FOOTBALL: No. 1 Bearcats to host Fossil Ridge

Through the first month of the 2025 football season, the No. 1 Aledo Bearcats remain unblemished in the loss column. Most recently, Aledo (4-0, 2-0) used an overwhelming second-half surge to lay claim to its second league win of the year, a 56-7 triumph at Birdville. Despite the dominant performance on paper, Aledo was locked in a 7-7 stalemate into the second quarter and needed a four-touchdown explosion in the third to turn a 21-7 halftime lead into a 49-7 advantage entering the fourth quarter.

“Getting 28 points in the third quarter is something we probably should have done in the second quarter,” Bearcats head coach Robby Jones said. “We just didn’t have a good feel going into that game. I don’t know if it was things that were going on during the week with grades being due, and we didn’t have school on Friday. There was no energy or excitement in the first half of the game, and I think the kids went in and got their minds right – got out there in the second half and things started going better for us.”

Aledo is aiming to increase the energy to add to their production and its overall efficiency in all phases of the game with the Bearcats’ Homecoming game just around the corner.

“We had a lot better practice Tuesday than we did on Monday,” Jones said. “We kind of started a little slow this morning (Tuesday), probably a little bit of a homecoming parade hangover – there’s not a better word to describe it – a lot of candy was consumed on Monday. We’ve got to get things rolling, got a little bit better today than we were yesterday, so I think we’re going to have a really good practice tomorrow.”

With the additional sugar and corn syrup pumped and ran out of their systems, Jones expects the effort and focus levels with the Fossil Ridge Panthers coming to town for Homecoming Night.

“Their head football coach, Derek Ramsey, was the defensive coordinator at Guyer forever, and he’s running the same defense that he ran while he was at Guyer,” Jones said of Fossil Ridge. “We’ve had  a look back at some of the old game plans and things that worked when he was at Guyer. We’re looking at doing some of those things, and then offensively, they’re a normal offense that we see all the time. Their main play is running zone, then stretch zone and they have some counters, so it’s just a normal type of week as far as preparing for these guys. We just got to make sure that we come out ready to play this week.”

With familiarity of the Panthers’ schemes, Jones wants his players to set the tone early and to play downhill with aggression. The offense has amassed nearly 1,100 yards and outscored its first two district foes 110-14 overall. Meanwhile, the defense has allowed one late touchdown against defensive backups in each contest.

“That’s one of the things that I would like to see this week is not what we did last week, but to be ready to go out and play with our hair on fire,” Jones said. “We don’t talk about Guyer a whole lot, we talk about the opponent we are playing. We are focused on Fossil Ridge. The focus is to go 1-0 each week and to make sure that we take care of business each and every week so that someone doesn’t slip up on us that shouldn’t.”

While Aledo remains at the pinnacle of high school football success in the Lone Star state, Jones is pushing his team to work on all facets of their game each and every week, as each opponent will bring different looks and athletes to the table, including a mammoth matchup next Friday at a familiar foe in Denton Ryan.

“If you can’t run the football, it’s hard to beat people. We saw that last year against Ryan, where we averaged a little over one yard per carry, so we’re going to continue to work on all facets of the game, not just the passing game,” Jones said. “ That Ryan game is one of the ones that maybe the kids have looked to since December when we lost that game, so we’re trying to keep them focused on the task at hand – they realize what’s coming next week,” Jones said. “We want to go out and make sure we’re clicking in all phases of the game. We want to make sure that we’re able to run the football at will, throw the football whenever we want to throw it, not because we have to and then make sure that we’ve corrected some of the things in the kicking game as well. The defense has been playing great, but there are things that they can get better at. We are going to make sure that we’re working on these things this week and in this game.”

The Bearcats will host Fossil Ridge (1-3, 0-2) at 7 p.m. Friday at Tim Buchanan Stadium on Aledo’s Homecoming Night.