High school football season officially came to an end for me on Friday night with Colcord's loss to Pawnee in the third round of the Oklahoma Class A playoffs.
It's been a season like no other for sure.
Congrats to Colcord for a nice run into the third round of what seemed like endless rounds in Oklahoma this year. There's still three rounds left in Class A, which would put the state championship game in late December. That's a long season!
Regarding Siloam Springs' football season -- I would have liked to have seen what the Panthers looked like with a fully loaded roster all season.
Injuries devastated the Panthers with key players going down, and in high school football a lot of teams can go from being really solid to struggling with just one or two guys going down.
We didn't know it then, but when Siloam Springs defeated Harrison 34-14 in Week 3 that would be the Goblins' only loss to this point. Harrison is 12-1 and will play Little Rock Christian on Friday in the Class 5A semifinals.
How about the 43-42 win in overtime over Van Buren? Looked like a really good win, especially when Van Buren went to Jonesboro in the first round of the Class 6A playoffs and thumped the Golden Hurricane.
Perhaps the most impressive thing is the Panthers successfully played every single regular season game and a playoff game without any changes or postponements.
The players and coaches adhered to the covid-19 protocols with masks and social distancing and did their part to have a season.
Hopefully the 2021 football season is easier on everyone and we're back to filling stadiums under the Friday night lights.
Picks of the Week
The final Picks of the Week standings are in for the 2020 football season.
We picked a total of 126 games this season, nine games each week for 13 weeks. It wasn't an easy thing to do this year with games being canceled or postponed on a weekly basis because of covid-19, but it ended up being a fun competition between the five pickers.
Congratulations to Lynetta Alexander of Alexander Barbershop for finishing in first place with a record 84-42. Cammi Hevener of Ward Jones was second at 83-43, while Tim McCord of Generations Bank was one game back at 82-44 in third place. Jimmy Allen of Shelter Insurance and myself were battling for last place, and I am proud to say I secured my place in the cellar. Jimmy had a 7-2 record on the final week which elevated him into the fourth place and yours truly finished 73-53.
A special thanks to all four of our guest pickers this season. They're all great supporters of local athletics in Siloam Springs.
-- Graham Thomas is the managing editor for the Herald-Leader. He can be reached at [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.