September 10, 2015
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SPORTSCENTRAL
SportsCentral airs tonight! Steve Johnson and Sid Edwards will be joined by “special guests” in the CHS Football “Pay It Forward” special edition of SportsCentral. See program information just below.
BATON ROUGE AREA BROADCASTING SCHEDULE:
Thursday, September 10: 5pm—6pm: SportsCentral… with Sid Edwards and Steve Johnson
Radio Amour 91.9… from Coach’s
Friday, September 11: 6pm: Denham Springs HS vs Tara HS
Jon Fine, Andy Duckworth
Fox Sports Radio, 1210AM, Baton Rouge
JonFineProductions.com
SportsRadio 1310 Radio, Lake Charles Programming of Interest (also heard on KEZMOnLine.com):
Friday, September 11: 6:45pm: Sulphur HS at Washington-Marion HS
Bruce Merchant, Clopha Boudreaux
KEZM, 1310AM, Lake Charles
KEZMOnLine.com
Saturday, September 12: 9AM—10AM: All Things Football with Scott Holtzman
Monday, September 14: 8AM—10AM: The Locker Room with John Goodman and Jim Gazzolo
WE THANK YOU FOR DOING YOUR UTMOST TO PATRONIZE SPONSORS OF OUR PROGRAMMING. THIS HELPS US TREMENDOUSLY IN SUSTAINING OUR WEEKLY LINE-UP AND WILL ASSIST US IN ADDING MORE PROGRAMS IN THE FUTURE. KINDLY MAKE AN EFFORT TO LET SPONSORS KNOW YOU HEARD THEIR BUSINESS MENTIONED ON OUR BROADCAST(S).
THE WIZADRY OF OZ
Assistant Basketball Coach and Head Swimming Coach at Central High School
Sad to say, but outside of a loss to McNeese, I cannot imagine a worse opening to the football season than what transpired last week. And let’s be real, LSU was not going to lose that game so it really could not have been worse.
While we didn’t get to see much, we can deduce plenty from the only five minutes of LSU football we have seen this season. It is very apparent that the coaching staff had decided to get a bunch of young players involved in the game early. True freshmen Derrius Guice and Donte Jackson were given the ball in space in two of the first five players. Furthermore, LSU was not going to be vanilla sitting in the I formation and running behind a fullback the whole time.
Had the game continued, my guess is we would have continued to see a dominant defense. On offense, we would have seen extremes of good and bad execution. Only two of LSU’s five offensive plays were well executed, but that would have been just fine. The opener against McNeese would have been the perfect opportunity to get young talented players comfortable with college football. Losing out on that opportunity is the problem going forward.
When Jazz Ferguson completely whiffs on a block against McNeese, it is an opportunity to see if he is really ready for major college football and to coach him up to improve. That is what everyone is talking about when they talk about the biggest improvement being from week 1 to week 2. You can only decipher so much scrimmaging yourself. Only under game lights can you see who is ready and what schemes will work the best with this year’s team. In addition, film is a great teaching tool.
So, is the conference opener at Mississippi State who ran LSU out of their own stadium last year the time to experiment? Observing Les Miles over 11 years and logic for that matter says absolutely not.
This Saturday night, I would expect LSU to play it very conservatively in regards to who plays early in the game and I wouldn’t blame them. I think the coaching staff will rely heavily on Fournette, Williams, Dupre, Dural, Quinn, and Diarse as far as skill players. The exception would be Donte Jackson who the Tigers are going to handoff to on offense. I wouldn’t expect to see much from Guice and other true freshmen until the second quarter depending on how the game plays out.
The rumors are apparently true that LSU is going to incorporate more spread formations and motion along with their standard power formations and power runs. Nevertheless, I doubt we will see as much spread early in the game against Mississippi State. LSU has to execute well offensively to start the game as nobody would want to see LSU trying to come from behind at State in the opener when State has already played their opener.
These are the consequences of the cancellation. The growth and depth of the team will be delayed. I fully expect LSU to open the game against Mississippi State very conservatively hoping for a few early breaks to get a lead. The good news is LSU’s defense should have a much better chance to keep the game close as the offense figures things out this year against State.
Of course, I had not planned on making LSU football the main topic for this week’s article. Instead, I had thought all along that there wouldn’t be much of interest coming out of the LSU game so I would focus on my prediction for the Saints.
I am just going to come out and say it. I think the Saints go 8-8. Even though we are going to have to hear about the Saints missing Jimmy Graham every time the Saints don’t score a touchdown in the redzone (despite Graham’s fumbles or drops with the Saints), my prediction has nothing to do with that. As a matter of fact, I think the offense will be great.
I am predicting 8-8 for three reasons. First, the health of the secondary. The Saints did everything possible to address the position in free agency and the draft. Yet, the injuries appear to be awfully costly at this point, especially Keenan Lewis.
Second, the defense is not going to be a top 10 defense in yards per game, so it has to force turnovers to be effective. Turnovers happen when there is pressure on the quarterback and bodies around the football. Preseason doesn’t tell the whole story, but if the Saints are going to force turnovers, Cam Jordan and Akeim Hicks better play like All Pros.
Third, this year’s draft would have to prove to be one of the all-time greatest to overcome possibly the all-time worst draft from 2014. Less than two years after the 2014 draft the Saints have one player left on the team from that draft. As a result, the Saints will be relying on a ton of rookies. While I like the youth movement and potential of the group, it just has the feel of trying to “shoot the moon” if you have ever played the card game Hearts.
