After winning its third state title in four years, DeSoto will open next season playing 17-time state champion St. Thomas Aquinas from Florida, DeSoto coach Claude Mathis said Monday.
The game will be part of the Broward County High School Football Showcase in Florida and will be televised on one of the ESPN networks. It could be a game that helps determine the 2026 mythical national champion.
“We weren’t going to do it at first,” Mathis said. “We had a team lined up, and it didn’t work out. We ended up going back to them. It’s a national game. They’re always ranked in the top 10 like we are sometimes. It will be a game that is great for our kids, a game for our kids to be showcased across America. I think it’s a great opportunity for our kids to go travel out of state.”
That is just part of arguably the toughest nondistrict schedule in Texas. DeSoto’s other two nondistrict games will be against five-time state champion Allen and against three-time state champion Duncanville at the Cotton Bowl in Week 3.
High School Sports
“I think we do have the hardest nondistrict schedule in Texas,” Mathis said. “I think Allen had a good one, but I think we just bypassed theirs.”
DeSoto is dropping from Class 6A to 5A Division I for football and to 5A for all other sports in realignment because of its shrinking enrollment. DeSoto was placed in District 8-5A Division I, along with Burleson Centennial, Cedar Hill, Cleburne, Lancaster, Mansfield Legacy, Mansfield Summit and Midlothian.
But before it gets to those games, it will have a Week 1 showdown with one of the premier high school football teams in the country.
St. Thomas Aquinas finished No. 10 in the MaxPreps national rankings after a 14-1 season in 2025. It beat Lakeland 29-0 in Florida’s Class 5A championship game to claim a seventh consecutive state title, and it has three of the top Class of 2027 players in the nation returning in five-star offensive lineman Mark Matthews, four-star edge rusher Wyatt Smith and four-star wide receiver Julius Jones.
DeSoto won the Class 6A Division II state title this season to complete a 13-3 season in which it won its last 10 games. Four-star running back SaRod Baker, ranked the ninth-best player in the nation at his position in the Class of 2027, will be back after running for running for 3,096 yards and 45 touchdowns, and DeSoto also returns four-star Texas Tech pledge K’Adrian Redmond on the defensive line.
DeSoto has played a Florida team twice in the last 16 years, beating Miramar 42-41 in overtime in 2010 and losing 47-29 to IMG Academy in 2015. DeSoto has faced an out-of-state team the last two seasons, winning 70-0 at home against Creekside (Ga.) in 2024 and losing 70-28 at Creekside this season.
Rivals.com was the first to report the DeSoto vs. St. Thomas Aquinas matchup.
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