By Kyle Roberts
Following the weeks of fall camp, where your primary opponent wears the same uniform as you do, it’s finally to see somebody else.
So tonight, the the Ruston High Bearcats will travel over to Shreveport for the annual C.E. Byrd summer scrimmage matchup, which will be played on Byrd’s campus.
“I think I feel a little bit of excitement,” Ruston High School Head Football Coach Jerrod Baugh said. “I think we’re just ready to stop playing against each other. It’s that time. I mean, you go all summer and basically all spring going against the same guys or are the same group of guys, and that gets old. It wears on them. I think they’ll get excited as the day moves along today too, and hopefully be ready to get out there and perform.”
The format will be identical to last year: the freshmen will play at 6 p.m. and varsity scheduled to start after. There will be two rounds of a controlled scrimmage before the teams will play two 12-minute halves.
Entering his tenth year at the head of the Bearcat football program, Ruston and Byrd have squared off for every season that Baugh has been the head coach for Ruston High, with the teams alternating who will serve as the host site.
For Baugh, measuring success tonight will not necessarily be what shows up on the scoreboard.
” I think if we can just get out and make adjustments, that’s how we’ll be successful,” Baugh said. “So Byrd is going to do some different things than what we’ve been preparing against, which is our stuff. And so, I really want to see can kids take coaching on the sideline, and then take that into the game and make some adjustments and be able to do in-game adjustments. That’s one of the biggest things of the game — you just don’t really have a way to practice that because you do so much preparation. You watch video, see what somebody does against this person, that person and all of that. So we kind of surprise them with that — bringing them into the game unprepared with what the other team does. And they go out and they’ve got to look and see what’s going on. And then, once we get off the field, they’ll take coaching, make adjustments to be able to run back out there and do that. So it’s a really good way for us to to practice that.”
The scrimmage will be held at Byrd High School and located at 3201 Line Ave. in Shreveport. Admission is $5.
The Bearcats will play in the BayouJamb Saturday, Aug. 31, at 6 p.m. against historic rival Neville High before kicking off the 2024 regular season at home on Friday, Sept. 6, at 7 p.m. against Acadiana.
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