AthleticSupporter - Jock

Smitty you posted this in regards to Dodge's record at Marble Falls, but the key thing missing for Dodge at MF versus the talent they are up against each week in district is the depth of athletes. MF is roughly 700-800 students smaller than the rest of its district. And they are much farther away from Austin where the other schools are and dont have alot of the in town training that is available in the offseason that CP and Leander etc. have. If you have a three star player for every 100 students and a four star kid for every 500 then MF is short handed in its athletic depth. Not many coaches that can each year coach up 7 to 9 decent players to match those great players at larger schools.

I firmly believe that this is one of the reasons you have not seen a local (Golden Triangle) 4A team make a state title run in a long time. It gets tougher each week going up against teams with 2000+ students the farther you get in the playoffs.

Hard to believe that I agree with an Indian, but I think this is very true...at some point, it does become a bit of a numbers game..take Nederland's 2012 team for example...great team, but when they ran into Gerogetown, they were severely outnumbered...Nederland had several kids play both ways and GTown had none and this factors in...the teams that typically play for the D2 championship are often much larger than the D1 representatives from our area...until this dynamic changes, I think it will be very hard for a SE Texas team to win a state championship in football

@Cougar14 Yeah I text back and forth with VNUPE yesterday. I am finding that the college level is trying to get the bigger kid but it is funny to me the average height of the running backs in the League is 5'10. I don't see any backs in the league over 6ft blowing up stats or games. They normally turn these bigger kids to LB's. Truth be told they only last about 3 years from being so big and visible. DeUnte and my son worked side by side and had a great time together whooping on those linebackers. Sparq ratings are a combination of weight, speed, agility, strength, and verticle. DeUnte did not blow my son's score out of the water. His weight did . Lets Compare:
 
Demarcus    40 - 4.64   Shuttle - 4.02    KPB - 34    Verticle - 33.7    Rating - 97.41
DeUnte         40 - 4.75   Shuttle - 4.00    KPB - 39    Verticle -  37.3   Rating - 125.13
 
Hey Coug notice that DeUnte is stronger where he is suppose to be weighing 217lbs versus 178lbs. No dis to the kid! He is a beast and a humble kid. I enjoyed watching him. He and my boy were tossing them linebackers around and did not give up not one sack. Too bad they did not use the Nike cameras on the Houston RB/LB drills like they did everywhere else.
But good stuff @Cougar14!!!
Combines are a joke if you do not have film! I would say that it was totally a waste of time if it weren't for the fact that my boy needed to compete against the best in Texas and held his own. Confidence builder!!! Spring Ball starts today and I am so ready to see him put those pads on again!!! Yall take care and to all of the kids, have a blessed and healthy 2014!!!

I'm hearing Great things about those young Raiders. Keep up the good work, all the jeers & sneers will be minimal this yr. You guys kept your nose right in there & soon it will pay off. This Panther supporter is watching & rooting for you

This will be the most improved team in the district in my opinion. Not sure how many wins it will translate into in '14, but I think they will be in playoff race in '15.

Me personally, I just try to keep it real as possible. I just watched a back go for over 6k career yards and probably go to Rice because it was the best program that offered. He averaged over 220ypg and about 12ypc against teams like SC, Dayton, Ned, KP and Elgin. Unless you're absolutely electric like Quizz Rodgers, Waymon James, Austin Walter, Jordan Stevenson, etc. you're probably not going to get major D1 offers. They'll take the bigger back over the smaller back every time with all else being equal. Bigger back provide a little more versatility when it comes to things like pass protection or special teams.

I have 3 sons myself and the oldest Lil'14 is 12. He's almost 5-11 and played 7th grade ball this year a little over 160 lbs. Some of the things I ask him to do on the field he tells me are awkward to him because he's so rangy. That's an excuse, telling him he won't play TE at Texas if he doesn't get big enough is a reason. We have discussions all the time about excuses and reasons and the difference between the two. Samual Stewart only carried the ball 37 times his junior year and had many offers after that season. Hopefully your son gets his offers, God willing.

