DEFENSIVE PROSPECTS SHINE IN WEST MONROE VS CARENCRO 5A TITLE MATCH

Last Saturday night I attended my last high school game of the 2011 season as the Carencro Golden Bears and West Monroe Rebels squared off for the Louisiana 5A Championship in the Merdedes-Benz Superdome.  My decision to attend was very spur of the moment.  Having spent so much time recently in New Orleans overindulging myself, I thought it would be best to give my liver, finances and gas tank a break. 

While exercising discipline, I would still get my football fix by watching the Mississippi/Alabama High School All Star game, which was played in Montgomery but televised across Mississippi.  However, while watching the Alabama All Stars pound Mississippi while sitting in my apartment, I felt I could do better and the obvious solution was to watch one more game in the 2011 season live, which would of course be just 70 miles away in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome and kicking off in about three hours.  So, I threw some clothes into my duffle bag and called my good friends Lauren and Ney to see if they accomodate my presence in their home, which they graciously accepted at a moment's notice.  I crash with them often for festivals and other sporting events, so my last minute call wasn't unexpected.

After dropping off my luggage at their house, I headed to the Dome and made it inside as the captains were making their way to the middle of the field for the coin-toss.  While all 70,000 seats were not occupied, each side was well represented with a strong fan base wearing their gold and red and blue team colors respectively.  With similar colors to their college level mascot namesakes, it actually looked like a high school version of Ole Miss and the University of California playing each other, except that each team was good.

Despite being a North Louisiana team, the Superdome was a familiar sight for West Monroe.  It was the Rebels 4th straight appearance in the 5A State Championship game, and the second consecutive year they were facing a team from Lafayette.  In 2010, in a game that I also attended, heavily favored West Monroe faced a charged up Acadiana team that came storming right out of the gate and fell to the Rams 21-14.  Consequently, Acadiana is Carencro's biggest rival and had dealth the Golden Bears their only loss of the regular season 21-14. 

Carencro's last appearance playing for the state championship was 1996.  Their opponent 15 years ago was the same as it was on Saturday night, losing to West Monroe then too 24-21.  Golden Bears running back Alex Johnson was definitely one key player I was interested in watching.  With over 2300 rushing yards on the season, Johnson was the state's leading rusher.  And as the Alma Mater to former LSU All-American and 13 Year NFL Veteran Kevin Faulk, Carencro had a strong track record of producing great running backs, and I was curious to see how Johnson stacked up.

Johnson may go on  and have a great college career, but with the exception of some quality yards he picked up on couple of swing passes late in the game, the Rebel defense shut him down.  West Monroe really didn't have just one single, standout defensive player.  The defense as a whole showed no weaknesses with each unit playing with agression and stopping Carencro's offense cold with eveything they tried to do.  That being noted, defensive ends James McFarland and Terrell Lathan were a presence in the Golden Bears offensive backfield all night, and middle linebacker Deano Casola was a tackling machine.  At 6-2 and 240 lbs and projected to be an outside linebacker in college, McFarland is ranked as a 3 Star prospect by Scout.com with offers from Arkansas, Mississippi State, TCU and Louisiana Tech. 

The West Monroe secondary also impressed.  Free Safety Alex Yount returned an interception 40 yards to set up a Rebel score, and junior cornerback Xavier Woods displayed some quality playmaking potential twisting in the opposite direction to snag a sideline interception to snag a sideline interception and preventing the ball from going out of bounds.  Woods also made an acrobatic catch at wide receiver and did a good job returning punts.  It will be interesting to see how highly recruited he is next season.     

While the run-heavy Golden Bears offense was stuck in neutral for most of the night,  Carencro's defense definitely made the Rebels earn every yard they got.  The only real success that West Monroe had offensively were the two option touchdown runs of 40 and 14 yards that quarterback Connor Osbborne executed perfectly, which turned out was all they needed.  Junior Carencro linebackers Tim Albert and Kye Poole were quite the duo causing and recovering four Rebel fumbles.  The stocky 5-9, 225 lb Poole was selected as the Golden Bears player of the game and is definitely one to watch on the recruiting radar next season despite his lack of height.

Doing the most damage for the Carencro defense in my opinion though was senior defensive end Jacoby Briscoe.  At 6-3 and 295 lbs, Briscoe is built more like an interior lineman than an end.  However, he didn't seem to suffer from any lack of quickness, while using his size to power his way into the West Monroe backfield all night for twelve tackles and two quarterback sacks.  Briscoe is ranked as a 3-Star recruit by Scout.Com with offers from Louisiana-Lafayette, University of Memphis, Texas Tech and Tulane.  I'm definitely very surprised that he does not have any SEC offers.