In their district opener Friday night, the Columbia Academy Cougars came out flat and were beat 34-6 on their home field by Bowling Green.
The Buccaneers (4-1, 1-0) came out firing on all cylinders with three quick passing touchdowns while the Cougars (1-3, 0-1) remained in neutral. The Cougars finally got in the board with less than a minute remaining in the first half when quarterback Ras Pace scrambled out of the pocket on 4th-and-goal and connected with freshman Eli Beard for a 5-yard touchdown.
Bowling Green added two more touchdowns in the third quarter and cruised the rest of the way for the victory.
Columbia Academy head coach Randy Butler said even more unsatisfactory than the result was the lack of energy the Cougars displayed.
“The big disappointment was we didn’t play with hardly any fire or energy. I’ve seen it before, and if you stay in coaching long enough you’re going to see it. It’s our first district game, a huge district game with an undefeated team coming in — they’re undefeated in the state any way — and we were just flat. There was no emotion,” he said. “We still had some chances, but hardly anybody was excited on the sideline. I’m going back to how I got them prepared because obviously I didn’t do a very good job getting them ready mentally to play so that was disappointing.”
The Cougars will have to flip the script in quick order as they travel to Clinton, La., Friday for a non-district showdown with Silliman Institute (2-2). The Wildcats boast two blowout victories over Amite School Center and Centreville Academy on their resume, lost a close game to perennial powerhouse Parklane Academy and were blown out by Oak Forest Academy.
Butler said Silliman head coach TJ Davis runs an unpredictable offense that is hard to get a read on.
“He’s a very interesting coach to get ready for. He may be in three backs and two wides on series, and he’ll come out the next series and be in four wides and one back. So you have to really prepare and get down to the basic stuff and be prepared to change during the game,” he said.
Butler added what makes it even more difficult to defend the Wildcats is the playmakers they have, most notably senior running back Jack Jackson.
“We’ve played some really good people weekly — (Michael) Winstead from Simpson, No. 2 from Adams, the quarterback from Brookhaven who is a sophomore and this past week the quarterback, the two running backs and the wide receiver from Bowling Green — but Jackson can go. He’s probably as fast a kid as we’ll see this year,” he said. “They’ll throw it to him, run some speed sweeps, put him in the backfield. We’ll have to do a great job of trying to get him on the ground.”
Butler said Silliman is fairly simple defensively and doesn’t blitz a lot, but the Wildcats run to the football and tackle well.
The Cougars had a few opportunities to score deep inside Bowling Green territory Friday night but couldn’t cash in. Pace threw two interceptions as well, which were the first two giveaways for the Cougars this season. The other side of the ball wasn’t much better either.
“Defensively we let people run by us. We’re in three-deep coverage and have people running by us. We didn’t tackle well. It was a really disappointing night overall,” Butler said.
The lone bright spot was freshman running back Preston Sauls, according to Butler. The 180-pound back ran for 75 yards and caught three passes for 30 yards.
“He’s going to be a really, really good football player. He’s still young and learning, but he was a bright spot on Friday night,” Butler said.
Monday morning Butler said the Cougars were going to go against the grain of their norm with their Monday practice to try to spark some emotion.
“We’re going to go out and have a physical practice. We’ll be in full pads, we’re going to tackle and we’re going to go back to basic blocking and tackling. We’ll have some half-line scrimmage and just try to go back to the basics and relearn how to do some things,” he said. “Hopefully that will give us some energy, and they’ll get excited. I hope to get it turned around.”
Pictured Above: Columbia Academy running back Preston Sauls fights through an arm tackle Friday night against Bowling Green. The freshman totaled 105 yards in a 34-6 defeat. | Photo by Charlie Smith
