August 21, 2021
JACKETS FB—Year 26!
This Friday, August 27, Coach Brett Beard’s Denham Springs Football team plays host to Walker in a Jamboree. This will mark the 26th season Jon Fine (Sports) Productions will have the privilege of producing Yellow Jackets Football Broadcasts
You can catch all the action on Family Radio, 91.9 FM and on the Internet at JonFineProductions.com. Air-time is 6pm with Sport N Center Jackets Warmup
Mario Jerez will be the Jackets play-by-play announcer.—He is filling in for Josh Ward, who is on a sabbatical. Mitch Covington will be the Jackets color commentator
Yours Truly, Jon Fine, will assist with the Sport-Center Jackets Warmup, the North Oaks Health Systems Half-Time Report and the Ralph Sellers Chevrolet Post-Game Show
A special thank you to our sponsors and boosters.—YOU’RE THE VERY BEST!!!… A comprehensive look at our 2021 broadcasts is forthcoming in next week’s newsletter.
DSHS ATHLETICS HALL OF FAME
The Denham Springs HS Athletics Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will take place Thursday, September 9 at Forrest Grove Plantation in Denham Springs. Tickets are available at Denham Springs HS. The classes of 2020 and 2021, with one carryover from 2019 will be inducted.
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TODAY’S COLUMNS:
Scott previews the 2021 New Orleans Saints
Dennis offers some thoughts as hs football is impending!
Please scroll down below.
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THE WIZARDRY OF OS
3-3. The question is whether the Saints can get to 3-3 after the first six games. That is my takeaway from the first preseason game.
We know this is not a Super Bowl team, but can the Saints be a playoff team? Doubtful without Michael Thomas, David Onyemata, Will Lutz, and surely someone else for the beginning of the season. But if they get through the first six games at.500, the chance increases.
In order to win games, this Saints team will have to be the team they were the last two years when Brees was hurt, but still won under Bridgewater and Hill. Run the ball, stop the run, be great in special teams, and take care of the ball.
For those things to happen, a number of young players are going to have to rise up and fast. The good news is that many of them looked good in the first preseason game.
Zack Baun, Paulson Adebo, Marquez Calloway, L´ilJordan Humphrey, and Juwan Johnson made plays. Kwon Alexander is trying to make one of the fastest recoveries ever from an achilles injury, and having Baun start or provide depth will help.
With Jenkins gone, Robinson retired, and Lattimore likely to be suspended Adebo is going to be thrust into the lineup and thrown at over and over again. The good news is that in the first 5 games, Aaron Rodgers is the only ¨scary¨ good quarterback the Saints face. We all know that the Saints stopped winning season openers years ago, so the Green Bay game is a goner anyway.
For the offense, it is going to be all about converting third downs and moving the chains. I would love to see Trautman live up to his draft spot. In the meantime, I have seen enough of Calloway, Humphrey, and Johnson to know they have the big bodies to have a chance to make contested catches on third down and in the red zone. I doubt it will be a big play offense, but it could be a winning offense if the offensive line is as good as we think and these big bodied receivers can make catches in traffic.
Speaking of Trautman, he is one of the players this week that really needs to start to show something this week for me to believe this team can challenge for the playoffs.
Last week, we missed out on seeing first round pick Payton Turner due to injury. Part of the selling point on him was that he could play on the end or interior of the defensive line. I am eager to see him in a game and hopefully see some of that versatility.
Allow me to remind you of the most exciting part of the preseason. We do not have to suffer through an awful fourth preseason game where nobody plays (I hope). I would be happy this week to see a carbon copy of last week minus the pre-snap penalties and turnovers. After the first couple of drives, the offensive line played well. Winston and Hill were exactly what I thought they would be, which will be enough to win if all the other parts produce up to form.
We forget that the defense was sneaky good last year. If the Saints are blessed with some good health and the growth of guys like Davenport, Turner, Tuttle, Baun, and Adebo, then this year's defense could be just as good. And all I am saying is there is a chance. The margin for error is thin though.
Hey Ref
By Dennis Dearie
And in two weeks we start playing for keeps that is of course if COVID doesn’t stop high school football from starting on time. High School Football in Louisiana is about to get serious. I can guarantee you that all good football officials have been hitting their rule books hard and often. Quarterbacks can use the excuse that their timing is off just a little bit because it’s early. Running backs will be allowed a few quarters to get into mid-season form. But officials aren’t given that luxury.
Defenses usually dominate at the start of the season while the skilled players work off the rust due to the long layoff. I could go on but I’d rather just cut to the chase. Officials can never use an excuse for not being in top form no matter their experience. For them there is never rust to work off or timing to get right.
