{"id":388129,"date":"2026-07-27T20:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T20:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/388129\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T20:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T20:28:09","slug":"previewing-weeks-1-4-of-houston-county-football-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/388129\/","title":{"rendered":"Previewing Weeks 1-4 of Houston County football season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1008\" height=\"567\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Image-22.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2091593\"  \/>Houston County football participated in preseason drills and 7v7 at Camden. HOUSTON COUNTY FOOTBALL CLUB<\/p>\n<p>With Week 1 of the high school football season just under a month away, let\u2019s take a look at Houston County\u2019s opponents through the first four weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Coming off a 4-7 campaign in 2025, the Fighting Irish kick off the season with a road trip to Stewart County on Aug. 21. Head coach Orman Meadow\u2019s squad decimated the Rebels 43-6 last season behind a 214-yard, two-touchdown game from running back Preston Mitchell.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mitchell rushed for 1,565 yards and 12 TDs last season as a senior. Quarterback Hayden Burgess also rushed for 120 yards and a score in the win.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Stewart County finished last season with a 2-8 record and recorded its two wins against Innovation Academy and Gibson County. The Rebels scored 17 points per game while surrendering 34 on average.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Houston County hosts Lewis County for its home opener on Aug. 28. It fell 40-21 to the Panthers last season despite 176 rushing yards and two TDs from Mitchell and a touchdown pass from Burgess.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lewis County began the season on a seven-game winning streak before dropping a 37-28 decision to Lexington. The Panthers finished their season 10-2 after a 49-22 loss to eventual Class 2A state champion Huntingdon in the second round of the playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In Week 3, the Fighting Irish travel to Waverly to face the Tigers on Sept. 4. Waverly beat Houston County 42-6 last year and only allowed 151 yards of total offense in the win.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Since taking over at Waverly in 2019, head coach Randall Boldin has only had one losing season with the Tigers. He has led the program to a 51-29 record, three region championships and six playoff appearances.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Boldin won the Class 1A state championship at Whitwell in 2018 after guiding the program to an undefeated season in his second and final season there. Waverly finished 9-2 a season ago before bowing out in the opening round of the Class 3A playoffs with a 24-6 loss to Maplewood.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It began the regular season 9-0 and suffered consecutive losses to Fairview in the regular-season finale and Maplewood in the postseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Wayne County travels to Erin on Sept. 11 for a rematch with Houston County after taking a 39-14 loss to the Fighting Irish last fall. It allowed 369 rushing yards and five touchdowns on the ground to the Houston County offense.<\/p>\n<p>Mitchell cruised to 229 yards and two scores to help lead the way in the win. Burgess also threw a touchdown against Wayne County who finished 4-7 with wins over Richland, Hollow Rock-Bruceton, Perry County and Collinwood.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Wayne County has not won more than six games in a single season since 2018 under former Wildcats and McEwen coach Rick Rice.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston County football participated in preseason drills and 7v7 at Camden. HOUSTON COUNTY FOOTBALL CLUB With Week 1&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-388129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}