8-29-25 Rockwall Heath
Somehow the rain clouds part and the summer heat dissipates when the first high school football game of the season rolls around. It could be a random coincidence. It could be an act of God. But it’s probably the standard shift in the weather as August melts into September.
The two teams taking advantage of this weather phenomenon at Highlander Stadium this Friday will be the 5A Highland Park Scots and the 6A Rockwall Heath Hawks.
In a way, this will be a homecoming for Hawks head coach Rodney Webb. When he was the head coach at Rockwall, he and HP head coach Randy Allen scheduled each other every year. For those who keep up with HP football over the years will remember some incredible offensive fireworks when those two teams tangled. Those were some of the most entertaining games of the past decade for Scots fans.
Webb then went to Denton Guyer and in his second year led them to the state championship game in 2021. In that game Austin Westlake was coached by Todd Dodge, who is now the head coach of Lovejoy, the Scots’ opponents next Friday. The next year Webb was named the Athletic Director at Highland Park. When the Rockwall Heath head coaching job opened up a year later, Webb jumped at the chance to get back on the sidelines.
The Hawks return 15 starters from a 6-4 team. The key number to focus on is the four district losses for the Hawks. They lost to Forney by 10 points, Longview by five, North Forney by seven and Tyler Legacy by one. In other words had the ball bounced the other way a couple of times, the Hawks could have been district champs.
The Scots are reloading and are developing good depth, especially at the wide receiver position. Leading the pack is Cannon Bozman who had 69 catches for 1,112 yards and 12 touchdowns last year. In the playoffs alone he had 38 receptions for 635 yards and six touchdowns. Other key receivers will be Charlie Olmstead, Case Messer, Isaac Hutchinson, Harrison Cullum and Jack Swaldi.
The most exciting returning starter is junior quarterback Buck Randall who threw for 3,907 yards and 40 touchdowns while running for 12 more TDs as a sophomore. The leading running backs are Matthew White and Isaiah Lee. Offensive line starters are center George Hunt, guards Tripp Townsend and Cooper Alt and tackles Stuart Allday and Colton Williams.
Starting cornerbacks are Jack Sumner and Dean Dulin. Safeties are Martin True and Ronan Moreland. Inside linebackers are Lee Wagner and Beau Jones (the only returning starter) while the outside backers are Langedon McMurray and Davis Sacher (with Heston Lazenby seeing action). Two-deep nose guards are Henry Hobbs and Nick Van der West. The two deep left ends are Thomas Cook and Dylan Palmer. Right ends are Denis Prous and Hatcher Phillips.
Sophomore offensive tackle Colton Williams is starting his first varsity game for the Scots. His father, Kyle Williams, was a starter for the Scots under Coach Randy Allen back in 2001. Williams went on to start for the USC Trojans then the Seattle Seahawks of the NFL. He was one of only four offensive linemen in college football history to have blocked for three Heisman Trophy winners. Without looking it up, who were they? We’ll post the answers next week. Clue: O.J. Simpson wasn’t one of them.