By Kyle Roberts
CABOT, Ark. — On the road again.
Ruston High today will be away from The Hoss for its second straight road contest to kick off the 2025 season – this time to Cabot High School, one of the largest schools in the entire state of Arkansas, for a matchup with the Panthers for the fourth consecutive season.
The Bearcats are coming off an impressive 49-7 blow-out victory over the Acadiana Wreckin’ Rams this past Friday to start the season 1-0. Sophomore Dalen Powell put up a career performance in his young career with 170 yards rushing, three touchdowns on the ground and a 90-yard kickoff return for a touchdown — all in the first half.
And after a pair of touchdowns receptions by Ahmad Hudson and then a grab in the back of the end zone by Cullen Clark, Ruston forced a running-clock situation which was foreign for a team like Acadiana to experience on their home turf.
“I thought our kids were ready to play,” Ruston High School Head Coach Jerrod Baugh said. “They got out and played hard, competed and executed what the game plan was. And I think that was really good to see, particularly early on with a young football team as far as experience is concerned. And, you know, you really kind of halfway expect an inexperienced team to kind of have some butterflies and some mistakes early on and maybe some turnovers while just getting adjusted to the speed of the game. And really, you didn’t see that. That was really good to see, particularly in week one versus an Acadian, a team that normally is a really good football team.”
The series with Cabot has gone in Ruston’s favor in the previous three meetings. In 2022, Ruston won on a last-second field goal at home 17-14 after Will Fendley hit a 24-yarder as time expired. In 2023, then-freshman Ahmad Hudson cemented himself into Ruston High lore with a stellar one-handed grab in double coverage to help extend a 99-yard touchdown drive that flipped the game and gave the Bearcats a 28-17 win.
And last season, now-starting quarterback Sam Hartwell had his first start against Cabot at The Hoss, leading Ruston to a 49-10 win after throwing for two touchdowns and rushing for one.
Unfortunately for both Bearcat and Panthers fans, this series will not continue into next season.
“I thought it’s been a competitive football series for the most part,” Baugh said. “From the first game (in 2022), we won on a last second field goal. Initially, they’ve always been pretty physical. They do multiple things offensively. I think Coach (Scott) Reed’s always done a really good job. He’s innovative on the things that he does, so I think it’s been good for us to see all of those things. I like having to travel — it gives our kids an opportunity to see what it’s going to be like. I like to do that early in the year just to get the kids acquainted to what that looks like.
“There’s a multitude of of reasons why it’s been a good ball game, but (Coach Reed) wanted to try to find somewhere closer because they have a lot of travel with their district in Arkansas. So he was trying to find a game closer, and I completely understand that.”
Baugh expects the Panthers to blitz often and use their size to disrupt in the trenches on both sides of the ball.
“I feel like they’re probably going to try to lean on our defensive line and see how that goes,” Baugh said. “Even though they do throw the ball quite a bit, I think that probably in their game plan they’ll be running the football at us and trying to use their size inside, both offensively and defensively. They’re a big blitz team and bring guys all over the place and junk everything up inside. It’s given us some problems in the past, so I would expect for them probably to do similar as far as that’s concerned.”
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on Q94.1FM and BearcatNationNetwork.com. The call will be brought by Kyle Roberts, Nick Brown and Toby Nations on the sideline.
