Gilmer 49, Sunnyvale 28
Buckeyes finish demanding non-district run at 4-1 with 49-28 win over Sunnyvale
By Joe Dodd
GILMER — Five weeks into the season, Gilmer has already matched its win total from all of 2025.
Getting there required navigating what the Buckeyes considered their toughest non-district schedule ever.
Gilmer completed that stretch Friday night by handing previously unbeaten Sunnyvale its first loss, 49-28, at Jeff Traylor Stadium. The Buckeyes overcame a 14-7 first-quarter deficit, outscored the Raiders 42-14 over the final three quarters and improved to 4-1 entering an open week before the start of District 7-4A Division II play.
For coach Alan Metzel, the record was only part of what those five games accomplished.
“This has been the best-case scenario,” Metzel said. “We played really good teams, and we won, so it validates to the players and to the program, that if we keep doing this, we’re going to win. But it also shows us, hey, we got to get better here, here and here, and they realize we do because that can be the difference in winning and losing.”
The difference against Sunnyvale began to emerge after the Raiders scored twice in the first quarter.
Gilmer answered Sunnyvale’s first touchdown immediately when quarterback Zade Taylor broke loose for a 56-yard touchdown run. But the Raiders regained the lead and carried a 14-7 advantage into the second quarter.
Metzel said Gilmer wasn’t necessarily sluggish early. Instead, mistakes that might go unpunished against a lesser opponent were magnified against Sunnyvale.
That has been a recurring lesson throughout the non-district schedule.
“The teams that we have been playing, when we mess up, they made us pay,” Metzel said.
Gilmer began solving Sunnyvale’s changing defensive looks in the second quarter. Taylor threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to Kaden Canady on the first play of the quarter and later connected with Kipton Neighbors for a 37-yard score. Tayveon Horne’s 2-yard touchdown run and ensuing two-point conversion with 28 seconds remaining gave Gilmer a 28-21 halftime lead.
The Buckeyes never trailed again.
Taylor finished 13-of-14 passing for 155 yards and two touchdowns without an interception while rushing 18 times for 132 yards and two more scores. Horne added 106 yards on 15 carries and scored three touchdowns as Gilmer finished with 417 yards, including 262 rushing. Neighbors caught four passes for 72 yards and Canady had five receptions for 51 yards.
Metzel called it Taylor’s most complete performance of the season.
“He played at a very high level,” Metzel said. “He competes so hard. You can see it the way he runs … He’s so passionate about the game and about his team, and that’s what excites you when you see kids becoming men and taking on leadership qualities.”
Taylor’s efficiency has become an increasingly important complement to an offense that has evolved into something considerably different from the Gilmer offenses of recent years.
After completing 7 of 9 passes against Kilgore and 6 of 7 against Sulphur Springs, Taylor missed only once in 14 attempts against Sunnyvale. Meanwhile, Gilmer’s running game has become the foundation around which everything else operates.
Metzel said the way the Buckeyes attacked Sunnyvale may have provided the clearest picture yet of what the offense is becoming.
“The way we called it the other night probably was a better look of who we are as we move forward,” Metzel said. “We want to be able to hurt the opponent as they’re trying to adjust to what we’re doing in the run game and take advantage of that.”
Forcing defenses to account for Gilmer’s running game can create favorable matchups outside.
“It all complements each other,” Metzel said.
That has increasingly been true of more than just Gilmer’s offense. Throughout the non-district schedule, the Buckeyes have found ways to change games on special teams, and against Sunnyvale that phase may have provided the biggest swing of the night.
Gilmer recovered three onside kicks from the second quarter on, repeatedly giving its offense another possession while keeping Sunnyvale’s offense on the sideline.
The strategy wasn’t based on Sunnyvale lining up incorrectly. Gilmer has developed a two-kicker approach designed to force receiving teams to defend the entire width of the field.
“If you get just one or two, you can change the whole game,” Metzel said.
The onside recoveries continued a five-game stretch in which special teams have repeatedly affected games. Gilmer returned kickoffs for touchdowns in each of its first three games before the three recoveries against Sunnyvale.
Metzel said the Buckeyes have devoted significantly more meeting and practice time to special teams.
“It’s gaining tons of field position for us at the very least, and scoring points for us at its best,” he said. “Those are game-changing plays, and the more of those you win, the better it puts you in a position to win a game that is very competitive.”