It's a process. Is it fair? Probably not but life isn't fair either. Scouts know what they want, maybe Chatman isn't what some want right now, but that doesn't diminish his accomplishments. Personally I don't care what you do with cones & drills, but many value this crap. Can you make a play is the bottom line. Getting on here whining won't fix anything, it may rub off on the kids if it hasn't already. My son got the ball as the starting RB 41 times this past season. That's All. But with those few reps & a few passes he put together some Quality plays & produced a little film, went to camps to enhance his recruitment. It worked, he's being recruited. No offers, but he's been noticed. So please guys get off the soapbox. We are raising Men to find solutions, not find excuses & make problems. That's what I'm doing in SETX, don't know about the rest of the State
VNupe is doing great things to help All kids he comes across as well as inform their parents. Thank God he doesn't have the attitudes if some of you. Geeeeeez

PNG roster is littered with transfers as well???

Bottom line is you need talent.  It wasn't a coincidence that Vidor made it's deepest playoff run at the same time as their best football player, probably in program history, came through.  You know Mr. Quirante, winner of both Willie Ray Smith awards.  Coach Mathews was the same coach that season as he was last season.  Difference was talent.  I understand what you say about working hard and building from the lower levels, but you still need a certain level of talent to be successful. 

I'm not taking it personal, my friend. However, you did attach my name to your post. Deionte Thompson is my son. AND I'M A PROUD FATHER AS WELL! I try not to highlight his accomplishments, because I don't have to. You want numbers? Deionte had 4 offers (Alabama, Texas, Texas A&M, and Baylor), last year BEFORE he went to his first Nike Training Camp. He has gone to 0 Sparq Camps, because he doesn't need to. Reporters and coaches come looking for him at these camps, not the other way around. When I say Sparq ratings don't matter, I know what I'm talking about. If you want to know how to do this, dm me and I'll show you.

One thing we are all missing: For the most part when we talk about the two most successful programs in the area (Newton and WOS),  No One else has that support.  By that I mean if a kid tries to quit the football team, they are not only ostracized in the community but the vast majority of them would be in serious trouble at home.  How many players would quit at other schools because of the Mustang mile, bleachers at the end of a two a day practice, etc.?

You really need to look at the athletes!!!! You can not win the Kentucky Derby with a jackass!  Show me one coach that has won consistently with little talent on the football field.  The best ATHLETES do not always win, but the best football players usually do.
And yes, that usually has a lot to do with the coach.  

Can't compare high school football to college. If a good coach in high school, with good assistant coaches, fans and AD behind him. He will develop talent. And he will win. Maybe not every year, but the majority of time. If Saban went to Vandy , you can bet your boots the team would improve dramatically, year end and year out. He would get recruits, and he is evidently a good coach.

Look lets take Newton for example. There nothing in the water down there. I've tasted it. They have been winning for 40 years, the athletes are good because great coaching, they have great fan base, and support from the school system. The kids are strong, most of them where not born that way. They where developed through the system. And momma and daddy and uncles and auntie supports the coaching staff .

Most likely every school that wins consistently has similar characteristics.

Westbrook & Central were at Southpark & Odom today! Oh, my bad, that was a few months ago! :o

Is WB doing Spring football?  I know Demarcus Smith will get the bulk of the work at RB, but who is the QB and primary targets at WR?

in 5 years nederland will be renamed  TJ…. :)

You can't reduce it to any one factor. There are several factors needed for the environment to be conducive to it.
 
First things first, you have to have the teachers sold on it. To this day, the kindergartners are marched into the music rooms at every elementary school in the district on the first day of the year to learn Cherokee. The first words I can remember learning to spell after my name were Indians, spirit, fight, and victory (these days, they're spelling conquest too, so I guess you could say they're faster learners than we were). Most of my teachers made wearing a purple shirt on Fridays a requirement during football season, and several made it extra credit after football season was over. There were pep rallies with the Indian Spirit present, and several of the teachers wrote exclusively in purple ink. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Cobb, drove a purple cadillac. While things kind of died off in middle school (probably a result of letting the pride in the middle school programs die off without a real replacement), in high school, we had been so indoctrinated at such a young age that all of the underlying groundwork was in place for the pride to come back with a vengeance. Just like in elementary school, all of the high school teachers were in their purple on Fridays.
 
Second, you have to sell the community on it. When I was a kid, there was a store in Central Mall called Purple Pizzazz that sold, among other things, PN-G memorabilia. I remember parents staying up all night to decorate Merriman Street my senior year so that the players, coaches, cheerleaders, Indianettes and band members could see their community behind them when they got on the buses to leave for a game. Every organization known to man had booths set up under the bleachers selling memorabilia to fans, keeping all of that money in the hands of the school district and ultimately, the students. 
 
