Texico Has Won Three Straight State Titles. The Game Everyone Still Talks About Is the One It Hasn't

Ask around Texico what makes a football season and the answer comes fast, but it isn't the one you'd expect. The trophy case at Texico High School holds three straight New Mexico Class 2A state championships, with a fourth on the line this fall. Bring up September 4, though, and the conversation shifts to a team that, at last count, the Wolverines still hadn't beaten.

That team plays its home games 1.32 miles away, across a state line that mostly exists on paper. The Farwell Steers, of Farwell, Texas, are close enough that you could walk from one field to the other between quarters. The two schools didn't even meet on a football field until 2014, and through last year's matchup, the seventh game in the series, Farwell had won every single one.

That mismatch between what the record book says and what the town actually organizes its fall around is worth sitting with, because it tells you something true about how Texico works.

The Three-Peat Nobody's Surprised By

Texico's current run makes sense once you know the program's history. From 1996 to 2008, the Wolverines appeared in ten of thirteen state championship games, winning four, according to a 2023 preview of the team's title matchup against Eunice. Their last title before the current streak came in 2008, a 28-26 win over Dexter. Then came a stretch without one, until the program found its footing again and reeled off three in a row.

Eighth-year head coach Bob Gilbreath has lived this before, just from the other sideline. Gilbreath is a Clovis High School alum who played under Eric Roanhaus during the Wildcats' own bid for four consecutive state titles, and he's carried that memory into Texico's dugout. Asked about the pressure of chasing history again in 2026, he didn't hedge.

"We're where we want to be, we like having the target on our back. That means we are respected and it gives us motivation to work hard and do the things it takes to maintain the position we've earned."

That's a coach who's done this math before and likes his odds. The state title chase is the part of the season Texico expects to win. It's also, oddly, not the part anyone in town brings up first.

The Game That Doesn't Count for Anything, Except Everything

Here's the part that surprises people who don't follow the program closely: the Border War against Farwell is a non-district game. It doesn't touch playoff seeding. Texico could lose it and still march to a fourth straight title with the same path it's walked the last three years.

And yet it's the single date on the schedule everyone in Texico circles first.

Part of that is geography doing something geography rarely does this cleanly. Farwell's field and Texico's field sit closer together than most subdivisions sit to their own elementary school. Part of it is timing: despite that proximity, the two programs didn't play each other until 2014. You'd think two towns this close would have been beating up on each other for generations. Instead, the rivalry is barely old enough to vote.

And through the 2023 meeting, Farwell had won every single game in the series, seven for seven. The closest Texico came was 2019, a 29-28 loss on Farwell's turf, decided by a single point. Every other meeting wasn't close.

So the Wolverines walk into the most talked-about night of their season as the better program by any measure that matters statewide, and as the team still hunting its first win against the team next door. That's not a contradiction the record book resolves. It's just the shape of the rivalry.

Farwell has its own story going into the 2026 meeting. Second-year coach Derrick Shelton, working with 13 returning starters, is chasing something Farwell hasn't had in eight years: a district title. His team runs a different offense than Texico's, built around junior quarterback Coy Miller and a run-first identity that Shelton wants to lean on hard this fall. Whatever happens on September 4, both towns are walking in with something to prove, just not the same something.

The Quarterback Who Grew Up Watching His Brother Run This Offense

If there's a reason Texico fans aren't sweating the state title math, it's junior quarterback Cross Figg. Last season Figg threw for 1,030 yards with 16 touchdowns. But the passing line undersells him. He also led the Wolverines outright in rushing, carrying the ball 219 times for 1,903 yards and 22 touchdowns. This is a run-first quarterback in the truest sense, someone who wins games with his legs as much as his arm.

Figg didn't learn the position from scratch. His older brother Cade played quarterback at Texico for three years before him, and Gilbreath has watched the dynamic up close.

"Cross grew up with Cade probably picking on him, but at the same time helping him so he's not afraid of the moment. He's been in so many big arenas and so many high-stakes venues and situations. He's a cool customer."

Gilbreath also mentioned, almost as an aside, that Figg is one of the top-ranked rodeo cowboys in his class nationwide. That's the kind of detail that only makes sense in a town this size, where the same kid quarterbacking a three-time defending state champion spends his weekends in a completely different arena, literally.

What the Fall Actually Looks Like on the Calendar

By the time the Border War arrives, the Wolverines will already have two results banked for the season. Texico opened its non-district slate August 21 at home against Santa Rosa, then went on the road and beat Sudan 27-0 on August 28, pushing its record to 2-0 with a combined scoring margin of 52-12 through those two games. The Border War against Farwell is set for September 4 at home in Texico, the night that will draw the biggest crowd of the regular season regardless of playoff implications. After that, the Wolverines travel to Ropes and Legacy Academy before closing out non-district play September 25 at home against Stratford.

If you're only picking one Friday to be at the field this fall, September 4 is the one where the parking lot fills up first.

Why the Score Doesn't Explain the Rivalry

It would be easy to read the seven-game losing streak against Farwell as evidence that the Border War doesn't matter much, that it's a formality Texico endures on the way to the games that count. That reading misses what's actually happening.

A rivalry built on proximity runs on different rules than one built on playoff stakes. Fort Sumner used to be the program Texico measured itself against in the years when Texico was winning, and losing, deep playoff games. That rivalry lived inside the bracket, where wins and losses changed everything. Farwell is different. It's the team you drive past on the way to the grocery store, whose players some Texico families are related to, whose Friday night lights are visible from parts of Texico if the air is clear enough. Winning that game has never been about state title math. It's about which side of a mostly invisible border gets to talk first come Saturday morning.

That's the thing about small-town rivalries that outsiders tend to get backwards. The scoreboard doesn't have to validate the stakes for the stakes to be real. Texico's three state titles are the program's proof of what it can do against anyone in its classification. The Border War is proof of something else entirely, closer to home, less about the record and more about who you have to look in the eye at the feed store on Monday.

Both things are true this fall. The Wolverines are chasing history in one direction, and still chasing a first win in the other. That tension is what makes the season worth watching, whichever Friday you show up for.

Following the small threads that make a place feel like home, from Friday night football to the rest of daily life here, is part of how Tammy Waters stays close to the Texico community year-round. If a move to or from this corner of Curry County is somewhere on your horizon, reach out anytime to request your free buyer or seller packet.