Gilmer also saw encouraging signs defensively.
The three onside kicks reduced Sunnyvale’s number of possessions, but when the Raiders did get the ball in the second half, Gilmer was more successful getting them off the field.
“We had multiple three-and-outs in the second half, and that’s what we’ve been working towards all year long,” Metzel said. “To me, that’s critical. And the more that begins to happen, the more you’re going to see this separation in scoring.”
Metzel singled out Aaden Borelly-Brown for his penetration along the defensive front and said Austin Blakeley is beginning to come into his own at linebacker. He also praised the work of Gilmer’s secondary.
Gilmer leaves non-district play with an offense that has produced 255 points and 2,245 yards in five games. Of those yards, 1,648 have come on the ground, an average of 329.6 per game and 8.1 per rushing attempt. The Buckeyes have scored 37 touchdowns, 27 on the ground, and converted 23 of 36 third downs.
Taylor has rushed for 626 yards and 10 touchdowns while Horne has 604 yards and 12 scores.
More important to Metzel is that Gilmer appears to have discovered who it is.
“I think we weren’t completely sure on our offensive identity,” Metzel said. “I think that’s rounding into shape, how we’re going to be using the pieces that we have.”
Metzel didn’t enter the season expecting the offense to evolve exactly this way. The increased use of heavier personnel has created what he described as a “persona of physical football.”
“No, I didn’t have all this predicted,” Metzel said. “I thought, let’s go down this road and let’s see how it goes, and it just keeps turning out positive.”
The transformation becomes more striking when viewed against where Gilmer stood a year ago.
The Buckeyes finished 4-7 in 2025. Five games into 2026, they have already equaled that win total.
Metzel said he hadn’t considered that comparison until it was mentioned during his weekly interview.
“I know that I feel a lot better at this point than I did last year,” he said.
Gilmer’s only loss came in the opener at Pine Tree. Since then, the Buckeyes have won four straight, scoring at least 48 points in each victory.
Metzel identified two major reasons for the change: taking care of the football and discovering the team’s identity.
“You’ve got to find the identity so that you get grounded,” he said. “We’re getting to a place where we feel the ground is solid, and now we can really take off.”
The schedule accelerated that process.
Each opponent exposed something. Pine Tree demonstrated the cost of turnovers. Chapel Hill exposed coverage problems and missed opportunities in the passing game. Kilgore punished missed tackles and failures to finish third downs. Every week provided another test against an opponent capable of turning a mistake into points.
“I could write a board full of stuff on that,” Metzel said when asked what the schedule exposed. “Each week, yes, it’s exposed so many things.”
And that, ultimately, was the purpose.
“It’s done its job,” he said.
The reward for surviving that five-game stretch is not an easier road.
Gilmer now has an open week before beginning district play Oct. 9 against Texarkana Pleasant Grove. Carthage also awaits later in the district schedule.
After completing what Gilmer regarded as its toughest non-district schedule ever, the Buckeyes now prepare for what Metzel says are likely the two best teams they will face this season — Pleasant Grove and Carthage.
That’s exactly why he wanted the first five weeks to be difficult.
“I don’t think we could have prepared any better,” Metzel said. “I don’t think that you could have put anybody else in there. … I think this schedule has been everything we could have asked it to be. I think the guys have grown. I think we’re prepared.”
Then he drew a line between what Gilmer has accomplished and what comes next.
“Now we got to go into phase two,” Metzel said. “Phase two, everybody’s zero and zero. Every one of us are zero and zero. And so, what have we gained? What have we improved on? What have we honed? We’ll find out soon.”
The open week will be used both to recover and to begin preparing for Pleasant Grove. Metzel said the staff is deliberately separating rest from work: when the players are off, they should truly get away; when they’re at practice, the expectation remains full speed.
“We want to get a week. We want to gain the edge this week, and then we’ll gain the edge next week,” Metzel said.
There also will be little need for a speech reminding the Buckeyes that district football carries different consequences.
Five straight high-pressure games have already provided that education.
Metzel said Gilmer will retain the same approach it used throughout non-district play: go 1-0 each week.
“I don’t think you have to worry about somebody looking ahead beyond Pleasant Grove,” he said. “We’re going to play Pleasant Grove, and we want to do everything we can to beat them on that Friday night, October 9.”
The Buckeyes spent five weeks finding out who they are.
Now they find out where that takes them.
