Area football players were snubbed on the All-Arizona team voted on by the football coaches association.

Considering the surroundings, the Mountain Pointe players held it together pretty well while everything around them probably felt like it was closing in on them.

There are duds and then there is something so out of character it becomes insurmountable.

Patrick Joseph felt he left his best words for this last game, even if the Hamilton senior offensive lineman’s pregame speech was “spur of the moment.”

One had a turnover that most likely caused his team the game and the other was essentially handcuffed with a bland game plan in the early portion of the season.

By the time the student body reached the turf at Karl Kiefer Stadium on the third Friday of August, the Mountain Pointe football team, celebrating as if it just won a state title, had the necessary scenario play out perfectly.

One had a turnover that most likely caused his team the game and the other was essentially handcuffed with a bland game plan in the early portion of the season.

The class clown inside A.J. Thigpen will never disappear. It’s been there since grade school, and part of his makeup. He still pulls occasional pranks.

A Division I football coach who saw Mountain Pointe and Hamilton both in person and on film breaks down Saturday afternoon's state championship game at University of Phoenix Stadium:

No. 1 Mountain Pointe vs. No. 3 Hamilton

Predictions for the Division I, III and IV football championship games:

Let’s do this again.

Coach Steve Belles and No. 3-seeded Hamilton knew one thing when November came around: it didn’t matter how the Huskies won, as long as they won.