Why 4 Texas High School football playoffs games are being played out-of-state

Due to distance between schools, 3 games will be in New Mexico and another in Oklahoma

Senior wide receiver Kaiden Miller of Randall High School breaks for the endzone after securing a pass from senior quarterback Kaison Benton against Estacado Thursday night at Happy State Bank Stadium in Canyon. / Michael Cuviello / Amarillo Globe-News / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The 2024 Texas high school football playoffs are about to get underway from Class 6A down to 1A, the six-man level.

With a state as big as Texas it, there can be problems trying to find neutral site spots for postseason games for teams that aren’t close.

There will be teams in the larger metro areas having home games this week, but when schools are a long distance from either it causes issues. 

That is why this week there will be four playoff games played in two different states — New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Three of those four games will be on Thursday, Nov. 14. 

• Canyon West Plains (7-3) will play Clint (4-6) in Artesia, New Mexico

• Canyon Randall (9-1) will play El Paso Ysleta (8-2) in Hobbs, New Mexico 

• Wellington (8-2) will play Petrolia (5-5) in Lawton, Oklahoma.

The two Canyon ISD schools — in Amarillo — are in the same district — with West Plains taking home the district title in District 2-4A Division I. 

Clint and Ysleta are both near the Texas/New Mexico/Mexico border and are in the same district.

“The fact we are playing an El Paso school makes it hard to find a neutral site venue, especially since places that are 5A/6A, like Midland/Odessa can potentially host their first-round games,” Randall coach Dan Sherwood said. “Many other places between us are still playing in the playoffs and cannot host, so we went with Hobbs. They have tremendous facilities (Watson Memorial Stadium) and so we got very lucky to be able to get such a nice place to play.

Sherwood said the planning starts weeks ahead of the playoffs, looking at multiple locations depending on different chances of opponents.

Four teams teams from each district move on and from there, the bi-district is crossover format: 1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 3.

Petrolia, the last qualifier out of District 6-2A Division II, will play at Cameron Stadium at Cameron University — a Division II college.

“With us being in North Texas and Wellington being up in the panhandle, there are not a lot of playoff-worthy stadiums in between,” Petrolia coach Brad Blassingame said. “Childress and Vernon were really the only options between us in Texas, but with four teams from each district making the playoffs, stadiums are hard to book in the first week. Really our only other option was to go north of the Red River.

"Coach (Greg) Profitt originally had Cache, Oklahoma, booked for us but we got the boot. We moved on down the line to Cameron Stadium in Lawton. Wellington has played there before, so he was able to get us in.”

On Friday, Littlefield (6-4) will play Friona (2-8) in a 3A Division II playoff game in Clovis, New Mexico. The Friona Chieftains won their final two games of the regular season to sneak into the playoffs.

-- Cody Thorn | @sblivetx