No, for all officials there is nowhere to be but on top of your game the first down of inter squad play all the way to the final down of the final game. I’m not complaining or trying to make an issue where there isn’t one. Just the opposite, I demand my officials to walk out onto the field for the first scrimmages as though they were about to work the Super Bowl.
Imagine would you for just a second what reaction you’d get from the coaches when you miss a call then try to blame it on the season just beginning! You’d never work for that coach and/or school ever again. And that’s the way it should be and has to be. In fact for me I knew it was time to get the rulebook out when March Madness came along.
The first thing I always tried to do each new season was to refresh my memory banks on the rule changes from the prior season. Many times a change only lasted one season. What looked good on paper turned out to be just the opposite and the rule reverted back to where it was just a year ago.
The high school game is just about as perfect, rule wise, as any game can get. So many times the changes are actually just editorial tune-ups. That’s about what we have again this year. Nothing too drastic, a little clarification on where and who may block below the waist, etc. Again, those that write the rules are doing their best to make the game safer but that’s a huge thing to undertake since the game in itself is one of constant collisions and ponding an opponent into the ground every chance they can get.
I’ve been asked many times what I consider to be the biggest change in working high school football and my answer has been the same for nearly a decade and that is the constant pressure put upon officials. I agree the game has changed very much in the past few years and what’s being asked of on-field officials borders on insanity.
High school football is “played” by amateurs, officiated by amateurs while being coached by professionals. But what schools ask of those that work games on the field is they perform as HIGHLY TRAINED PROFESSIONALS week in and week out. It is completely impossible to have anything that closely resembles PROFESSIONALLY TRAINED HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL OFFICIALS! Too many times crews will have one or two members that are in this business for the wrong reasons. I don’t mind just laying things in the open for all to see since I can say I’ve been one of those officials that’s felt down right contempt by other members of a CREW!
One such instance happened when I was put in a crew that I’d never worked with before and I can’t tell you the names of any of those officials. But the play that has stayed crystal clear was the night when the deep official on my side threw a 15 yard flag for Unsportsman like conduct. The offended coach asked me what did his player do and I had to go to that official and ask what the player said or did.
The response from my “crewmate” was one I’ve never heard in 25 years as he just looked at me and said “do I have to train you, too”? I’m stunned and didn’t take another step as I tried to compute this response. Then there was this other play when we threw out a football from one team since it was underinflated.
The coach handed me the ball and asked “Why it was thrown out”? Jokingly I tossed it to a member of that night’s crew and said the coach wants to know why we won’t let him play with this ball. I figured a response that would be something like “come on coach, you can see why”. But this official just threw the ball about 10 feet in the3 air at the coach and walked away as if he was Curly from the three Stooges.
I’ve NEVER been as shocked by another official as I was this night with this official. The coach went crazy; I saw his neck triple in size as I thought he was going after that official that disrespected him to the highest degree. But no, the coach went after me and wanted to know how I could allow somebody in my crew to act like that. I had to tell him I don’t assign officials and I apologized to him but it did no good as he was on my butt the rest of the game. Nothing went right after that and all I can think is this official just doesn’t take the job he’s hired to do seriously. There’s no room for officials like him.
There’s plenty of things and reasons I can say would cause this type of behavior but mostly this instance can be labeled “Because of the pressure”. With all the advancements in technology game officials are under so much pressure to be right all the time if not most of the time. And again with all this pressure it’s caused a shortage of not only officials BUT GOOD OFFICIALS! Too many good officials have walked away because the main reason we do this job has been taken out of the formula; HAVING FUN DOING THE JOB!
I don’t know of a single official that would say he enjoys the job anymore. And after this year, if I decide to finish the year that is, I too will walk away and not look back. In all fairness I can’t recommend the job of working high school football to anyone. When I came up back in ’79 we were taught to work as a crew. And all those that’ve read my column know how much I preach about working together as one. Back then the crew was made up of just 5 officials for varsity games. Usually we’d have three experienced guys and one younger, newer official.
The thinking back then was the more experienced members would get the younger official up to their level and always put their collective hands together to help the younger guy WORK AT GETTING BETTER. Now many crews are made up of tattle-tail individuals. Some guys can’t wait to be the first to advertise the mistakes other officials make hoping to make them look better. But in all actuality they do more harm than good. One day these same individuals will make big mistakes, we all make ‘em. But we, all officials, should concentrate on getting other officials better. But that’s a pipe dream I hate to admit we’ll never see in this sad present day society.
And that’s where I’ll leave it since it’s going to be a long, hot, final season!
Till next week… …
DENHAM SPRINGS HS FOOTBALL RADIO BROADCASTS ARE A JON FINE PRODUCTION ON FAMILY RADIO, 91.9 FM, BATON ROUGE and JonFineProductions.com.
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