I really hope I wrong.
HEY REF
This week’s offering comes to you from 35,000 feet courtesy of American Airlines and my debit card. I began writing my weekly column Saturday morning just after seeing the video an umpire being attacked from BEHIND by two Texas high school football players during the previous night’s game. I’ve had to wait until today to complete it since all the courts in Texas were closed Sunday and Monday in observance of the Labor Day holiday. Seems having to go to court to settle our differences in today’s society is getting way out of hand. Too often it seems the courts are hearing high school cases involving scandals of illicit behavior between coaches, teachers and student/athletes.
Our world will sometime seem to stop with a tragic happening such as a horrific earthquake or the total devastation left in the wake of a hurricane like Katrina. History asks the question “Where were you when…
A president was assassinated or men first walked on the moon” and so on. With that preface Hey Ref’s world and the entire world of sports must come to a full stop in light of what happened on the football field at Texas based John Jay high school this past Friday night.
To all my critics out there that have said I tend to make small mountains out of mole hills riddle me this; what do you make out of the intentional attack upon a high school football official by two players this past Friday night? By now everyone knows the sordid details near the end of Northside John Jay’s game against Marble Falls with a little more than a minute to go in the game when two defensive players did the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen at any level of sports? To those far left Liberals allow me to be as pleasant as possible and tell you to shut the HELL up as you will never be able to explain this very sad and willful attempt to injure a Texas high school official with their Pearl Harbor style of attack.
Those bleeding heart Liberals will have to stop and take a deep breath and take a very long look while trying to figure out exactly what should be done with the two players that assaulted this football official. Don’t come at me about being raised without a father. Throw out your excuses that the single mother tried her best but had to work three jobs to support these delinquents. “Ditch” the one where the school district failed to catch two out of control youths and on and on! No excuse on God’s green earth, ooppsss did I upset those liberals out there for using the word “GOD”? I don’t give a rat’s behind because that’s a huge reason we’re (our society and country) finds itself today. Where will it end and where are we as a society headed?
Usually this writer has an idea or sometime even his own opinions are used to pen an answer. But that’s for another day and time. Let’s “stay on target” and come to a conclusion on the proper punishment that this case so loudly screams for. The very first thing that needs attention is the school needs to lift the suspension from the players and expel them total and completely. By just suspending them gives me the feeling that school officials are leaving open a return to the team “AFTER” their suspension is lifted. We’ve seen how the LSU comedy runs its course; fainted surprise, suspension of the players involved. Then if they can do it LSU will attempt a quiet lifting of sanctions and a complete return to the field by the player(s) they disciplined.
Since the first time I saw the video I’ve been saying the two players should be arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for using their helmets as weapons. The D. A. should also file this as a HATE CRIME since they admit to intentionally going after the official simply because of his authority to rule on their behavior; hence a true HATE CRIME!! Anything less than 10 – 15 years in prison should be considered as a “slap” on the wrist and looked as though the justice system has spit in every official’s face. We must be sure that a very loud voice is heard when prosecuting this case.
Long time readers also know that here at “Hey Ref” we try and find that elusive silver-lining and this is still the case even at this darkest hour. For many decades I’ve heard many people say that disadvantaged youths have a much tougher time learning then other youths from different racial divides. But after hearing and reading of the latest developments in this case that statistic is slowly being turned around. While it looks like these youths are facing a fourth and very long BANG! Out comes the RACE-CARD!!!
Looks like they decided to do what their leaders do when they can’t defend their goal and fire out of a stacked backfield and run wild with the RACE-CARD! Yes, that’s got to be their only “Hail Mary” play is the pull out the RACE-CARD! As far from reality as the Rev. Al and Jessie are in day to day life in the black community so too it seems are these kids since the excuse they’re being quoted that “The ref used a racial slur”.
If it weren’t so bizarre I’d have to stop and laugh at that statement. They also claim a defensive coach hatched the sneak attack because the umpire had thrown out some of their teammates earlier in the game. I’m going to be very frank here and allow all my readers to “hear” what’s become normal language during the game; “Hey M_F_, you stepped on my foot”. “I don’t give a s__t, NIGGA, you gonna be my B_T_H next play”.
That’s not the exception but the rule as far as players talking to each other. We do all we can to shut ‘em up but it’s very difficult to get any respect from players since their coaches loath officials. There’s a verse in a favorite song of mine that goes something like “They smil’n in ‘yo face; the back stabbers” and many of the stripes feel this way when dealing with coaches and the players pick up on the vibe. But in more than 20 years I’ve never had a player talk as though he’s in Sunday school. And on that note “I’ve NEVER HEARD AN OFFICIAL CURSE or TALK DISSRESPECTFULLY TO A PLAYER”. That’s not to say it hasn’t happened but for those two players to say the official used a racial slur as their reasoning for the ultimate cheap shot is well, not believable.
These poor excuses for civilized human beings should be expelled from all state schools and be sent to jail for the crime they are surely guilty of and that is of course “Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon”. Send a message, America and demand integrity by putting these criminals in jail for a long time. A hefty 6 figure fine and jail time for all involved is the only message we need to send. If we continue to allow this behavior the game will continue to be slide deeper and deeper into the abyss of gang warfare.
Till next week…
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