Meet the 2025 Star-Telegram High School Football Player of the Year
At Southlake Carroll High School, there is constant pressure to win football games.
The players and coaches can feel it — that’s what it takes to maintain a reputation as one of the best in Texas.
No players feel that pressure quite like the quarterback, who holds the team’s success literally and figuratively in the palm of his hand. This season, Carroll’s signal-caller thrived amid the high expectations.
Introducing the 2025 Star-Telegram Player of the Year: Carroll senior quarterback Angelo Renda.
Carroll quarterbacks coach Taylor Barnhill said the expectation is to win and compete for championships. Although the Dragons (14-1) fell short of their goal, they certainly were championship contenders, considering their No. 1 state ranking in Class 6A.
“His ability to handle that [pressure] — I don’t think people on the outside understand,” Barnhill said. “It’s a lot of pressure for a 16-, 17- or 18-year-old kid. And he handled it like a grown man.”
Renda, a MaxPreps National Player of the Year nominee, threw for 4,266 yards and 46 TDs with eight interceptions. He averaged 284.4 yards per contest, leading an offense that averaged 51.3 points per game. He also posted 557 yards and eight TDs as a runner.
The stats are eye-popping, and with Carroll outscoring opponents 770-188, there were a lot of times when Renda exited the contest with the victory well in hand.
He’ll continue his football career at Pittsburgh, as he signed with the program in December. Barnhill said Renda can use the lessons learned while under pressure to thrive in college football. He also said Renda is the type of player who makes a coach’s job easier.
“He possesses all the critical intangibles you need in a quarterback,” Barnhill said. “Tremendous character. A very, very tough competitor. … The kid hates to lose. And really, throughout his career, he didn’t lose very often. He is willing to do whatever it takes to win for the team.”
Renda, who played with a fractured left wrist during part of his senior season, suffered only two losses in his tenure as Carroll’s quarterback. The first was to Austin Vandegrift in the 2024 Class 6A Division I state championship, and the next was to DeSoto, the eventual state champion, in the 2025 state semifinals.
He helped win consecutive undefeated District 4-6A championships.
“He is a great leader, and he definitely prepared the right way,” Barnhill said. “We would grind week to week, trying to come up with the best game plan possible. And he was always step for step with us as a coaching staff. He was like having a coach on the field, essentially.”
One of Renda’s strengths was the ability to spread the field. As a senior, 14 of his teammates registered a completion. Three receivers (Brock Boyd, Blake Gunter and Brody Knowles) combined to average 238.4 yards. Five Southlake receivers averaged 20 or more yards.
“He is a great teammate,” Barnhill said. “He cared a lot about his guys. He would always do things for his team. He is the kind of guy you want calling plays for you and making decisions for you. We trusted him a ton — to put us in the right situations.”
Renda played at a high level from the moment he took the reins as a junior. He threw for 3,901 yards that season, with 40 passing TDs and 11 interceptions. As a senior he made improvements in nearly every category, even with one fewer game played.
Part of the reason was a jump in completion percentage from 71.4 to 72.4%. That may not seem like a lot, but that level of efficiency is hard to come by at high-level Texas football.
“What sticks out to me is the overall confidence in the system,” Barnhill said. “Confidence in his abilities and decision-making. He came in with a different swagger in his senior year.”
Carroll High School has produced a long list of accomplished quarterbacks over the years, including Riley Dodge, Kenny Hill, Quinn Ewers and Graham Knowles. With his high school career now complete, Renda adds his name to that lineage, leaving behind a résumé that stands alongside some of the program’s most notable passers.
This story was originally published January 15, 2026 at 4:30 AM.
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