Llano football welcomes Blanco in homecoming game

CAPTION: Llano senior receiver Cash Lynch (7) and the Yellow Jackets will face Blanco in what should be another classic. Photo by Martelle Luedecke/Luedecke Photography

The Llano High School football team returns to its stadium featuring another long-time rival as its homecoming opponent.

The Yellow Jackets (2-0) will face Blanco (1-1) at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 11.

The Panthers crushed Austin Crockett 60-15 Aug. 27 and lost to Salado 34-14 Sept. 4. Llano defeated Tuscola Jim Ned 26-7 Sept. 4 and Burnet 38-31 Aug. 28.

The last time Blanco and Llano met on the gridiron was in 2023 when they were in the same district. Blanco prevailed 55-24 in Llano senior quarterback Luke Davis’ first year on the varsity.

“Since that time, they changed head coaches (Jamie Dixon to Kent Walker), they’ve changed offensive strategies wholeheartedly from the spread to the slot-T (offense),” Llano head coach Matt Green said. “What I see are a lot of solid football players, tough-minded, solid football players, and they’re just covered with them.”

The Blanco offense is led by senior slot back Eli Walker, who has 31 rushes for 255 yards and five touchdowns and has a 40-yard reception, junior Colton Johnson, who has 25 carries for 221 yards and two scores, and senior running back Cason Ricke, who has four rushes for 100 yards and a touchdown. Junior quarterback Caden Spivey has six carries for 30 yards and a touchdown and has completed 3 of 11 passes for 82 yards.

“They have a lot of hard-nosed, smart football players,” Green said. “And so you have to deal with all of them. They’re all pretty good, they’re all solid. (The offensive line) is extremely well coached, they know the rules of the slot-T, they come off the ball hard. They’re a good-sized offensive line.”

Llano will counter with some stingy seniors: linebacker Jason Cherry leads with 27 tackles, followed by defensive backs Emerson Pool, who has 19 tackles, and Caden White, who has 12 tackles, and nose guard Mario Hernandez and linebackers Dionicio Estrada and Evan Gomez, who all have 11 tackles apiece.

“That’s just not an offense that we see a lot of,” Green said. “So preparing for it is difficult because you’re going work it for three days out of your entire season and then be expected to go in there and stop it. Anybody that coaches the slot-T or believes in the slot-T is going to tell you one of the biggest advantages is that the teams they go against rarely see it. They don’t have a lot of experience defending it. So that’s the No. 1 thing to me that stands out – can we stop the slot-T?”

Llano defended the slot-T three times last season, going 2-1 with wins against Comfort 41-0 and Florence 58-7. The lone loss was to Class 4A member Jarrell 40-29.

The Blanco defense is led by senior Caden Wood and junior Micah Rivera, who each have 12 tackles and senior Rex Wisdom, who has 10 tackles.

“They have some pretty good athletes in the back end, and so they’ll surrender some yards in between the 20s” Green said. “But get them down in the red zone, and they’re hard to score on. I think their kids play really hard, they’re quick, they have speed. I think the strength of their defense is when teams get in the red zone, they like to play man coverage. I think are their interior linebackers and their secondary is the strength of their team.”

Offensively, the Jackets will be in their version of the spread offense led by Davis, who has 32 rushes for 132 yards and five touchdowns and has completed 15 of 28 passes for 244 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions, sophomore running back Cole Landers, who has 36 rushes for 360 yards and a score and has three receptions for 23 yards, senior running back Isaac Rhea, who has 19 rushes for 99 yards and a 46-yard touchdown catch, and senior receiver Cash Lynch, who has eight receptions for 144 yards and a score.

“We’re always going to try to run the ball at you,” the coach said. “We like to run the ball downhill and then mix in some outside running with it and try to find some quick screens and play-action passes. Hopefully we’re going to be a balanced offense.”