MOSS BLUFF–If there is one team happier to see district play begin, it has to be the Sam Houston Broncos. After playing up the past two weeks against 5A Barbe and 5A LaGrange, the Broncos will open District 5-4A play against the Jennings Bulldogs.
Jennings moved up from 3A to 4A and currently sits as the smallest 4A school in the state. But that hasn’t stopped the Bulldogs from starting off 4-1 with their first loss of the season coming against Livonia. In last week’s game, Jennings was without their starting quarterback Bryson Abraham due to an ankle injury and is expected to be out again this week.
“We have been hit by the injuries here lately,” said Jennings’ head coach Rusty Phelps. “We had to play without our quarterback and without two or three defensive backs last Friday night. In the offense we run, the quarterback is the centerpiece of the split-back veer. There were some things we couldn’t do. We just need to get back some people healthy.”
Taking the snaps for the Bulldogs was senior Stephan Blanchard. He threw for 78 yards while completing 4-of-13 of his passes with an interception and a touchdown.
But Blanchard has the security of handing the ball off to two dynamic runners in Michael Wildridge and Davondrick Phillips.
“I think they complement each other real well,” Phelps said on his two running backs. “They will be the first ones to tell you that our offensive line has been doing a good job of opening holes for them. They do hit the line of scrimmage fast and doing really well for us this season.”
Phillips comes into Friday’s game as Jennings leading rusher with 755 yards and 5 touchdowns while averaging 7.94 yards per carry. Wildridge has the slight edge on Phillips in touchdowns with seven and has 613 yards with an average of 7.04 yards per carry. Sam Houston head coach Russ Sutherland said that the Broncos’ defense is going to have to play sound defense to contain the Bulldogs hard running rushers.
“We are going to have to make sure we are on top of our game as far as tackling,” Sutherland said. “We have to make sure we line up correctly in the right spot and read our keys. If we get out of position, they are obviously faster than us. We will have a hard time tackling if we are not in position to make the play.”
Sam Houston’s Kip Carter and Perry Chatman could pose a problem for the Jennings defense. Phelps said that they Bulldogs are the smallest he has had in the 15 years he has been in Jennings and looks for their speed to take down the Bronco rushers.
“I don’t know if we have faced two backs like that this year,” Phelps said. “That’s a question mark for us. They are big, physical runners and we really haven’t seen that this year. We are going to have to come off the blocks and tackle better.”
After having good games offensively through the first three games of the year, Barbe and LaGrange stifled the offensive production for the Broncos.
“We have to have better execution,” Sutherland said. “Jennings is more on our level. We are facing a team in our district and we just have to make plays. We have to run the ball better. We have to pass protect better. We just have to play fundamentally sound football.”
“We don’t have personnel the way those two teams have,” Phelps said. “We are very undersized defensively. I guess the best way you can describe us is that we have to depend on our feet and try to get to the football.”
With district play set to begin, the Broncos are ready to make a run at the 5-4A title.
“Every game is important but I would hope that it would be even more added importance to start off the right foot in district play,” Sutherland said.
The Bulldogs however, are not so excited to see 4A teams on second half of the schedule.
“This is new to us playing a 4A schedule in games six, seven, eight and ten,” said Phelps. “It’s a question mark for us playing these caliber of teams and being the smallest 4A and tackling a 4A schedule in district.”
Kick off is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Wayne Hooper Memorial Stadium and the game can be listened to online at www.bigsamfootballboosters.com.
