In early returns for the 2025 Texas high school football season, the West Plains Wolves are at least as good as advertised.
Entering this season with the highest expectations in their brief yet highly successful history, the Wolves still had a hurdle to clear in their season opener Friday night against Seminole at Happy State Bank Stadium. They cleared it with plenty to spare.
West Plains had never won a season opener in three seasons, and now the Wolves can check that off their ever growing list of program accomplishments. In a rematch of last year’s opener, West Plains jumped on Seminole early and cruised to a 33-10 victory which made a major early statement.
After reaching the Class 4A Division I state semifinals last season, expectations are sky high for the Wolves this year. They wasted no time in living up to that hype.
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“That’s the first opener win we’ve had in our history,” West Plains coach Adam Cummings said. “We have a history of starting slow. Seminole’s a really good football team and I was really proud of how our kids fought and how we executed. I felt we won the battle in the trenches with our offensive and defensive lines.”
There was no resemblance with last year’s season opener at Seminole, which the Indians won 56-21. Friday night only continued to show the growth of the West Plains program.
The Wolves appeared to pick up where they left off from the end of last season, especially offensively. They scored on their first three possessions of the season and took a 20-7 halftime lead.
Seminole got the opening kickoff and drove into West Plains territory, but the Wolves took over on downs. It only took them four plays to go 64 yards for a score, as Reid Macon threw a screen pass to Slade Russell for a 14-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead.
That was the first of Macon’s three first half touchdown passes. He threw the next two to Kane White-Tinsley, first from 16 yards on a fourth down play, then on a 9-yarder where Macon found White-Tinsley in the back of the end zone to make it 20-0 early in the second quarter.
“We just game planned to what their defense had and I feel like it was a great job by the coaching staff and we executed at a high level,” said Macon. “The o-line creates the gaps in order for Slade and I to run through and that’s what makes us go.”
It was a fairly balanced offensive effort by the Wolves, who piled up 486 yards of offense, with two-thirds of those coming on the ground. Macon was more efficient than spectacular, completing 11-of-18 for 162 yards, but he also ran for 67 yards and a touchdown on seven carries.
After that initial offensive burst, the Wolves got more physical on offense, putting it on the shoulders of Russell and the offensive line to run the ball down Seminole’s throat.
“That’s a credit to our kids believing in our offensive staff and what we do,” Cummings said. “We’re not necessarily a run team, we’re not necessarily a pass team, we’re a take what you give us team, and we use one to set up the other.”
The Wolves shut down Seminole on the first three offensive possessions for the Indians, but Seminole finally got on the board with 4:41 left in the half when Dominick Higgins hit Caton Cramer on a 29-yard scoring pass to make it 20-7.
West Plains looked as if it was going to answer back with yet another drive down the field, as the Wolves got inside the Seminole 15-yard line. However, Russell lost a fumble, and Seminole recovered the 1-yard line to stay within shouting distance before going into halftime.
That was about the only down moment on the night for Russell, though. He was especially a workhorse in the second half, running for a game-high 170 yards on 23 carries, and concluding the scoring for West Plains with a 20-yard tackle-busting run up the middle in the fourth quarter.
“I feel like my performance could have been a little bit better but I’m happy and excited for everyone else’s performance,” Russell said. “We came out here and shined like we were supposed to. We’ve just got to keep them on their toes. I think our receivers helped me in the run game and we help our receivers in the pass game as well.”
It was still a competitive game in the third quarter as Seminole was driving to potentially cut the margin to one score, but after Stephen Davis caught a pass for a 14-yard gain, he was hit and fumbled, and Cash Lofton recovered the ball for West Plains. Macon later concluded a 65-yard drive with a 2-yard run to make it 26-7 and put the Indians in a serious hole.
That was the defensive m.o. on the night for the Wolves, who bent but didn’t break, giving up 342 yards but allowing Seminole into the end zone only once.
“I thought our defense flew around really well,” Cummings said. “We had a lot of hats to the ball and when you play a team which has as many weapons as they do you’ve got to do that. We did a lot during the week practicing tempo and out kids did a really good job with that.”