Third, and most importantly, you have to have successful programs. In order for people to take pride in something, it has to be something to be proud of. PN-G has that. The success in athletics is well known and documented on this site. Our band program has a long and successful history as well, capped off by all three high school bands and both middle school bands taking sweepstakes last week (only one other district in the state had that happen this year). Our academic prominence is well publicized, too; we've now won the district crown in UIL academics fourteen of the last fifteen years, and we were recognized by the US Department of Education as a blue ribbon school several years consecutively in the late 90s and early 2000s.
 
When you provide those three factors, and you manage to keep them for an extended period of time, you start to build a history - the honor, the pride and the tradition become entrenched standards around which the school is built. You wind up with a pseudo-symbiotic relationship built between school and community that pervades in one way or another almost every facet of the lives of student, teacher, parent, administrator, and average citizen. And from there, it typically only grows. That's what results in your school being the centerpiece of an exhibit about Texas high school football at the Bullock Museum. That's what gets your purple letter jacket recognized all across the state and, to a lesser extent, even the country. That's what keeps both towns emptying out and all the alumni coming back with their families from wherever they are in the world to fill up the Astrodome, and the Alamodome, and Texas Stadium, and Kyle Field and hopefully Jerryworld one day to set national attendance records written in purple ink. That's why you get a stadium literally big enough to fit everyone who lives in your hometown with about four hundred seats to spare, and a Friday night radio broadcast with a viewership thousands of listeners strong - more than double that of the second most popular broadcast - that gets email responses from as far away as Siberia and Iraq.
 
And perhaps best of all, that's why you get fans of other schools who hate your fight song so much, that they know it better than their own.  :D

My son will attend the SMU camp in June.   I will give updates on his recruitment.
This is exciting to see how his dream unfolds from a young 5th grader to now. His desire was to play for UT.  I said " you and every kid in America"(at the time) So, since the Summer before his 6th grade year we have tirelessly trained @ 6am, had two-a-days and discussions of his Future. We are just thankful someone is showing interest. God is definitely pouring out his Blessings  :) 

I'll just say this about the guy, my son moved to Crosby in the 8th grade and never got anything but a fair chance under him.

It's wonderful to hear about all the possible future college prospects, I really think that we as a community need to better prepare our youth for what all it will take to be successful in obtaining their college degrees. They must understand that this should be primary as they will face daily competition equally to their talent or even better. Some will get discouraged, some will get caught up in the freedom of party life in college, while some will ignore deadlines of studying for test or preparing for papers that are due. No-one will be there to hold their hands and the reality of playing at the next level is a much further reach than obtaining that coveted college degree! I wish them all well as they represent themselves, their families, their schools/community and Beaumont as a whole! Let's Go Get 'Em! :)

I looked at it yesterday and it is nicely done.  Great job!

OF, you need to stick to evaluating skill players and basketball.  Leave the evals of big men to those of us who know how to evaluate a lineman.  For Hudson's size, he has incredible feet and understands how to use his hands.  To be as skilled as he is with two years left of high school, is impressive.  I'm not saying he is superman or the best in the country but it is rare to see what he has at that age.  In an area as rich in talent as SE Tx, guys like Hudson don't come along every year.  I can tell you right now without hesitation that if Hudson stays healthy, he will be playing on Sundays.  Once he 'really' learns how to pass-block, the sky is the limit.
 
But of course he is not going to impress a former skilled-player.  No love for the big men. :-)

OF, you need to stick to evaluating skill players and basketball.  Leave the evals of big men to those of us who know how to evaluate a lineman.  For Hudson's size, he has incredible feet and understands how to use his hands.  To be as skilled as he is with two years left of high school, is impressive.  I'm not saying he is superman or the best in the country but it is rare to see what he has at that age.  In an area as rich in talent as SE Tx, guys like Hudson don't come along every year.  I can tell you right now without hesitation that if Hudson stays healthy, he will be playing on Sundays.  Once he 'really' learns how to pass-block, the sky is the limit.
 
But of course he is not going to impress a former skilled-player.  No love for the big men. :-)

I knew he couldn't stay away.  Cougar14 always lost first in the Quiet game when he was a kid.

Great website