'Friday Night Lights': Great Pumpkin Harvests Frighteningly Good Matchups

Week 8, Halloween week, brings some truly scary matchups. Taylor Field in Seguin, where No. 8 Westlake tries to hold off the charging Seguin Matadors and monstrous linebacker Marcus Richardson, last week's TexasFootball.com's Player of the Week for his frighteningly complete performance (16 tackles, one sack, two forced fumbles, one fumble recovery) in Seguin's 28-20 win over Austin High? A Seguin win basically hands them the 25-5A title. Or perhaps House Park, a house of horrors tonight for either Elgin or McCallum, who come in with identical 6-1, 5-0 records, tied for the top spot in 17-4A? Up north, Cedar Park, one of two remaining unbeatens in Central Texas, tangles with 14-5A surprise Westwood (6-1, 3-1) at Round Rock ISD Stadium, and minus RB Taylor Smith to boot.

Lake Travis visits Connally as the two top teams in 25-4A get into it. Down south, No. 14 Hays entertains No. 20 Scherz Clemens at Bob Shelton Stadium in Buda in the de facto 26-4A championship game, and Bastrop, technically still alive in the 25-5A snake pit, visits San Marcos, one of three teams sitting at 3-1 in district play (actually two, with Austin's 43-7 pasting of Akins last night). In 3A, which has the most Top 20 Central Texas teams with four, undefeated No. 3 Giddings visits Caldwell, No. 5 Wimberley finally starts 25-3A play with a trip to Bandera, and No. 11 Hutto travels up Texas 29 to face down No. 17 Liberty Hill in the Panthers' den. By the way, the playoffs start in three weeks. Now there's a scary thought. (All games at 7:30pm; rankings based on TexasFootball.com's poll.)