By Kyle Roberts
Last year’s theme was “Unfinished Business.”
This year, the theme for the 2024 Ruston High School football squad comes in tandem: “Striving for Excellence” and “We is Greater than Me.”
“It’s something that translates to where we are as a program,” Ruston High head coach Jerrod Baugh said weeks after his team won the first Bearcat state championship in over three decades. “We want to strive for excellent in our football program, and I think we’ve re-established what Ruston Football used to be back in the day and what everybody remembers it being. We want to keep the standard where it is.
“And we want the kids to under that the team is greater than any one person. As team, we can accomplish more together if we’re not just focused on ourselves as individuals.”
While the 2023 team will go down in Ruston High lore, Baugh recognizes one of the challenges ahead for his squad will be to maintain that high standard: creating the right environment for sustained success after a title.
And another challenge? Not allowing the kids to get complacent now that they’ve won the ultimate prize.
“With the way things ended (in 2022), the group coming back was disappointed to not win the state championship. We got beat by a good team, but they realized that we left some things on the table and didn’t play as well as we needed to. This year, it’ll be different. The seniors coming back this year have been to two straight championships and won one. And you have to guard against thinking that’s the norm — you have to constantly work to get there; you don’t just jump to a state championship.
“It was nice that we could celebrate last year, but at some point, all of us will have to change gears for what we want the next year to look like. You have to transition to the next phase. We’ve got a lot of guys involved in track and baseball, but as those things wind down, you kind of kick of football fever. I think they’re looking forward to getting back to football, and we’ve got a lot of guys to replace. But it’s a good nucleus of experience coming back.”
Now, Baugh is expecting a bit of a narrative “flip-flop” heading into spring: last season, it was an experienced defense that was expected to give time for a young offense to flourish. With the amount of talent graduating from the defensive side of the ball in starting seniors Jadon Mayfield, Ahmad Breaux, Geordan Guidry, Nate Johnson, Semaj Jones, Ronald Findley and Jacoryian Crowe, the onus will now be on the experienced offense that returns outstanding skill players on offense, particularly in the backfield with Josh Brantley, Dylone Brookes and Jordan Hayes.
“We don’t plan on “not being good” on defense,” Baugh said, “but we have to replace a lot of really good players. This spring will be really big in trying to figure out who will replace all those guys. Of course, it’s not like starting from scratch. We’ve had guys plugged into the depth chart. I think it’s one of the things we’ve done a good job of here — when one guy graduates, we have an idea of who the next one is. It’s always a work in progress, but this spring is going to be a very big indication of who’s going to end up winning those spots.”
That chance for the new team starts officially on Monday, April 29, which will begin three weeks of nine-total practices that will end with a home spring game on Thursday, May 16, at 6 p.m. against Captain Shreve.
Spring practice will include the incoming freshmen, who will come over from Ruston Junior High to participate in practice. Baugh said that he’s intentional about making sure the incoming freshmen feel like they are part of the program before they step foot into Ruston High for class in the fall.
“We go ahead and give the eighth graders their lockers,” Baugh said. “They’ve got all of their stuff in there ready. They’re looking forward (to coming to practice).”
Ruston High will open the 2024 season at home against Acadiana on Friday, Sept. 6, at Hoss Garrett Stadium.
