For the last two seasons, the biggest question for the West Plains Wolves before strapping on pads during the heat of two-a-days was what they were going to do for an encore.
That’s a concern they’ve been more than happy to deal with, and never more so than this year.
In only their fourth year as a program, expectations are realistic that the Wolves could be playing the morning of Dec. 19 at Arlington’s AT&T Stadium, where the Class 4A Division I state championship game is scheduled. That’s what happens when your program goes at least a step further than it did the previous season and in only three years lands in a state semifinal game, which West Plains did last year.
It might seem like the Wolves are upstarts who jumped their place in line and are shocking the established order of Texas high school football. However, they don’t seem the least bit surprised by it.
That was the plan all along, at least the way coach Adam Cummings sees it.
“We started this thing four years ago and when I was interviewing with (former Canyon ISD athletic director) Toby Tucker this is what we talked about,” Cummings said. “We wanted to be a championship caliber team whether that’s a district championship or a state championship. We wanted to be at a high level and be a program that’s respected statewide and be a team that not only wins but does things right. I think we’re on the right track and each year we’ve gotten a little bit further.”
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There’s really not much further the Wolves could go short of bringing home a state championship trophy. The rest of the state seems to recognize this now.
Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, the state’s high school football bible, predicts West Plains will return to the state semifinal for a rematch with Celina, who eliminated the Wolves 43-36 en route to a state championship. It would seem a no-brainer that West Plains is picked to repeat as District 2-4A Division I champion, and in addition, Cummings is the 4A preseason coach of the year.
The Wolves, though, didn’t post an 11-4 record and one of the best seasons ever by a Canyon ISD team through hype alone. While the ambition to surpass last year is there, it’s rarely discussed.
“We’ve addressed it one time,” Cummings said. “A lot of is that media and a lot of different publications talk about it which is great. I love the fact that the kids are getting that kind of notoriety. At the same time we can’t focus on a state championship, so we addressed it back in the spring.”
Considering that the Wolves return 17 starters from last season, championship talk is completely warranted. This year’s team doesn’t think it’s an accident.
If there’s a face of the program on the field, it’s senior quarterback Reid Macon, who started all but the first game in the school’s history. Most graduates would envy Macon’s resume, as last season he threw for 3,528 yards, 36 touchdowns and five interceptions, while running for 576 yards and 15 touchdowns.
“My group of guys has always had a chip on their shoulder,” said Macon of his senior class. “As I got older I thought we had a shot at this. When we were freshmen and sophomores we had those older guys teach us and it was a lot easier to have that as a realistic goal.”
Macon’s hardly alone in that class, as there will be 10 returning starters on offense.
One of those will be senior wide receiver Kane White-Tinsley, who’s also one of the seven returning starters on defense at safety. White-Tinsley, who has committed to University of Texas-El Paso, had 64 catches for 1,065 yards and 12 touchdowns and on defense had 55 tackles and nine interceptions.
White-Tinsley isn’t shy about the team’s intentions.
“It’s most definitely on our mind,” he said of a state championship. “It’s a standard here. We made it to the state semifinals last year and we know we could have gone farther. This whole offseason we’ve said that’s the goal.”
Cummings applauds the raw ambition of his group.
“I think if you asked our kids we’re behind schedule,” Cummings said. “That’s the beauty of this group is they have high expectations of themselves. The standard is to win and be your best. What we mean by that is be the best version of yourself.
“I don’t know that we had a schedule as much as we had goals. One of those goals is to win a state championship and it has been since 2022.”
Players who weren’t in the program that first season have been made well aware of those standards. Keegan Collins, the 6-foot-6, 335-pound offensive tackle who committed to Kansas State, found that lout when he transferred to West Plains from Amarillo High as a sophomore in 2023.
Collins played on the West Plains junior varsity team that went 10-0 that season before becoming a mainstay on last year’s squad.
“Just watching us develop and seeing the guys on varsity I knew when we linked together it was going to be something special,” Collins said. “Out here the kids are ready to go to work every day and do the best they can.”
It might have seemed a bit amusing to some when the school reached the second round of the playoffs in the first season. After reaching the state quarterfinals in 2023 and the state semis last year, though, the Wolves won’t catch anybody by surprise this year.
That’s something West Plains will have to be prepared for this season.
“We can’t sneak up on anybody and we’re not going to,” Cummings said. “You can go one of two ways. When you’re the dark horse and you’ve got something to prove you have a chip on your shoulder to show you belong and I feel our kids have done that. On the flip side, you’ve earned that respect and you want to prove you are who you say you are.”
So far so good on that score for the Wolves. Each year they’ve climbed further up the pyramid of success each year to raise the expectations for the next year.
The tallest mountain has yet to be climbed, but the Wolves always have their hiking gear ready.
“Every team in the state of Texas has a goal of winning a state championship and as the years go by we get better every day,” Macon said. “The expectation has now become a reality. We have a chance and we have a target on our back and we have to prove to everybody that we can do it.
“After that loss against Celina we all knew we had a shot at a state championship. We have the ability to do it and we just have to have the confidence to accomplish that goal.”
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from last year is that reaching the state semifinals isn’t done in August and September, no matter how good early practices or nondistrict games look. A casual observer wouldn’t have looked at last season’s opening loss to Seminole and concluded that West Plains would be a heartbeat from the state title game less than four months later.
So of the Wolves happen to stumble a bit out of the gate, it’s still a long race.
“For us it’s the process day in and day out trying to get ne percent better every day,” Cummings said. “It’s kind of cliché but at the same time it really is our approach and what we try to accomplish each day.
“If you look at where we were game one versus Seminole and where we ended up in game 15 versus Celina, those were two different teams. The product that was on the field was not even close to the same. That was a testament to their ability to continue to get better.”
For the seniors in their fourth year in the program, knowing the system is almost second nature. At this point, the Wolves are probably well ahead of where they were at this point last season.
White-Tinsley says it’s a matter of doing what you know and improving on that.
“I feel like this year we are kind of a step ahead,” he said. “We just keep stacking good days on top of good days. We’re always adding new plays so it’s not like a back of my hand type of thing. I just have to make sure I do every single thing 100 percent.”
A good number of the players, Macon and White-Tinsley among them, also play other sports and were on the successful basketball and baseball teams last year, so football didn’t take up all of their athletic time. That didn’t mean they still didn’t think about this fall.
It was a long bus ride home from Abilene after the loss to Celina and the beginning of offseason preparations the following Monday. Collins said it began even before that.
“It wasn’t even the next morning, it was the moment the clock hit zero against Celina, we knew we had to go to work,” Collins said. “I feel it was the best spring and summer we ever had.”
The trick now is turning that into a great fall. West Plains has done it before and the Wolves think they have the pack to do it even better now.
“The group of guys we have in the locker room, that’s our family,” Macon said. “That’s who we go with, that’s who we fight with. We don’t really care about the expectations. We have a ton of guys coming back and I think it’s a good opportunity for us to showcase what we can do from where we left off.”