Duncanville vs. St. Frances (Md.) is the latest duel between a D-FW power and the best nation

For the seventh consecutive year, Duncanville will face an out-of-state opponent, hosting St. Frances Academy of Maryland on Saturday at 6 p.m.

Both teams are ranked in the top 25 in the nation by MaxPreps, with Duncanville (1-0) ranked No. 4 and St. Frances (2-1) ranked No. 22. The game will be loaded with recruits from major colleges.

Duncanville has the nation’s top wide receiver in the class of 2025 in five-star recruit Dakorien Moore of Oregon, and he catches passes from five-star recruit Keelon Russell of Alabama, the nation’s third-best quarterback in the same class. St. Frances’ top senior recruit is four-star recruit Blake Woodby of Auburn, who is considered the nation’s 13th-best cornerback, and four-star safety Byron Baldwin has committed to Indiana.

Duncanville opened its season last week with a 34-12 win over South Oak Cliff, with Russell throwing for 347 yards and five touchdowns and Moore catching nine passes for 128 yards and a touchdown. Duncanville, seeking its third consecutive Class 6A Division I state title, is 30-1 since the start of the 2022 season, with Russell throwing 65 touchdown passes during that span.

Duncanville has a 4-2 record against out-of-state opponents since 2018, with the losses coming against two teams ranked No. 1 nationally – IMG Academy of Florida in 2020 and Mater Dei of California in 2021. Duncanville’s biggest out-of-state win during that span was a 35-14 victory in 2019 against St. John’s College, a private school in Washington, D.C., that was ranked No. 16 nationally.

Dallas-area teams have undoubtedly competed with the best teams in the country over the years. Here’s a look at five memorable games between D-FW heavyweights and out-of-state opponents who were considered some of the best teams in America at the time.

Southlake Carroll entered this 2007 game with a 49-game winning streak and three straight state titles. But with former Cowboys stars Michael Irvin and Deion Sanders watching, Miami Northwestern won a battle of the two best teams in the country at SMU’s Ford Stadium on ESPNU.

De La Salle is famous for its national-record 151-game winning streak that lasted from 1992 to 2004 and inspired the movie “When the Game Stands Tall.” But in that 2015 game at Vernon Newsom Stadium in Mansfield, broadcast on ESPN2, Trinity defeated a team ranked No. 1 in the nation by the national team. USA Today.

That 2016 game at Cedar Hill pitted two teams ranked among the nation’s top five, and Cedar Hill had just won its second consecutive state title two years earlier. But in front of a standing-room-only crowd, Bishop Gorman, led by star quarterback Tate Martell, dominated on ESPN2 to achieve its third consecutive undefeated season.

In the midst of a global pandemic, IMG Academy left the protective bubble of its public boarding school in Florida and traveled more than 1,000 miles to prove it was the best high school football team in America. In a meeting of the nation’s two best teams, No. 1 IMG Academy beat No. 2 Duncanville in that 2020 meeting at Globe Life Park in Arlington, ending Duncanville’s 32-game regular-season winning streak. Five-star quarterback JJ McCarthy, who would go on to win a national title at Michigan and be a first-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, threw three touchdown passes against Duncanville. Duncanville faced the nation’s best team again in 2021, losing 45-3 to Mater Dei (Calif.).

Five-time state champion Allen nearly played nationally ranked Duncanville in its 2022 season opener. But Chad Morris, Allen’s coach at the time, preferred to play the nation’s No. 1 team, so Allen hosted St. John Bosco (Calif.) in the Tom Landry Classic. Morris left Allen before the season to become lead offensive analyst at the University of South Florida, so new Allen coach Lee Wiginton took over a game against a St. John Bosco team that had finished in the nation’s top 10 for six consecutive years. St. John Bosco never trailed, leading 38-7 at halftime. Allen had won its last six games against out-of-state opponents before that loss.

For more high school sports coverage from the Dallas Morning News, click here

Sign up for our FREE HS newsletter.