Grapevine, Heritage ‘making football important again’

With the football season now history, the Colleyville Heritage and Grapevine football programs brought the district out of the doldrums.

No longer are Randy Jackson’s and Joe Willis’ programs just playing from August through early November. They plan to do something beyond those months.

For the season, the two teams combined to go 20-6 – Grapevine went 10-2 and Colleyville Heritage went 10-4 – and combined to go 4-2 in the postseason. The two also shared the District 6-5A championship with Richland.

Grapevine advanced to the Class 5A Division II Region I area round before it fell to Aledo, 51-7. Colleyville Heritage advanced to the 5A Division I Region I championship where it lost to Denton Ryan, 24-10.

“Certainly, the vibe is better on both campuses,” Jackson said. “To use an analogy, I think we both have the planes in the air. But to do that, 80 percent is the take off. We’ve done that. Now, it’s about both of us maintaining altitude. I told our team that 2015 was the season that got us down the runway.”

Expectations for 2016 were high. But programs never know until they actually go through them and have to adjust when bad things happen or when good things happen.

Part of what helped is that both are in a classification that suits their style. In 2014, Grapevine dropped down from Class 6A to 5A. In February of this year, Colleyville Heritage made the same move.

That does make a difference, going from being one of the smallest schools in 6A to becoming one of the largest in 5A.

“The big picture doesn’t tell me about what I’ve done,” Willis said. “It tells me about our coaches and community and what our parents have done. Everybody bought in. When you have people who are buying in, good things are going to happen.”

Both programs each enjoyed landmark wins. Grapevine defeated Abilene Cooper which advanced to the 5A Division II Region I semifinals. It also defeated Colleyville Heritage for the first time since 2009.

Colleyville Heritage defeated Richland to earn that share of the 6-5A championship. The Panthers also defeated a very talented Justin Northwest team in the area round and then Lubbock Coronado in the regional semifinals to make the Region I championship game.

Winning means drawing attention. Jackson said he has been approached by six players, who left the program after their freshman seasons, expressing interest of playing football again. That likely will also happen with Colleyville Heritage.

“My message for this offseason is that we’re close,” Willis said. “We’ve got to get to work in the offseason and summer and know what we need to do. We’re going to get over the hump next year.”

Jackson knows it’s close for his program as well.

“It’s about making football important again,” Jackson said. “It creates a problem where they can’t live without football. We’re never going to be a program with the most numbers because it’s going to be pretty hard. But what we’ve done in 2015 and 2016 we have to keep going.”

This story was originally published December 5, 2016 at 3:58 PM with the headline "Grapevine, Heritage ‘making football important again’."