GRIDIRON GLANCE ’25: Comanche Indians

August 18, 2025 at 7:36 am Updated: August 18th, 2025 at 12:00 pm Derrick Stuckly

COMANCHE – The Comanche Indians finished as tri-champions with Sweetwater and Jim Ned in their first year as a member of District 3-3A Division I, but fifth-year head coach Jake Escobar returns just three starters on each side of the ball from last year’s 7-4 football squad for 2025.

“The expectations will never change, they’re still going to be the same thing,” Escobar said. “We expect our kids to play hard, show up every day, fly around and be great teammates, take care of each other, those kind of things. If we can do those, we’re always going to have a lot of success. We graduated 19, and we’re only bringing back three starters on offense and three on defense, so it’s going to be a big learning curve. We have a lot of new faces that are going to be on varsity, but football’s football. You work hard in the offseason and you’re going to develop strength and speed, and you can compete with anybody as long as you do that.”

Key returnees for the Indians include receiver/defensive back CT Buford (25-441, 6 TDs receiving; 135 rushing yards, 2 TDs; 27 tackles, 3 INTs), running back/safety Ladanian Smith (770 rushing yards, 5 TDs; 8-104 receiving; 40 tackles), tight end/linebacker Zaden Tello (79 rushing yards, 2 TDs; 49 tackles, 14 for loss, 7 sacks), linemen Peyton Baugh and Carlos Orozco, tight end/defensive end Caden Carroll, receivers/defensive backs Adrian Reyes and Fernando Patino, kicker Dallas Gillette, and quarterback/defensive back Cooper Welch.

“Our quarterback Cooper Welch, he’s going to be a junior and he’s really shown some leadership and maturity,” Escobar said. “He’s gotten the kids up here in the summer throwing and catching and lifting, so that’s really great for us. I worried a little because he’s an introverted type personality, but he’s really done a good job of getting those kids up here. Zaden Tello and Ladanian Smith, who play tight end and running back, are back, and CT Buford, who plays our outside receiver, he’s our only returning senior starter. He can make plays on both sides of the ball so we’re expecting great things from him. Lineman-wise, we only have one returner but we expect him to take over. We have another young man that played a little bit, he’s going to be a senior, and we expect those two guys to anchor our offensive line and help the young guys mature quickly.”

The Indians open the season this year at Caddo Mills (Aug. 29) – which wasn’t on the schedule in 2024 – then travel to Llano (Sept. 5), host Eastland (Sept. 12) and Tolar (Sept. 19) back-to-back, and venture to Early (Sept. 26) for the pre-district finale.

“I just want to see us play hard,” Escobar said of the early season goals. “I want to see us overcome some adversity and see how we react to that. We preach that all the time, so we want to make sure that our culture’s not just lip service. I’ve talked to them about that, and we’ve had some kids do extra for not shaving or not having a mouthpiece. Those are things where we don’t want our culture to be lip service. If we can do those things right, we’re going to have success on the football field.”

After a bye, Comanche begins defense of its district championship at Jim Ned (Oct. 10) and at Sweetwater (Oct. 17) – the teams the Indians shared the crown with a year ago. Next is a home date with Breckenridge (Oct. 24), a trip to San Angelo TLCA (Oct. 31) and the home and regular season finale against Clyde (Nov. 7).

“Sweetwater and Jim Ned are going to be tough, all of them are really,” Escobar said. “Clyde’s going to be good, they have some big kids. Breckenridge always does a good job, but I really think the front runners are Sweetwater and Jim Ned. Those guys have done a great job the last few years, and I think they’ll continue to do a great job. I think it’s going to come down to us, Breck, TLCA, and Clyde at the end. All those guys do a great job. There’s not going to be any powder puffs that we’re going to play.”

Regarding how good the 2025 edition of the Indians can be, Escobar said it will depend on, “how fast are we going to mature, how fast we’re going grow into a solid football team, as a team. There’s a lot of players that haven’t played together a lot. I know there’s going to be some growing pains, our kids have to understand that. We might start 0-3, we might start 0-4, but we have to understand that we’re trying to get better every day. Every day matters to us, and if we do that we’re going to get better every day.”

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COMANCHE INDIANS 2025 FOOTBALL SCHEDULE

August 29	Caddo Mills (at Royse City)	7 p.m.
September 05	at Llano	7 p.m.
September 12	Eastland	7 p.m.
September 19	Tolar	7 p.m.
September 26	at Early	7 p.m.
October 03	OPEN
October 10	at Jim Ned*	7 p.m.
October 17	at Sweetwater*	7 p.m.
October 24	Breckenridge*	7 p.m.
October 31	at San Angelo TLCA*7 p.m.	7 p.m.
November 07	Clyde*	7 p.m.