Moffatt looks back at 2025 Vandal varsity football season
DAVID BARBER
Van Vandal Head Football Coach Jared Moffatt is proud of what his 2025 football team accomplished but believes that there were opportunities to do even more.
The Vandals concluded their campaign with an overall record of 7-5 including a runner-up finish in District 7-4, Division 2, and a Class 4A, Division 2, bi-district championship.
“I have mixed emotions about this season,” emphasized Moffatt. “I am really proud of this group. This team came into the season needing a lot of questions to be answered and I thought we came out early in the season and played really well. We beat some good football teams early in the season. Every team on our non-district schedule made the playoffs.
“When we got into district, we beat Gilmer for the first time since I have been at Van,” continued Moffatt. “That was a huge win for our team. At the same time, I am not sure that we ever played that well again for the rest of the season as we did that night. We did not play well at Pittsburg. Paris North Lamar was probably the worst team on our schedule. We did not have a great night against Texarkana Pleasant Grove. We did beat Center in double overtime, but I never thought we could get everything to go really well for us during the second half of our season. I always felt that if we could play well in all three phases in the same game, we could beat just about anybody that was on our schedule. I also think that we showed that when we don’t play well in all three phases, we have the ability to lose to just about any team on our schedule.
“I did not feel like that we finished our season playing our best football and that was unusual for us,” pointed out Moffatt. “After the win over Gilmer, I just don’t believe that we were able to play to that level again. I am proud of what this team accomplished. This senior class provided the leadership we needed,and they set the tone on what we needed to do in order to be successful.”
While the Vandals have a number of graduating seniors, the 2026 team will also feature a lot of juniors this year that will have the responsibility of leading the team as seniors next season.
“We are going to graduate some really good players especially three offensive linemen,” said Moffatt. “All three of those guys started for two straight years for us. We are going to lose good players on both sides of the ball but that’s the way it always is. We had four seniors that started on defense and five seniors that started on offense. We won’t be starting from scratch on either side of the ball heading into next season. We have good players coming back. We will have some questions to answer like who our running back is going to be. Of course, it is always good to know that your quarterback will be returning next season. We will have a lot of good pieces back.”
Among the things that will be occurring statewide before the start of next season will be district realignment which will be announced by the Texas University Scholastic League (UIL) in February 2026.
“There are so many people that spend a lot of time trying to predict the district alignment for next season,” pointed out Moffatt. “Personally, I don’t spend five minutes on it. I have no idea what is going to happen. I get amused at some of these people who think they have this figured out. Maybe, they do. Maybe, they don’t. There are surprises every time that district realignment is announced and we have had our share of those surprises. I think there is a really good chance of staying right where we are. I don’t see any Class 3A, Division 1, team jumping up to Class 4A, Division 2, in our area. When Liberty-Eylau dropped down to Class 3A two years ago, I knew there was a real possibility that we could get moved into that district. You just never know how that is going to unfold. I think it is interesting that Van, Canton, and Brownsboro are currently in three separate Class 4A, Division 2, districts. We are kind of on that line of going in any direction.”