former glory, Trinity is looking like it could get a few more in the win column. The district schedule is the hardest part, as three of the four other teams in the district went at least two rounds deep in the playoffs. Last year the key game was against Lake Country. Look for that game to once again be the decider on whether or not the Eagles go to the playoffs.
Weatherford Christian Lions
Weatherford Christian is on its third head coach in as many years. Colt Jones takes over for the Lions after leading the junior high program for the last three years. Jones told GM Sports Media “Everything will be different this year, from how it is run, to what offense is run, to what defense is run, to what we do in the offseason, to what we did over summer.” Unfortunately this means there is not much to preview because nobody is quite sure what the 2025 squad is going to look like. However, Jones also said that he is confident with the gains of his players in the offseason.
“We have a lot of offseason momentum and some tremendous gains in the weight room on bench, squatt, our 40 speeds are up, verticals are up, and this is across the board for all of our athletes like never before seen at our school or within our program.” Jones mentioned.
Nolan’s prediction: 1-9
The Lions have nowhere to go but up after a winless season in 2024. The bad side of that is that they are in one of the toughest districts in TAPPS six-man, including defending state champion Fort Worth Covenant Classical. I wish I could be kinder in my prediction, but the bar is pretty low going into this season. Of course, the opposite could happen with a brand new program structure, but that rarely happens and usually takes a couple of years to develop. The one game for sure I bank on the Lions winning is a week three matchup with upstart Grace Christian.
Azle Christian Crusaders
The Cru sadly waved goodbye to coach Clayton Sanders in the offseason due to medical issues. However, they are in good hands as Chad Geeslin steps back into the head coaching role. Geeslin has been at Azle Christian for 20 years and led the football program for 10 of those years from 2004-2014. In his decade-long stint as head coach, the Crusaders won four state championships.
Azle Christian has nine returning players, five being starters on offense and defense. This gives the Crusaders plenty of hope going into the season after going 6-4 last year, and unfortunately missing the playoffs. Junior Grayson Smith is the biggest name among the returners after a sophomore season catching 37 passes for 881 yards and 22 touchdowns. Nehemiah Crowell is also back to play quarterback after missing most of 2024 with an injury.
Nolan’s prediction: 8-2
Despite the change at the helm, I expect this to be a solid year for the Crusaders. The amount of returning players is definitely working in their favor ahead of the season, and the lack of returners for district rival Wichita Christian leaves the district title ripe for the picking. Two tough games with Strawn and Waco Valor Prep will be the toughest matchups for Azle Christian, one of those being a district game. Other than those games, this schedule looks fairly light and a potential 7-0 start could give the team plenty of momentum going into the very tough last three weeks of the season.
Weatherford Grace Christian Colts
The youngest program in Parker County is in a time of transition as Rick Smith stepped down just before the season began. For title purposes, Sammie Ellison is now the head coach, though Ellison says the role will be split between himself and Austin Norman who both were coordinators under Smith. Norman is officially with the school while Ellison’s only role is with the football team. For the first time ever, the Colts are in league play and have been placed in a district under the Texas Christian Athletic Fellowship.
Unfortunately they drew a tough district, as they were placed with Irving Faustina who had a perfect record in 2024 and won the TCAF state title. It is also going to be a tough non-district schedule as the Colts will be playing five playoff teams from a year ago. However, the return of Hayden Ellison gives the team high hopes after rushing for over 1,000 yards as a sophomore.
Nolan’s Prediction: 2-7
As of right now, Grace Christian only has nine games on its schedule. Two of those are defending state champions, and several others are high quality programs that are no stranger to postseason play. Week two sees the Colts take on Perrin-Whitt’s JV squad, which GCA defeated in 2024, so that will be expected to be a win. The second win could likely come on Homecoming against an independent Pinnacle team. After that, it’s a really tough district road and the first year of league play could prove really tough for this upstart program.
