A Look Back At 2025 In Class 5A

Get 25% off your subscription by entering Knight25 in the coupon code area. Enjoy!   The 2025 football season has come to an end and it was great from start to finish. Over the next month, we'll have a ton of postseason content from a year in review series for each class to All State teams and Player Of The Year. We're continuing our postseason content today with taking a look back at the 2025 season in Class 5A, from the top storylines to our 5A Player Of The Year and more! Keep it locked in to Prep Redzone Oklahoma for more postseason content over the next month as the long offseason is upon us. But after traveling over 7,000 miles and covering 53 games in 2025, we're not going anywhere. We'll have new content up as we continue to be your home for Oklahoma high school football, 24/7/365. And be sure to check out our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@PrepRedzoneOklahoma">PRZ-Oklahoma YouTube Channel</a> for exclusive (and free) video content recapping the 2025 football season!   CARL ALBERT MAKES HISTORY   The Carl Albert Titans came into the 2025 football season with the same goal as many seasons before. Gold ball. But this one would be a special one. Carl Albert beat Bishop McGuinness to capture the Class 5A gold ball and it would be their 20th state championship in program history. That broke a tie with Ada for the most football championships in state history. Ada won their 19th state title back in 1996 and it took nearly three decades for a team to come along and tie the Cougars, which Carl Albert did last year, followed by taking over the top spot in 2025. It should also be mentioned that Carl Albert's title win was their fourth straight state championship and the ninth in the last ten years. It's truly been a decade of dominance from the Titans.   From Gary Rose to Mike Corley and now Mike Dunn, the expectations with Carl Albert has never changed. The Titans also had to find a way to replace multiple P4 signees from their 2024 state title team. Carl Albert won the championship this season with another relentless showing from the defensive side of the ball. They had arguably the best defense in school history in 2024. They came back in 2025 and were dominant again and it started up front. Defensive linemen [player_tooltip player_id='1539931' first='Lebron' last='Royal'] and [player_tooltip player_id='1637576' first='Joe' last='Thomas'] set the tone on the line of scrimmage. They had new faces stepping up at the linebacker position as well as in the secondary that became names to know.   On the other side of the ball, Carl Albert was led by arguably the best running back in the state with [player_tooltip player_id='693905' first='Delijah' last='Matthews'] and his breakout junior season. Matthews shared the backfield with fellow junior [player_tooltip player_id='1836815' first='Anderson' last='Collier'] at quarterback and he had a perfect first season at QB1, throwing over 20 touchdowns and zero interceptions on the season. The offensive line was basically all back from 2024 and that helped pave the way for Matthews to have one of the best seasons from a running back that Carl Albert has ever seen.   Over the last several years, Carl Albert has been one of the more dominant teams in the state, regardless of class. It hasn't been a question of whether or not they'd win, but whether it would be a game in the second half. The Titans were pushed a few times in 2025. But as the calendar flips to 2026, Carl Albert goes into the new year with a 53-game winning streak. They haven't lost since September of 2022. The 11-man winning streak record is currently held by Bixby with 58 straight wins. Carl Albert chased and made history in 2025. Now, they set their sights on some more history in 2026.   A DOMINANT PLAYOFF FROM 5A-1   Coming into this season, we knew that 5A-1 had the chance to be the best district in Class 5A but they took it to another level when the playoffs began. First off, the team that finished third in the district (because of a three-way tie breaker) would make it all the way to the state championship game. Bishop McGuinness, Lawton MacArthur and Newcastle all made it to the semifinals, with McGuinness punching their ticket to the state championship game. It's not very often that you see three teams from the same district make it all the way to the final four. The Highlanders would capture the district championship following a week ten win over Bishop McGuinness and having the edge in district points over the Irish and Racers.   For Bishop McGuinness, it was a season where they went 12-2 and finished as the 5A Runner Ups. They avenged their only regular season loss to Lawton MacArthur when they beat the Highlanders in the semifinal round. They were also absolute road warriors throughout the 2025 season. They only played four games this season in front of their home crowd. Every other game, including all four playoff games, was on the road or at neutral sites. For Newcastle, it was their second season in Class 5A and their second straight semifinal appearance. They just ran into a Carl Albert-shaped buzzsaw in the semifinals this year. Overall, this was an incredibly fun district to watch and it will be interesting to see how long before we see another district send three teams to the semifinals.   