The 2025 Central Texas high school football season ended last month, but before we look ahead to the 2026 season, the American-Statesman’s annual All-Central Texas team honors the best stars from the fall. These are our picks for Central Texas offensive and defensive players of the year, the newcomer of the year and coach of the year.

If you had to choose Trae Hill’s best game of the season, it had to be Cedar Park’s 50-43 Class 5A Division I bi-district playoff win over Tyler, when the senior running back rushed for 343 yards and two touchdowns. Or was it his 223-yard, three-touchdown performance in the playoff loss to Frisco Wakeland? And don’t forget the Timberwolves’ 60-52 win over Georgetown to end the regular season (246 yards, four touchdowns). Hill was a model of consistency, rushing for 100 or more yards in every one of Cedar Park’s 12 games. The 2023 Central Texas newcomer of the year finished his final season with 2,300 yards and 34 touchdowns.

During Lake Travis’ playoff run, Cavaliers head coach Hank Carter labeled defensive end Carter Buck as “the best high school football player in Texas.” That might have been a matter of opinion, but it’s easy to see his point. Buck, who has signed with TCU, has been a wrecking ball for the Cavs the past three years, but he emerged as a bonafide superstar this season. His stats don’t sound real — 85 tackles, a school-record 22 sacks and a school-record 36 tackles for loss.

Before the season, Dripping Springs coach Galen Zimmerman told the Statesman that most fans and media were underestimating his Tigers. But Zimmerman had some inside information the rest of us didn’t know: Chase Ames, his new quarterback, burst onto the scene in a big way in 2025. Ames averaged 263 passing yards a game, showed amazing accuracy by completing 70.5% of his throws and passed for 47 touchdowns. In a truly remarkable performance in the Class 6A DII playoffs, he went 18-for-18 for 318 yards and six touchdowns in the 45-14 win over Medina Valley. With Ames returning in 2026, no one will sleep on Dripping Springs next season.

Maybe it doesn’t seem fair to give our coach of the year award to the same man who won the award in 2024. But one year after leading Vandegrift to the Class 6A DII state championship, Drew Sanders may have done an even better job on the sideline this season. While the 2024 team was loaded with stars who eventually signed to play in college, the 2025 team came in with several new faces. The Vipers’ defense returned just three starters from that ’24 team. But Vandegrift won a piece of the District 25-6A championship for the eighth straight year and then kept going in the playoffs, upsetting Westlake and Dripping Springs before falling in the states semifinals to Houston King.