BROCK EAGLES
Forged for battle
When head coach Billy Mathis took the job in 2021, the future generation of Eagles were in the stands, shirtless, waving Brock apparel above their heads in part of a new era for the program.
Five years later, those same young Eagles represent the largest senior group Brock football has ever seen in pursuit of an overdue trip to AT & T Stadium.
Two years in a row, the Eagles have fallen victim to the eventual 4A Div. II state champions,
Carthage, in the state semifinals. Despite speaking highly of each of those teams and believing the Eagles had what it took to dethrone the Bulldogs, the Brock seniors admitted that 2026 is the year.
“ You could feel it coming up last year,” said quarterback Holt Frazier.“ Last year’ s seniors were great and we had a full team together, but I think we’ ve been waiting to be seniors.”
Lineman Waylon Winfrey furthered Frazier’ s belief by saying,“ The culture we’ ve built as a senior group has brought everybody else along with us. We’ ve got sophomores and juniors that have the same mentality as us because we’ ve led them along with it.”
Years of growth as a collective have left Mathis with a team that’ s never hit the snooze button during their time with the blue and gold and is considered the
8 FIRST DOWN 2026 hardest-working group he’ s ever had. The maturity level separates this group from a lot of past teams and embodies the motto:“ Forged for battle.” The talent from top to bottom allows Mathis to confidently say that the regularity of a kid playing both ends is not the case this year.
“ We’ ll still have guys that go backand-forth playing both sides, but starters, we should have 22,” Mathis said. Another benefit for Brock is the addition of many JV players. An abundance of seniors in the past few years forced underclassmen to go down to JV and play rather than stand on the sidelines for var-