BOUNCE BACK YEARS FROM ALTUS & COWETA   Altus isn't that far removed from going 0-10 in 2022 and 1-9 in 2023. Coweta had a stunning 2-8 season in 2024. Both teams returned with a vengeance in 2025. First, Coweta went from a 2-8 team in 2024 to going 9-1 in the regular season and capturing the district championship in 2025. The Tigers leaned on all of those young and inexperienced that suffered through growing pains in 2024. Unfortunately, it wasn't a storybook ending for the Tigers as the district champs fell to Claremore in the first round of the playoffs. But all of those young players that took a major step forward in 2025? A good number of them will be back in 2026.   Then you have an Altus program that was on life support just a few years ago before head coach Jeremy Reed returned in 2024. The Bulldogs went 4-6 in his first season. But expectations were high heading into 2025 because of a young freshman quarterback that had the potential to completely change the direction of this program. Not bad for a first season. [player_tooltip player_id='1667339' first='Jeymon' last='Reed'] helped lead the Bulldogs to an 8-3 record and he routinely put up monster numbers, quickly solidifying himself as one of the top quarterbacks in Class 5A. And as we head further into the postseason, Reed is a heavy favorite for our Freshman Of The Year award.   OTHER NOTABLE STORYLINES   - PRYOR'S BEST SEASON ENDS SUDDENLY   The Pryor Tigers came into the 2025 football season with high expectations. They had the majority of their starters back from a team that nearly made the 5A semifinals in 2024. On paper, they looked like a team that could be the best in program history and finally make it to the semifinal round and possibly further. And through the first eleven weeks of the season, it certainly looked like that was the case. Pryor finished the regular season at 10-0, beating Del City for the district championship in week ten. But the injury bug bit and it bit hard. They struggled out of the gate and would ultimately lose 40-30 to Newcastle in the quarterfinal round. The Tigers had been rolling, week after week but the season just came to a halt, once again, in the quarterfinals to Newcastle for the second straight year. But in our opinion, this was still the best Pryor team in program history.   - SUCCESSFUL FIRST YEAR HEAD COACHES   Class 6A-1 took up a lot of the headlines with first year head coaches and the coaching carousel in general coming into the 2025 season. But Class 5A had a handful of very successful first year head coaches this fall as well, ironically enough in the same district. Booker T Washington's Nate Goodman and McAlester's Jeff Craig each had successful first seasons, even though they both had some bumps in the road. Booker T Washington would go 7-4 in 2025, including a road win over eventual district champion Coweta. They ultimately lost to Del City in the first round but gave the Eagles a scare. McAlester was slow out of the gate, losing four straight to start the season. But they rallied, winning six in a row to finish second in the district. They beat Collinsville in first round overtime thriller before losing to eventual state champion Carl Albert in the quarterfinals.   5A PLAYER OF THE YEAR   [player_tooltip player_id='693905' first='Delijah' last='Matthews'] - Junior Running Back - Carl Albert   There wasn't much debate on this one. Carl Albert junior running back [player_tooltip player_id='693905' first='Delijah' last='Matthews'] was the best player in Class 5A this season. He helped guide the Titans to another 14-0 record and another state championship. Back in August, we thought that Matthews had the ability to have a breakout season but we certainly didn't see this kind of production coming from the junior standout. Matthews finished with 254 carries for 2,033 yards and 44 touchdowns. The 44 touchdowns on the ground broke Xavier Robinson's single-season rushing touchdown record that he just set a few years ago. Matthews also threw three touchdowns and returned a punt for a score. Matthews was simply a touchdown machine this season for the Titans. In 9 of their 14 games this year, he had at least three rushing touchdowns. He scored in every single game and again, when you're breaking a rushing record at a program like Carl Albert, you're clearly the best player in Class 5A for that season.   WAY WAYYY TOO EARLY LOOK AT 2026   This is the ultimate "way WAY too early look" as we don't even truly know what Class 5A will look like as we don't have the official district assignments for 2026/2027. We could see a team or two move up or down from 6A-2 or 4A and things could look very different. But no matter who comes or goes, it's safe to say that Carl Albert will be the team to beat as we head into the 2026 football season. With the reigning 5A Player Of The Year returning, the Titans will have the firepower to make another run. Now, who will step up and challenge the Titans? McGuinness made a run to the state title game and they return some important playmakers from the 2025 season. Fellow district opponents Lawton MacArthur and Newcastle both get hit by graduation. Del City will be in the mix again with the return of [player_tooltip player_id='1035154' first='Kaleb' last='Blackwolf'] on both sides of the ball. Pryor has to reload but they don't lose everyone like some other top contenders. Altus will be back in the mix with perhaps the best quarterback in Class 5A for the next three seasons. Guthrie is always in the conversation and Coweta will look to build off their district championship season in 2025. But there's no other way to say it. For 31 of the 32 teams in Class 5A, there is a Carl Albert-shaped roadblock in the way of winning the gold ball and that's not going anywhere in 2026.

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