Cougar14.2

It's been a while since there was reason to to start a thread involving a Crosby game outside of complaining about the coaching. With both teams 4-3 on the season but coming into the game 4-0 in district play this one might be worth discussing. Teams are 1-1 since they've been in the district together with each team winning their home contest(La Porte's home game was at BH). This game will likely determine who gets to avoid a first round matchup with state ranked #6 College Station and a probably early exit. The loser of this game will still have an opportunity to finish in 2nd place and even win a share of the district championship with La Porte playing an undefeated Angleton next week and Crosby playing Angleton the week after. The district could very well end up in a three way tie for first place with Angleton, Crosby and La Porte all finishing 6-1 in district play. Fun few weeks to finish the season in 11-5A-D1 As far as the game goes it feels like a great matchup for this year's version of Crosby. La Porte's offense is run heavy and the strength of Crosby's defense is their front seven. Crosby has run the ball extremely well since district play has started, albeit against lower level competition, and based on what La Porte has shown on film personnel wise it looks like we should have continued success in that department. I think the key to the game from Crosby is getting La Porte in 3rd and 5+ situations where we can pick up stops on the run plays they'll try and some defended passes that will force punts in a potential lower scoring field position game. Crosby will also need to clean up some of the penalties and ball-handling from prior weeks if we want to give ourselves the best chance to win.

Well, Crosby gets to 4-0 in district play in large part to being the benefactor of a weak district. Tough start to the season but have set ourselves up for a couple shots at hosting a home playoff game . . . or dare I even say a district championship.

I thought Crosby would finish 3rd or 4th before the season started and it looks like we’ll at least finish 3rd. It’s disappointing because this is the type team and schedule Riotdan or Prieto could’ve finished at 9-1 with an opportunity for at least a regional semi appearance. That being said, I think very few of us thought Crosby would be at this point in the season and still have the opportunity to host a home playoff game. The runner-up probably still gets a brutal bi-district matchup with Pf. Weiss but if it’s Crosby I still think we relish the opportunity coming off a 2-8 season last year.

It looks like that because we played better overall. He’s been moving some players around the last couple of weeks and actually trying to get some of his athletes the ball which is a lot more “offensive coordinating” than he’s been doing during his time in Crosby. We’ll take the progress where we can get it though. We’re 3-0 in district play because we have better football players than three teams we’ve played. Again, you take the progress from the beginning of the year where we were losing to a team like Dayton who has half the talent we do. The issue is being consistently blown out by teams with equal or slightly better talent. Crosby is benefitting record-wise from a weak district but it’s helping us learn to win again. Thursday was the most swagger I’ve seen a Crosby team play with since Willis has been our coach. Wins are wins but if you’re objectively looking at what Crosby is considering progress after a year and a half under Willis it’s a game where we play two good quarters and then get shut out until late in the fourth quarter against a team with not near the personnel of La Porte or Angleton. Crosby could be a lot better than we are but I will admit this is the best we’ve looked under Willis. I guess it’s just going to take the kids overplaying his system and play-calling to achieve the results the last two coaches did?

Can’t believe y’all only scored 25 points on Friendswood. Was expecting a blowout. We aren’t very good and still won by 14

Little disappointing to give up that last TD. Feels like when need at least 21 more to be comfortable now. Still like how the defense is playing though, hopefully we’ll adjust out of that zone we haven’t been able to play all year.

Not sure, but I know that’s two weeks in a row the defense has scored a TD.

Lott Robinson. The sophomore who came back from BH, unfortunately he’s getting all the reps because the other QB got hurt last week. Hopefully Willis is taking notes though.

Willis isn’t switching the QB and the offense looks a hail of a lot different. *Well, it’s because the other QB is on the sideline in a knee brace? Smh

Being able to get to 3-0 in district play would be huge for Crosby tonight. After beating Friendswood I feel more comfortable in penciling in wins against FB Kempner and Porter. That means we would get two chances the last three weeks of the season to play for second place, host a first round playoff game and avoid a first round matchup with College Station.

Very critical win for Crosby last night. At no point has the current regime given me any reason to think Crosby should be able to pencil in wins but for the sake of discussion I will for FB Kempner who we play two weeks from now and also Porter who we play a couple of weeks after that. That means if Crosby can beat Kingwood Park next week we’ll most likely finish district play 5-2 and in at least 3rd place. That being, the team could be a lot better if we had a competent offensive coach. Crosby’s offensive philosophy is to give it to Yarbrough and hope he breaks it which is why we lose to team with above average defensive talent. Crosby’s TE Landen Hammer is 6’2” and about 210lbs with crazy ball skills, an absolute mismatch problem and got one target last night. Friendswood realized Crosby had some playmakers on the edges and lots of times gave the receivers a 10 yard cushion. The problem is that Willis doesn’t know that so not once did we just raise up, throw it out to the receiver and give them an opportunity to be an athlete and make a play. So now that we’ve averaged 8 completions per game through our first four contest because 50% of the time Willis chooses to swap out 50% of the offense we look like we “don’t have the receiving talent that we used to.” Yarbrough probably had close to 300 rushing yards last night but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had 35 carries. I like our backup RB but there are several kids who could help Crosby more at that position and Willis chooses not to play them there and feed Yarbrough to the point he couldn’t even finish the game last night. He continues to display an inability to efficiently use his personnel which is why we get blow out by any team with at least equal talent. Maybe something changes but Willis being 6-19 his last two and a half years on the sideline and his inability to shake the Cedar Park model don’t give much hope, which is unfortunate for the kids.

What position is the talent missing from? I know you don’t know much about Crosby football so you’ll be shocked to learn that we didn’t have a single senior FBS signee off any of the regional finals, semi-finals or state final team. All the years of Walter, Singleton, Sqwirl, Patterson, etc. were first and second round losses. Off the state final team Branch was an FCS signee, everybody else went juco including Dunn. Outside of 2013 with the Twins and Singleton Crosby has never had three FBS signees in one class like they do now. That’s not even including kids like AJ Johnson, Malik Windfont and Josiah Jones who have/will have multiple offers to continue their careers at the D2 level or higher. We’re just a mediocre to poorly coached football team so the looks are deceiving. Real Crosby fans remember what we looked like under Kevin Flanagan. He was at Crosby for seven years and made the playoffs the last six seasons before he was fired because we finally got a supt. who understood what he was looking at. Crosby would get blown out in non-district games and then finish 3rd or 4th in district and then get blow out in the first or second round and it was because “Crosby just doesn’t have the talent.” All those years backing into the playoffs and Crosby’s community giving him kids like Dominic Merka and Chance Casey kept him viable. Now we’re in the same situation because of how bad the district is. There’s a good chance we finish in 3rd place which will mean a ride to College Station and a likely 4+ score blowout and first round exit. Willis will then sell that as improvement from the even worse coaching job he did last season. In actuality if he misses the playoffs it will be the first time Crosby has done so in back to back seasons in 20 years, meaning that even when we’re not good we still have enough “talent” to make the playoffs in any district we’re assigned. Any kid that’s ever been “recruited” at Crosby parents are from/live in Barrett Station from the C.E. King kids in the ‘14 class all the way Ayden Jones from Summer Creek in the ‘23 class.

Better hurry up and get to Walmart before we run out of Kleenex

If that’s what you think then you don’t know much about football or you don’t know much about Crosby’s football program. Must be one of the new ones

Have you seen the trash we’ve been under him his first year and a half? He’s 5-19 his last 2.5 year in the sideline.