Cross Roads; a little country community with nothing but a stop sign and an old convenience store, I played both sides of the ball in high school. We had to. But since I had boys, I love defense. I love watching an offense run onto the field with a plan, a little confidence and maybe even a touch of swagger, only to spend the next four quarters discovering that none of it is going to work. There is just something beautiful about shutting down an offense, and that is exactly what the Glen Rose Tigers did Friday night at The Wild. The Tigers walked into Godley and came home with a 19–7 victory, improving to 2–1 on the season. Glen Rose led 13–0 at halftime and held the Wildcats to one touchdown all night. You can talk about the big plays and the points on the scoreboard, but this victory belonged to the Tiger defense. Godley ran plenty of plays, but running plays and getting somewhere are two entirely different things. The Tigers finished with 84 total tackles, 12 tackles for loss, six quarterback hurries, three fumble recoveries and an interception. Four takeaways in one football game will ruin an offensive coordinator’s evening and make Saturday morning film review feel about three hours longer than it actually is. Somewhere around the third turnover, you quit looking for answers on the play sheet and start checking to see whether Mercury is in retrograde. Diego Flores was everywhere, finishing with 12 tackles, a sack and a fumble recovery. Ty Simmons added 11 solo tackles because apparently flying to the football is now just part of his weekly routine. Caden Sullivan and Alexis Muro each recorded nine tackles, while Muro added two tackles behind the line of scrimmage. Gage Diaz had himself a Friday night on both sides of the football. Defensively, he recorded eight tackles, three tackles for loss, forced a fumble and recovered another. Cash Henrich added six tackles, three quarterback hurries, forced a fumble and recovered one himself. Kaiden Shannon grabbed an interception, while Jacob Willey and Jayden Garza each contributed seven tackles. Garza also recorded three tackles for loss. That is not one player having a good night. That is a defense working together, arriving angry and repeatedly taking the football away. Godley was not held to seven points by accident. Those boys earned every bit of that. The Wildcats spent most of the night trying to move the chains while the Tigers kept returning them to the original packaging. Offensively, the Tigers are still trying to find their way, effectively and consistently. That does not mean there were not some big moments. Judd Connally threw for 200 yards and two touchdowns while adding another 45 yards on the ground. Diego Flores caught a 26-yard touchdown, Cross Littlejohn found the end zone on the ground and Luke Boyett hauled in five passes for 54 yards. Then came the play everybody will remember...... Connally connected with Gage Diaz for an 84-yard touchdown, and somewhere behind the play, Big Clark Anderson decided he was going to make the full 80-yard journey to the end zone to celebrate with him. Watching Clark build up speed is an experience all by itself. Can you imagine being the unfortunate person standing between that man and the end zone? Have you ever accidentally hit a turtle crossing the road and watched it shoot out from underneath the tire like a hockey puck? That is about the best comparison I have. If Big Clark is coming through at full speed, you have two choices: move voluntarily or become part of a physics demonstration. Either way, Clark is getting to that end zone. I do not know what his official time was on the sprint, but the important thing is that he finished, nobody stood in his way and the seismograph eventually settled down. Now, if we are being honest, the offense is not yet where it wants to be. There are still improvements to make, and I am sure the coaches and players know that better than anyone. You can see the frustration on the faces in the stands when drives stall or opportunities slip away. That is okay. We are passionate about Tiger football, and sometimes passion looks a whole lot like a grown man arguing with a play call from 60 yards away as though the coaches can hear him. We are going to get frustrated. We are going to have opinions. Some of us will even become highly qualified offensive coordinators somewhere between the opening kickoff and halftime. By the third quarter, we have diagnosed every problem, corrected the blocking assignments and drawn six guaranteed touchdowns on the back of a concession-stand napkin. Oddly enough, Coach Pair has still not asked any of us to come down and take over. That comes with caring about the team. This is still a group finding its offensive identity, and Friday night showed that while everything may not be clicking just yet, this defense can keep the Tigers in a football game. There is work to be done, but there is also time to do it, and I believe these boys and coaches are working toward exactly that. Glen Rose also came home with another victory Friday night, winning the FCA Fill the Bucket Challenge. I have been known to rant occasionally about the Purple Team. “Occasionally” may be doing some fairly heavy lifting in that sentence. In all honesty, though, Godley has some good people. I work with some of them, I have talked with plenty of them, and they have always had great attitudes. Even after getting beaten by Glen Rose year after year, losing the football game Friday and then losing the bucket challenge too, they remained friendly and positive. At this point, I believe handling disappointment with grace may be part of the Godley curriculum. They are certainly getting plenty of hands-on training. I was disappointed to see so many Godley fans leaving during the fourth quarter. Earlier in the night, the home side looked like a sea of purple. By the end, that sea had experienced a sudden and unexplained drought, leaving behind a few scattered purple puddles. For a minute, I thought someone had announced a mandatory evacuation of The Wild. Nope, it was just the fourth quarter. I understand the Wildcats are sitting at 0–3, especially after the Facebook Department of Football Analysis spent the preseason predicting Godley would win every game this year. Facebook analysts remain undefeated, mainly because nobody goes back and checks their record. I would offer my own expert prediction, but I cannot afford to lose the trust of both people who regularly read my highly opinionated verbiage on screen. To my two loyal readers, thank you for your continued support. Without you, these would just be the thoughts of a Tunnel Dad talking to himself, which Jessica would probably tell you is nothing new. Still, those kids were out there competing, and they deserved to look up and see their people in the stands until the clock reached zero. That is one thing I love about Glen Rose. We hardly ever see a mass evacuation of Tiger fans. Does it happen occasionally? Sure. Somebody’s grandmother may need to beat the traffic, a toddler may have reached DEFCON 1, or one of us may have eaten something from the concession stand that has suddenly become a medical emergency. But for the most part, Tiger fans stay. We stay when it is close. We stay when it is comfortable. We stay when it is ugly. We stay because those boys are still on the field wearing Glen Rose across their chests. I love that for the Tigers. When they look into the stands late in the fourth quarter, they can still see red, still hear their community and still know we are with them. That matters. All joking aside, Godley is a great community and a good program to have a rivalry with. Their people treated us well, their players continued fighting and their fans clearly care about their Wildcats. We wish them nothing but good luck moving forward, at least until the next time purple lines up across from red. Now our attention turns toward China Springs and Homecoming 2026. I will admit, I feel a little better about that matchup after Friday night, but nobody should mistake that for believing it will be easy. China Springs may have lost 41–37 to Gatesville, but the Cougars erased much of an 18-point fourth-quarter deficit and made it a game. That tells you they have an offense capable of putting points on the board quickly and a team that does not quit. Fortunately, Glen Rose just showed it has a defense capable of making life miserable for an offense. The Tigers have work to do. The coaches know it, the players know it and every expert sitting in the stands definitely knows it. But Glen Rose is 2–1, the defense is playing fast and physical, and the boys found a way to leave The Wild with a victory. Bring on China Springs. Bring on Homecoming. Bring the noise, fill the stands and stay until the clock reaches zero. We have work to do, but we are getting there.