ALEDO, Texas — Aledo football needs no introduction.
The Bearcats have won 11 UIL State Championships since 1998, and they entered the 2023 season as the reigning Class 5A Division 1 champs. All of that success came with Tim Buchanan leading the program as head coach, but his legend came to a close with retirement back in January.
Now, offensive coordinator Robby Jones has been promoted to head coaching duties. Jones has been with Aledo for the past 10 title runs, and early signs indicate that the Bearcats are even better than they were last year.
In 2022, Aledo opened their season with back-to-back losses against Parish Episcopal (24-17) and Denton Guyer (44-14) before running the table and claiming the title. They flipped that script in 2023, defeating both of those same two programs en route to a 2-0 start.
“The biggest difference was that last year we had a young team,” Jones explained. “We started a little slow. This year, we’re a lot more experienced. We’ve got a lot more returning starters. Going into this year, the kids weren’t happy with the start last year, and they wanted to fix things. They wanted to get things right.”
Aledo raced past Parish Episcopal 50-35 at home last week, then battled Denton Guyer on the road in what might go down as the Game of the Year in high school football. In a back-and-forth affair that featured eight lead changes, the Bearcats emerged victorious 48-45. Quarterback Hauss Hejny, a TCU commit, completed 15 of his 20 passes for 252 yards and a touchdown, while also rushing 12 times for 135 yards. Running back Raycine Guillory carried the rock 29 times for 127 yards and four touchdowns. So many big plays and clutch moments all boiled down to a 20-yard, game-winning field goal from Cole Crawford as time expired.
“That was a very tight ballgame, going back and forth the whole night,” Jones recalled. “Those are the kinds of games we expect when we play good people like Denton Guyer. If we play well and they play well, it’s going to come down to the end. We had a lot of confidence in our offense going into that last drive. We knew we wanted to use most of the clock and not give those guys an opportunity to come back on us.”
The Bearcats did just that, burning the final four minutes of regulation. Guillory, who’s amassed more than 250 rushing yards through two weeks of play, has allowed Aledo to develop a balanced offensive attack that can lead to long, clock-eating drives.
“He’s brought an aspect to our offense that we didn’t have last year in the first couple of games,” Jones said. “Having the consistency in the run game… That’s big for our offense because our offense has always been based upon how the running back goes throughout the year.”
Meanwhile, Hejny has been as good as advertised, if not better, accounting for 581 total yards of offense in the first two games of the season.
“He is way more confident in what he’s going right now than he was at this time last year,” Jones said. "He’s always had great ability. He’s a great athlete, and he has become a much better quarterback. His playmaking ability is what led to the victory.”
Aledo will return home next week for a battle against Justin Northwest with a chance to improve to 3-0. Kickoff at Tim Buchanan Stadium is scheduled for 7 p.m.