GRIDIRON GLANCE ’25: Zephyr Bulldogs

August 21, 2025 at 7:37 am Derrick Stuckly

ZEPHYR – With three consecutive district championships to their credit, Derek Stevens is taking over a Zephyr Bulldogs football program – ranked No. 11 in Class A Division II in the preseason by Dave Campbell’s Texas Football – that will attempt to continue its dominance against 13-A Division II foes in 2025.

Stevens led Rising Star to back-to-back district titles in 2022 and 2023 before joining the Zephyr staff as an assistant a season ago.

“It’s a great opportunity for me,” Stevens said of his new role. “I feel super blessed to take over here at Zephyr. It’s been a fun ride. (Former head coach) Jeremy (Phillips) did an excellent job as a leader and this kind of fell into my lap in a sense, but I’m grateful for it. It’s been a pleasure to reunite with Coach (Tyler) Tabor, he was my offensive coordinator all throughout junior high and high school so we have that relationship. Him being the offensive coordinator puts me at ease.

“As far as the kids go, they’ve always been hard workers, and they continue to work hard. We’re throwing a lot at them as far as different schematic things, but they’re taking it well and I’m pretty pleased at what the outcome might be toward the end of the year. I feel like with our youth, we’re not upperclassmen heavy, so there could be some hiccups with the verbiage and execution, but I feel like as the season goes on our execution will get better and our kids will gain more confidence in what we’re doing. It should be a pretty good year hopefully.”

Regarding some of the changes that often comes with a new head coach, Stevens said, “Defensively we’re still going to be more of a head up scheme, like Coach Phillips had, but there will be a little more stunts involved. I tried to keep some of his verbiage but there’s a lot of my verbiage in there, too. As far as Coach Tabor and the offense, we lost quite a few of our linemen and our size. We don’t want to go away from our identity, the smash mouth, we still want to be able to get in the T and J-bird and run a little bit. But, we’re also going to be throwing it a little bit more than we probably did last year with more spread and gun as well.”

Among the key returnees for the Bulldogs, who chalked up a 10-2 record and a 46-0 bi-district victory over Evant a year ago, are junior running back/safety Chayden Woodcock (511 rushing yards, 10 TDs; 42 tackles, 4 for loss, 2 interceptions) and junior full back/linebacker CJ Byers (321 rushing yards, 10 TDs; 18-218, 2 TDs receiving; 65 tackles, 9 for loss, 3 fumble recoveries). Others expected to be key contributors include sophomore running back/safety Jetson Gowin, sophomore lineman Bauer Blair, junior running back/linebacker Shayden Pickett, sophomore quarterback/linebacker Spencer Marwitz, junior lineman Ryan Glosson, and sophomore running back/safety Slade Butler.

“Offensively we’ve got two pretty strong running backs in CJ Byers and Chayden Woodcock, we just have keep them healthy,” Steven said. “They’re downhill runners that are going to get yards. They’ll make our linemen look pretty good at times even if they don’t get their assignments. With that said, the linemen have already picked up a lot of what I’ve thrown at them as far as stunts coming from different directions and they’ve been communicating well. Defensively, I expect CJ to be all over the field and Chayden is a ball hawk, too. Our D-linemen are going to be new, but they’ve showed the grit and determination to fly to the ball and they’re going to be nasty. I’m pretty excited to see who steps up in the trenches.”

Zephyr kicks off its season Thursday, Aug. 28 at home against Veribest then tangles with Blackwell (Sept. 5), Gorman (Sept. 12), Lingleville (Sept. 19), Strawn (Sept. 26) and Santa Anna (Oct. 3) prior to the start of league competition.

“I just want to see continued growth,” Stevens said of the pre-district goals. “Jeremy did an excellent job but I feel like there’s some things that we could do a little differently, and that’s what we’re striving to do to take that next step forward in the program. The last three years we’ve been district champs and we finally got over the hump last year and made it to the second round. We’re preaching the little things – discipline, attention to detail, the way your locker is, the way we rack our weights, the way we stand in our stretch lines. We’re really being pretty stern with these kids as far as discipline and doing things correctly. I think as far as the season goes, they’ll continue to get better at that and it will help our execution when we get in those games where it’s a fight and a bloodbath against teams equally talented or maybe even better than us, and we’ll still have a shot to win.”

Defense of the District 13-A Division II championship begins Oct. 10 at home against Rising Star. After a bye, the Bulldogs visit Blanket (Oct. 24), host Sidney (Oct. 31) and venture to Gustine (Nov. 7).

“Everybody is going to assume us and Blanket are going to be battling it out and that could be the case,” Stevens said. “I feel like there’s other teams that play hard as well. Sidney thought they were going to have low numbers and bumped it up and they bring kids out over there that have heart and effort. I’ve coached there before and I know the mentality of those kids. I’ve been at Rising Star as well and I coached a lot of those kids and know their will to win as well. Last year they had a lot of injuries but this year they should be healthier and more of a challenge as well. Gustine, some weeks they’re rolling and some weeks they’re not, so you never know what to expect, but you have to come ready to play every week no matter who you’re playing.”

As for the key to maximizing their potential in 2025, Stevens said the Bulldogs, “have to continue to buy in and believe. What really helped was the way we changed a little bit of our summer workouts and the intensity and things we’re trying to do and strive for. They’re buying in, they’re seeing results, they’re understanding why we do things the way we’re doing things. I feel like they’re going to continue to do that and build that confidence and hopefully we’ll not only win other district championship, but get over that hump of getting past the second round.”

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ZEPHYR BULLDOGS 2025 FOOTBALL SCHEDULE

August 28	Veribest	7 p.m.
September 05	at Blackwell	7:30 p.m.
September 12	Gorman	7:30 p.m.
September 19	at Lingleville	7:30 p.m.
September 26	at Strawn	7:30 p.m.
October 03	Santa Anna#	7:30 p.m.
October 10	Rising Star*	7:30 p.m.
October 17	OPEN
October 24	at Blanket*	7:30 p.m.
October 31	Sidney*	7:30 p.m.
November 07	at Gustine*	7:30 p.m.