The Ryan Raiders will face Highland Park Scots in Texas Football 2020 UIL Division I Class 5A Regional Championship Game on Friday 1th January 3:15 p.m. ET at Globe Life Park. If you are wondering to watch the action live, than you are in the right place.
The Highland Park (Dallas, TX) varsity football team has a neutral playoff game vs. Ryan (Denton, TX) today @ 3:15pm at Globe Life Park. This game is a part of the “2020 Football State Championships – 2020 Football Conference 5A D1 ” tournament.
Fans can watch their favorite team and player live on-demand streaming online on PC, Mac, Tab, iPhone, Android Mobile and TV without any restrictions for free HERE.
GAME PREVIEW
They posted pictures and headlines from the loss in their facility. They brooded over them throughout the summer. And after they got their revenge last week, the Scots referred to themselves as the Redeem Team.
You won’t find anything remotely close to that going on at Ryan, even though Friday’s 3:15 p.m. game at Globe Life Park is a chance to avenge three painful losses to Highland Park in the state semifinals from 2016 to 2018. There aren’t any pictures and headlines from those games, and the Raiders don’t have any fancy names to call themselves if they win.
Do they finally want to exorcise their playoff demons? Yes — more than ever. But their mentality is strikingly different.
“Make no mistake, the championship goes through Highland Park,” Ryan coach Dave Henigan said. “If we want to get to the next level, we need to win this one. And it’s going to be the biggest challenge we’ve had.
“You can get lost in that other stuff. What is important is what happens in Friday’s game, not what happened in the past.”
Texas high school football experts and the media saw this rematch coming long before the season started, even as far back as UIL realignment day when Ryan and Highland Park ended up in Region II together. All both teams had to do was take care of their own business. And they’ve done exactly that.
Highland Park (11-0) got here with dominating wins over New Caney (56-21), Frisco Independence (42-20) and Lone Star (30-20). The Scots’ offense is currently ranked No. 4 in the area among 5A teams with 457 yards per game. Most of that has come off the arm of quarterback Brayden Schager, who has 2,937 passing yards and 23 touchdowns to go with seven interceptions. He has a platoon of receivers, including Will Pettijohn (607 yards and eight touchdowns), who is one of five receivers with a least 413 receiving yards.
What’s more is that Highland Park appears to have the secret ingredient to beat Ryan. The Raiders lost just five games over the previous five seasons. One was to Allen in 2015. Another was to Alvin Shadow Creek in last year’s title game. The other three were to Highland Park — all in the state semifinals.
In 2016, then-quarterback Spencer Sanders tore his ACL in the first half and did not return as Ryan lost 31-24. The next year, Highland Park won an offensive shootout, 45-35, then followed it up with a runaway 43-21 win in 2018.
The question is whether or not that success will translate to this year’s Ryan team, which Henigan says has not played against or lost to the Scots. Only four players (Billy Bowman Jr., Seth Henigan, Ja’Tavion Sanders and Ke’Ori Hicks) were on the field for that 2018 loss, which means the majority of this team knows only the history — not the heartbreak.
There’s no denying this year’s Ryan team is dangerous. Seth Henigan has thrown for 3,091 passing yards and 39 touchdowns while the combo of Sanders and Bowman continue to present mismatches on both sides of the ball. In the receiving game alone, that duo has combined for 1,863 yards and 26 touchdowns.
