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March 28, 2024

High School Football:

Gorman to play road game in Texas, host top Florida school in 2016

Bishop Gorman Defeats Liberty State Champs

L.E. Baskow

Bishop Gorman players run out onto the field to face Liberty during their Division 1 State Football Championship game at Sam Boyd Stadium on Saturday, December 5, 2015.

Bishop Gorman Beats Liberty

Bishop Gorman head coach Kenneth Sanchez is drenched with iced water by his players after defeating Liberty 62-21 in their Division 1 State Football Championship game at Sam Boyd Stadium on Saturday, December 5, 2015. Launch slideshow »

The Bishop Gorman High football team has defeated a who’s who of national opponents over the past two seasons in posting a 30-0 record and winning two mythical national championships.

They’ve won against teams from California, Arizona, Utah and New Jersey. Next season, they’ll face a different challenge: Traveling to the high school football heartland of Texas.

The Gaels will open Aug. 27 on ESPN at Cedar Hill High of the Dallas area, facing a program projected to be the best in Texas, and in front of an expected 10,000 fans. The Gorman schedule was finalized today with five games against out-of-state opponents, including two to be televised by the ESPN family of networks.

Gorman was supposed to make another trip to Texas this year, but national power Allen High backed out, Gaels coach Kenny Sanchez said. Allen and Gorman agreed last fall to a 2016 contest, but Sanchez said the new Allen coach nixed the game.

“It would have been really cool to have gone (to Texas) twice. We would have been one of the only out-of-state teams to do that,” Sanchez said.

Gorman’s home opener is Sept. 3 against Cocoa High of Florida. The next week they will travel into Southern California to face St. John Bosco, which is usually one of the top teams in the Los Angeles area. Next is a home contest against Kahuku, the defending Hawaii state champions. And, after a bye week, Gorman will face St. Thomas Aquinas of Florida on ESPN at the end of September.

Unlike the past two seasons, Gorman will have a bye week and play just five nonleague games, not six. But those five games are against teams each expected to be nationally ranked and with an elite pedigree. St. Thomas Aquinas, for instance, won the national title in 2008 and 2010.

Gorman returns many of its key contributors, including top recruits Tate Martell (Texas A&M commit) at quarterback, Biaggio Ali-Walsh at running back, and defensive standouts Bubba Bolden (USC commit), Alex Perry and Haskell Garrett.

Between searching for seasoned opponents to build their national championship resume and having some teams simply not interested in facing them, Sanchez said assembling the schedule was more difficult than in years past.

The highlight, of course, is going into Texas.

“Our guys are fired up and ready to go,” Sanchez said. “We’ll be ready for that hostile crowd.”

Ray Brewer can be reached at 702-990-2662 or [email protected]. Follow Ray on Twitter at twitter.com/raybrewer21

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