I'm going to switch things up a bit this week with my games of the week and do my top game today and save the other best games for Friday because tonight's game between Lake Dallas and Denton Ryan is the game of the week and it's being played on a Thursday night.
The game features easily two of the top 5 senior quarterbacks in the state in Ryan's Scotty Young and Lake Dallas' James Franklin.
Young heads up the Raiders high flying, high octane passing offense, in which he was two touchdown passes shy of tying Graham Harrell's single-season TD pass record a year ago with 65 in 13 games. So far this season, Young has 27 TDs through five games and has just one interception, meaning he's on pace to break the record this year. He's committed to Texas Tech, where Harrell became the NCAA's all-time leader in TD passes and is the only player to ever post multiple 5,000-yard passing seasons. Young's on a good track to follow in those footsteps and has many weapons at Ryan at his disposal, most notably WR Bud Sasser.
Lake Dallas is a more balanced offense with Franklin under center as the Missouri commit can burn you through the air or on the ground. So far this year, he's accounted for 1,572 yards and 20 touchdowns as Lake Dallas has also rolled to a 5-0 start. After tonight, one of the teams will be 6-0 and ranked in the state's top 10, where Ryan already resides at No. 6. Lake Dallas is receiving votes.
Neither team's defense has been anything to write home about, so this should be a high-scoring affair, but I think Ryan's offense is just too good for Franklin and Lake Dallas, as good as they may be, to keep up with. The only thing that might stop Ryan is the weather with impending storms on the way, but that hasn't even stopped Young, who tossed a state-record tying 8 TD passes in a 70-63 win over McKinney earlier this year in stormy conditions.
Prediction: Denton Ryan 55, Lake Dallas 38
Adam Boedeker is a sports writer/award-winning blogger for the Denton Record-Chronicle. Follow the game's action at his blog, starting at 7 p.m. tonight!
