After Carrollton Creekview beat Irving 24-23 in its season opener to end a 21-game losing streak, the team posed in front of the scoreboard for a photo to commemorate its first win in three years. Just as the photo was about to be snapped, the scoreboard was shut off.
That’s about the only thing that has gone wrong during Creekview’s shocking 3-0 start under new head coach Dusty Ortiz.
Creekview is among eight Dallas-area 6A and 5A football teams that are 3-0 after missing the playoffs last year. The others are Mansfield, Flower Mound, Frisco Centennial, West Mesquite, Arlington Seguin, Samuell and Crandall.
West Mesquite and Samuell have matched their win totals from a year ago, and Centennial is one win from doing the same. Creekview has been one of the biggest surprises in the state after having a record of 17-63 the past eight years — a span that included 0-10 seasons in 2017, 2022 and 2023.
“I think it’s our senior leadership,” Ortiz said. “Our three captains, Dre Richardson, Isaiah Holliday and Jude Marlin, have bought in since we arrived on campus June 8 with the start of our strength camp. We put them through some of the hardest workouts I could create, and they didn’t quit. They wanted more. I knew we could have a special season.”
Ortiz orchestrated a similar turnaround at his first head coaching job, Odessa High. The team was winless the year before he arrived and won 11 games in his three years there, including five in 2023.
He wasn’t hesitant to take the job at Creekview, even though it has never won a game in seven trips to the playoffs. He introduced a new-look spread offense that has some Air Raid mixed in, and Creekview has nearly doubled its scoring average, going from 17.2 points in 2023 to 32.7 points in 2024.
Ortiz couldn’t sleep the night before the first day of fall practice in August. Creekview had finished 2023 with fewer than 30 players on its varsity, and Ortiz worried that numbers for the entire Class 5A Division I football program could be incredibly small to start this season.
“With a head coach not being present March, April and May and not being able to get to the junior highs to give them all the information, I think that kind of hurt,” Ortiz said. “I thought it would be anywhere from 60 to 90 [for the first practice], but was really thinking it was going to be closer to 60 because we didn’t see a whole lot over the summer. We saw a consistent 50 over the summer.”
Ortiz asked the players to arrive by 4:45 a.m., but a long line of athletes formed well before that, with more than 100 showing up. There are now about 120 in the program, with more than 40 on the varsity.
Flower Mound is 3-0 for the first time since 2009 after going 17-24 the last four seasons, including 5-5 a year ago. The team has shown a flair for the dramatic, opening this season with a 50-48 double-overtime win over Arlington Bowie, and then rallying to beat Lake Highlands 21-17 last week on an 18-yard touchdown pass from Noah Spinks to Carter Massey with three seconds remaining for coach Brian Basil’s 100th career victory.
“We figured out how to win games when we’re down in the fourth quarter,” Basil said. “It’s a very tough team. I think that goes a lot to the leadership on our team and the character of our team.”
Spinks moved up from the JV and saw action in five games last year, starting three, after starter Jake Watson was injured. He completed 70% of his passes in that limited action, and this year he is tied for second among area 6A quarterbacks in touchdown passes (10) and ranks 10th in passing yards (714).
“We’ve always been impressed with his calm demeanor, even last year as a freshman, when he came in his first full game against Plano and threw for over 300 yards and two touchdowns,” Basil said. “He is a competitor, and he knows how to turn it on when the lights are on.”
Prosper Walnut Grove, whose 3-0 start includes a win over 2023 state semifinalist Frisco Emerson, is among six teams that are undefeated after having a losing record last year thanks to having the area’s leading 5A rusher (Cam Newton) and third-leading passer (freshman Hayes Hackney). Walnut Grove didn’t have a chance to make the playoffs because it played an outlaw schedule in its first year of existence before joining a UIL district for the first time in 2024.
Frisco Centennial is coming off a 4-6 season, was 25-56 from 2016-23 and hasn’t had a winning season since going 6-4 in 2015. Centennial returned seven starters on defense and ranks eighth among area 5A teams in scoring defense (12.3 points per game) after allowing 34.6 points on average last year.
Another 3-0 team that some might consider a surprise is W.T. White, which has come a long way since going 1-19 over the 2017 and 2018 seasons. W.T. White was 6-5 last season and has made the playoffs the last four years, but it’s seeking its first playoff win since 2000.
Fast starts are nothing new for Mansfield, which is 3-0 after missing the playoffs last year as a 6-4 team in a district that included state champions Duncanville and DeSoto and regional finalist Cedar Hill. Mansfield escaped the “District of Doom” in realignment, but now it’s in District 3-6A, which includes nationally ranked North Crowley, The Dallas Morning News’ No. 1 team in the area.
“Last year we were 5-0 to start a season and the year before that we were 6-0,” Mansfield coach Gregory George said. “We are playing quality opponents and are just hoping to carry that forward through what I feel like is going to be a very competitive district. We’ve got Crowley in there, we’ve got North Crowley. They’re not really any different than any of the other teams we faced in our old district. We can’t get complacent.”
Find more high school sports coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
