As Ruston High begins the summer prep to defend its first state championship in over 30 years, head coach Jerrod Baugh sat down with the LPJ to give his thoughts on how his new roster is doing with the fall approaching.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for continuity. Click here for Part 1.
Lincoln Parish Journal: “There was a little bit of injury bug to a couple of key players in spring football. (Returning senior quarterback) Josh Brantley, for example, didn’t get a whole lot of snaps, so what did you see from some of the players who had to step into those roles?”
Jerrod Baugh: “I never want to see a player get hurt — Josh got rolled up two different times during spring. He did get some quality time and did some really good things whenever he was out there. But it gave us an opportunity to work (sophomore quarterback) Sam Hartwell with the first group. One of the coaching struggles is to try to find your next quarterback and give an opportunity to work with the first group, in case something like that happens, to see what it could look like. You need to know what things need to change in case of an injury, as far as our philosophy to get first downs and score the football with this other guy in at this and at that position.
“And so it really kind of gave the coaching staff an opportunity to see how to change gears. It gives everybody an opportunity to kind of go through the thought process of if something unfortunate did happen during the season. I think that was a great opportunity in the spring to look at it as a positive, rather than the middle of the season.”
LPJ: “We don’t want to overlook special teams, so how is replacing your deep snapper and punter going? Where are we standing with those positions?”
JB: “You never want to overlook special teams. Coach (Colt) Dunbar did a really good job with them during the spring. We did did some drill work, and then the kickers and the snappers and all kind of stayed separate. And Coach Dunbar did a really good job of trying to nail down who’s going to be the next in line. Joaquin Ramos is coming back and Jack Elliott is coming back and Cade Kelly was our junior varsity punter. I think he’s got a big leg — he’s just got to get more consistent. We’ve got a good starting point just like I talked about all those other spots.
“It’s just one of those things that you got to continuously keep evaluating those kids and keep working them. We don’t have a full time deep snapper like last year with (recently graduated) Joe Morrow — it’s what he did during practice all day which is a really good thing to have. The deep snappers we’ve got this year, they’re kind of scattered and do another position. And so we’re going to have to split some time, but we’ll just continue to to narrow that down and find the guys that can get the job done.”
LPJ: “How about your coaching staff?”
JB: “We’re pretty well lined out with that. We added (offensive line coach) Joshua Mote and C.J. Gatlin, who played here — he’s going to coach receivers which will free up (offensive coordinator Earl) Griffin to float around at a couple different spots during during practice. Gatlin will coach receivers and Mote will help with the offensive line. We’ve also got Corey Dean helping us with our freshman guys in the defensive skill position spots. He was hired on as an assistant basketball coach, and he’s going to help us for freshman football.
“Jacob Martin is going to help us this spring. He played safety here. He’s actually doing his resident teaching at the school this spring, and I think he’s going to be really good. He was really kind of one of those underrated players that really played way bigger than what he looked like. And so it’ll be good having him.”
LPJ: “It’s another brutal schedule non-district schedule. What are your feelings heading into Week One?”
JB: “It’s just like every year, and I hate to sound like a broken record, but I think from beginning to end, it’s going to give us some really good opportunities week after week to continuously evaluate where we are going into the playoffs. You get started with somebody like Acadiana, then you’re going to see where you are physically, because they’re going to line up and and run the ball at you — we’re going to be able to see if our defense ready to dig in when somebody is ready to do that. I think it’ll be a really good indication of who we have who it is where we need up front? They’re always really good defensively — it’ll give us a good opportunity to see where are we offensively. If you constantly have those teams lined up one by one and the next team will do something different offensively and defensively.
“But they’re good, and so seeing how our team can handle all of the different things that they’re going to see against quality people. You are really able to cut the video afterwards and see if we have a deficiency here or there. If you’re not playing that caliber of team, then sometimes you get a false sense of security about yourself.
“Can it be on rough on your team to have to constantly have to get up and play those kinds of games? Yes. Mentally, that gets to be a rough deal. But to me, it’s the best way to make sure that you’re prepared for a playoff run, because you have to do that in the playoffs. You’ll have to play a good team, and hopefully, if it goes well, then you get a chance to play another good team, and you’ve got to flush whatever happened and figure out as quickly as you can to to make corrections and what things we messed up during that game. Because if you don’t, you don’t get to keep going.
“You’ve got to learn how to continuously make corrections and do things that you’re supposed to do. To me, that’s the only way to to simulate the playoffs. And yes, it makes for a long season. But I think that that is one thing that our kids have come to expect, and they want to go play people they’ve never played before. So many people say the best football is in Texas, or whatever. It’s a great opportunity to not just represent your school and our team at that point — I think we feel like we’ll represent the state of Louisiana and how we match up to the other teams. It’s a great opportunity for us to do that. And I think our kids are looking forward to it.”
LPJ: “Thank you for your time.”
