BY GREG LUCA | STAFF WRITER
McALLEN — Tonight’s matchup against McAllen High and running back Josh McGowen doesn’t really move the needle for McAllen Memorial’s Trevor Speights.
He’s seen McHi play in person this season, but he’s only ever focused on the defense. He hasn’t taken time to study McGowen, hasn’t really paid much attention to his numbers, and doesn’t really care if the matchup at 7:30 in McAllen Veterans Memorial Stadium pits the top two running backs in Valley 6A football.
“I’ve played in big games throughout my career,” Speights said. “This is just another game for me.”
While Speights has been a fixture in the Valley scene for four years, McGowen has made waves in his first season after transferring from Overhills High in Spring Lake, North Carolina.
Both players have been responsible for the majority of their teams’ offensive production, but McGowen stopped short of painting the game as a one-on-one battle.
“A lot of people have made it a big storyline, but we’re all doing the same thing, and that’s just trying to win,” McGowen said. “I just look past all that.”
Overlooking either player’s production has been impossible.
Speights ranks as the Valley’s leader this season with 1,932 yards and 30 touchdowns. With 8,605 yards and 96 touchdowns on his career, he’s already set the Valley’s all-time career rushing record, and the career touchdown record (112) may be next to fall.
If McAllen Memorial can win a playoff game, Speights would also have a shot to break the Valley’s single-season yardage (3,306) and touchdowns (48) records.
His 8,605 yards ranks fifth in Texas high school football history.
“If you stop him at the point of attack, he’s going to cut it back or reverse field,” McAllen High coach Kevin Brewer. “If you try to tackle him high, he’s going to shed that. If you try to go low, he’s going to high-step over you, or jump over you, or kick you in the head. There ain’t much you can do to him.”
While not quite as productive overall, McGowen has been every bit as critical to McHi’s offense as Speights has to Memorial’s.
McGowen has racked up 1,343 yards and 15 rushing touchdowns, producing 58.3 percent of McHi’s total yardage. With two receiving touchdowns, two kick return touchdowns and one interception return touchdown, McGowen has produced 51.7 percent of the Bulldogs total points. Speights has accounted for 51.1 percent of Memorial’s yardage and 44 percent of the Mustangs’ scoring.
“We know we want to get the ball in his hands X amount of times,” Brewer said of McGowen. “When we do that, good things usually happen. Every week, he’s coming into that role of that workhorse back, and he’s doing a heck of a job. Hopefully, he can keep it going.”
McGowen has only gotten stronger as the season has progressed, putting up his two highest yardage and carry totals in his past two games. He ran 27 times for 271 yards and three touchdowns in a win against McAllen Rowe on Oct. 9, then carried 25 times for 223 yards and four scores in a win over La Joya Juarez-Lincoln last week.
While a far cry from Speights’ lofty totals, McGowen has a chance to top McHi’s single-season records for touchdowns (23), rushing touchdowns (21) and rushing yards (1,853) if he can maintain his blistering pace.
“I’m going to go out there and show everybody that I can do what I have to do when I need to,” McGowen said. “We both play the same position, and we both have the same goals.”
Ultimately, that goal is college. While McGowen is still working to get on scouts’ radar, Speights is deep in the process of being courted by a number of Division-I programs. He’ll travel to the University of Oklahoma this weekend for his first official visit, and he said he hopes to take officials to Stanford, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt, plus potentially one more. He doesn’t expect to make a commitment until that process has run its course.
“I’m still open,” Speights said. “I still know three schools that stick out to me, and I want to get more time to visit and get to know staff members and build a stronger relationship.”