By Kyle Roberts
RUSTON — West Point High School out of Mississippi may be coming to Ruston tonight without a win, but don’t be fooled: Ruston head coach Jerrod Baugh is more concerned with how long the Green Wave can hold onto the football and with keeping his Bearcats focused against a team whose record may not truly indicate how good they are.
The No. 2 Bearcats (3-1) host the Green Wave (0-4) at 7 p.m. Thursday at James Field at Hoss Garrett Stadium in their final game before district play. Ruston is coming off a 63-28 win over Catholic of Baton Rouge.
Baugh said the offense took a step forward against the Bears last week.
“I was pleased, in particular, with what we did offensively. We were way more consistent with what we did during the ball game,” Baugh said. “I thought the coaches put a good plan together against a good Catholic team. I know they’re 1-3 at this point in their season, but they’re really good, particularly offensively, and it took us a little bit to get settled in.”
Part of that, Baugh said, came from playing without junior linebacker Aidan Adams, with junior linebacker Shamar Evans stepping into a bigger role.
“Shamar has played some, but him settling into that role was just different,” Baugh said. And then you look at their running back. He is a really, really good player, along with a good offensive line. And I think their quarterback operated their offense really well.”
Catholic scored 28 points in the first half and seven after halftime.
“To hold a team like that (to just seven points in the second half), I thought was good,” Baugh said. “I think the coaches did a good job regrouping. We didn’t really make a whole lot of adjustments. We just needed to play better. I think we got some things straightened out and played a lot better in the second half.”
The Thursday kickoff means another shortened week. Ruston ran its usual Monday and Tuesday practices, dropped Wednesday’s and moved Thursday’s work up a day. The Bearcats will return Friday for an abbreviated version of what they normally do on Saturdays postgame.
“For us, Wednesday practice is a modified version of Tuesday’s, where you hit a lot of the same things game-plan wise and make sure the kids understand what it is they’re supposed to do, and you just lose that affirmation day,” Baugh said. “Wednesday’s kind of a day where, if it don’t go well, we throw it out. You don’t ever see it in the game.”
Baugh said the coaches planned around it.
“I think we were pretty basic as far as what we were asking the kids to retain,” Baugh said. “It’s not like it’s a brand-new offense every week, but there are some tweaks that you do just because of how the other team plays. I think we should be OK. Plus, they’re a day short too. It ain’t like it’s just us and not them.”
Thursday’s game marks the midpoint of the regular season, which Baugh said arrived faster than he expected.
“I say it every year. I guess the older I get, the faster it seems like all of it rolls around,” Baugh said. “It doesn’t seem like it’s been long enough to even get to football season, period, much less be halfway through. Whenever I was younger, it seemed like it took forever to get to a Friday. Whenever you’re a head coach and you need to get all these things done leading up to the ball game, it seems to fly by.”
West Point will not hide what it wants to do. Baugh said the Green Wave bring in an extra offensive lineman, use two or three tight ends at times and line up in the wildcat.
“They’ll try to run them all over the top of you,” Baugh said. “It’s like I told the kids, are you willing to dig in and get in there with them and mix it up? Hopefully we’ll be able to do that.”
West Point spreads the field some on third down, Baugh said, but not often.
“It’s been very successful for them in the past, and I don’t see them fixing to change anything with that,” Baugh said. “For the most part, you see what you get, and they’re going to try to line up and run the football at us.”
Baugh compared the approach to Acadiana’s. It is not an option offense, he said, but the goal is the same.
“They’re going to limit your possessions by running the clock,” Baugh said. “If we’re not effective offensively, they get the ball first, and even if they don’t score, they run a lot of time off the clock. If they’re able to get a few first downs, and then we go three-and-out and have to punt the ball back to them, you look around, they’ll have had the ball twice, we’ll have had it once, and it could be 0-0 after the first quarter.”
That, Baugh said, is how a winless team starts believing.
“All of a sudden, a team like that that’s 0-4 coming into the game gets some confidence, because they’re playing somebody that’s supposed to be really good,” Baugh said. “And then they’re going to play better than what they normally have.”
Baugh said West Point is not built to play from behind, which makes an early lead the goal.
“Hopefully we’re able to establish a lead and maybe have them start doing some things offensively that they aren’t used to and not comfortable with,” Baugh said. “Of course, that remains to be seen, but that would be the best-case scenario for us.”
Keeping the Bearcats from reading too much into West Point’s record, Baugh said, is not easy.
“I think everything that they hear outside of this building probably doesn’t match the song we sing whenever we’re here,” Baugh said. “A lot of people look at records more so than they watch the video and look at the team and see the players and the actual things that are going on during the game.”
West Point has faced a demanding schedule, Baugh said.
“They’re playing great competition over there, probably the best in Mississippi,” Baugh said. “There’d be a lot of people that would be 0-4 and be a good football team after that. I think they’ll see a difference whenever they get to schools that are their enrollment level in their district.”
Baugh said his players, especially the older ones, already know the message.
“I don’t know if they get immune to that, or they tune me out probably sometimes,” Baugh said. “But I don’t lie to them. Is it a game that we should win? I feel like yes, if we play like we’re supposed to. It’s up to them to make sure they’re in a mental capacity to be able to handle that.”
The other side of that, Baugh said, is the game he described earlier in the week.
“If we don’t take care of it, the scenario can play out like I talked about, and then you look around and you’re in a mess,” Baugh said. “Trying to stop them at the end of the game, or we’re trying to make a drive at the end of the game to win. Hopefully we don’t turn it into a mess.”
