The 2026 Central Texas high school football regular season ended the way these things tend to — with a handful of blowouts, one genuine nail-biter, and a few storylines that will carry into the playoffs starting next week. The headline result in District 25-6A was Cedar Ridge's 35-32 win over Round Rock, a bounce-back game after the Raiders absorbed their first loss of the season a week prior against Westlake. That game had genuine stakes; the rest of the district slate did not. Westlake hung 68 on Stony Point, and Lake Travis blanked Westwood 58-0. These are programs operating at different altitudes. In District 24-6A, Hutto closed an 8-2 regular season with a 49-10 demolition of Vandegrift — the kind of margin that suggests Hutto enters the playoffs as a team nobody in the bracket wants to draw. East View beat Rouse on Thursday to grab the district's last playoff berth, a game that featured running back Jalani Culpepper hurdling a defender for a touchdown and generally making the case that one versatile player can drag a program into the postseason. Georgetown's 28-14 win over Killeen was the week's best narrative finish. The Eagles won three of their final four games to clinch a 12th consecutive playoff appearance — a streak that spans coaching changes, roster turnover, and the general entropy of Texas high school football. That kind of consistency is structural, not lucky. Thorndale's 47-0 shutout of Bruceville-Eddy completed a perfect 10-0 season, joining Cedar Park and Wimberley as the area's three undefeated teams entering the postseason. Three programs with unblemished records heading into the bracket is a strong indicator of depth across the region's classifications. Elsewhere, the scores confirmed what was already known: Jarrell rolled Burnet 69-21 in District 12-4A DI, Weiss blanked Connally 62-0, and Liberty Hill handled S.A. Veterans Memorial 53-13. The athlete-of-the-week honors went to a Westlake sweep — defensive lineman Collin McClune (9 tackles, 2 TFLs, a pass breakup) and volleyball player Clayton Kelly (4 blocks, 13 kills, 11 digs) — because of course Westlake swept. Bi-district games begin next week. The storylines to track: whether Cedar Ridge can maintain its momentum after a rollercoaster final stretch, how deep Hutto's run goes with that kind of offensive firepower, and whether any of the three undefeated squads can carry a zero into the later rounds.
