Willie Ray Smith Award Finalists

[pngfan316]

Both Nederland Middle Schools for the Class of 2025 were crazy talented. 

[outanup]

Didn't the Injun QB come from Ned too? Tough choice on Offense, I'd love to know how many yards after contact Thomas had.....He was one of the best I've seen come through Nederland.

[Bigdog]

On 2/20/2025 at 7:01 AM, outanup said:

Didn't the Injun QB come from Ned too? Tough choice on Offense, I'd love to know how many yards after contact Thomas had.....He was one of the best I've seen come through Nederland.

No idea on that one.  There have been several very good RBs coming through Ned, but its been a few years.      I do think that Thomas carrying a team from 2-8 to 7-4  in one season should have some weight to the vote (Along with the coaching change).  This is kind of like the MVP discussions that go on for the pros, how would the team look without that player?

[jjsmithjr]

On 2/17/2025 at 5:52 PM, CardinalBacker said:

Moshier was a liability under center about every third week. 
 

I’ve got Bryson and Hunter. 

This is a refreshingly bad take. Moshier was working behind 5 underclassmen 1st year starters (3 soph), and his best 2 players (WR Miller, RB Farr) were banged up for good chunks of the season. Ask those teammates, coaches (hell - ask opposing coaches) if they felt that he was a liability back there. 

Anyone can read box scores and stat lines - I'd encourage you to go back and watch the tape. Then go back and watch how many high percentage pop passes, slips, tunnels and bubble screens HF made use of in racking up the yards.

And last time I checked, Moshier led Silsbee deeper into the playoffs than any other team from District 9 4A-II made it last fall. 

With all of that said - Thomas on offense. Morris or Hunter on defense. 

[CardinalBacker]

2 hours ago, jjsmithjr said:

This is a refreshingly bad take. Moshier was working behind 5 underclassmen 1st year starters (3 soph), and his best 2 players (WR Miller, RB Farr) were banged up for good chunks of the season. Ask those teammates, coaches (hell - ask opposing coaches) if they felt that he was a liability back there. 

Anyone can read box scores and stat lines - I'd encourage you to go back and watch the tape. Then go back and watch how many high percentage pop passes, slips, tunnels and bubble screens HF made use of in racking up the yards.

And last time I checked, Moshier led Silsbee deeper into the playoffs than any other team from District 9 4A-II made it last fall. 

With all of that said - Thomas on offense. Morris or Hunter on defense. 

At one point Silsbee had more pick sixes than touchdowns over a three game stretch.  Possibly over the first part of the season… I don’t remember. 
 

But I do remember pointing out that Moshier was gonna need better tackling from his wideouts and RBs. 
 

And for what it’s worth, Silsbee fans argue that playoff records don’t matter in the WRS voting. If y’all have changed your opinion and now agree that The Mighty Jack Dallas rightfully won the WRS after leading the Mustangs to a state championship (destroying Silsbee along the way), then I’ll listen to you crowing about Silsbee’s fourth round implosion this year as “proof” that MM should be given a pity trophy, since the rest of the team sucked so badly by your account.  

[jjsmithjr]

7 minutes ago, CardinalBacker said:

At one point Silsbee had more pick sixes than touchdowns over a three game stretch.  Possibly over the first part of the season… I don’t remember. 
 

But I do remember pointing out that Moshier was gonna need better tackling from his wideouts and RBs. 
 

And for what it’s worth, Silsbee fans argue that playoff records don’t matter in the WRS voting. If y’all have changed your opinion and now agree that The Mighty Jack Dallas rightfully won the WRS after leading the Mustangs to a state championship (destroying Silsbee along the way), then I’ll listen to you crowing about Silsbee’s fourth round implosion this year as “proof” that MM should be given a pity trophy, since the rest of the team sucked so badly by your account.  

Pretty sure I said that Thomas should get it and there was no panhandling to have Moshier take home a pity trophy; I was just disagreeing with your take about him being a liability. I counted them up, and he had 3 pick sixes in a two game stretch. Not ideal, but no more than the number of touchdowns he was responsible for in both games either. It was a rough stretch for the Tigers, no doubt, but that aint because they had 6 back there. But it comes with the territory of being a quarterback - you get more praise and blame than you probably should. 

Stating that a team is young and that key players were banged up is the farthest thing from saying that the rest of the team sucked, as you so colorfully put it. Everyone knew that Silsbee would be young and would take its licks. But they sure as hell did more with what they had than the other teams in their district who were clearly more talented than they were this year. I'm guessing that using big words like "implosion" are meant to hurt my feelings that Silsbee lost to a bigger and better team in the third (not 4th) round, but I'm not sure there's a bigger implosion than WOS losing to a team they beat during the regular season. Again. 

And while I've certainly had my fair share of exchanges with many disagreeable Silsbee fans over the years, I ain't them. I believe that with an award like this one, you have to take a player's whole body of work into account - wins, big plays, production/stats, leadership/importance to the team, grit (to the extent it shows), post-season performance, etc. So yeah not that anyone cares, but I wouldn't have had any issues with a state championship winning quarterback from WOS taking it home.