Cougar14.2

First day of “full pads” Saturday:

Boys had the stands quiet yesterday at practice. Everybody was thinking it but since we went 6-5 last year nobody wanted to say it out loud. My main concern was the LOS on both sides of the ball. We haven’t lined up against anybody but ourselves but needless to say that’s not as much of a concern as I thought it would be physically. New left tackle is a big boy, Johnson is down to probably 330lbs and in better shape, plus Langley is back healthy and should end up with close to 40 career starts by the end of the year. Right now the d-line has the other 6’4” Langley twin at DE on one side and the 6’4” NS transfer at the other DE. Can we play? IDK yet, but my goodness it looks like we can.

I would imagine that's the main reason. We were supposed to play Spring ball until Coach P resigned so there was never a second scrimmage scheduled. With us just getting the last of our coaches last week I'm sure it wasn't very high on Coach Willis' list to find one.

It goes back to the enrollment comment that I always make. Look at Katy's record in the 6A-D1 playoffs vs the 6A-D2 playoffs, especially of late. Katy won a lot of titles playing with 3k+ kids down in D2, which has/had been a big 6A-D2 enrollment historically. In North Shore's district the four teams they send to the playoffs have a combined enrollment of over 15,000 according to the last UIL update. Atascocita isn't getting a new school yet so their enrollment will cross 4,000 by realignment next year, meaning Summer Creek and CE King will be playing in the 6A-D2 playoffs with 3,500+ kids. Enrollments aren't always an advantage but they most certainly are with the caliber of athletes they have at those four schools.

Houston Lamar @ Crosby 8/17 Sucks we only get one scrimmage even though we didn't have Spring ball

Man, I would give up a whole paycheck if someone could answer this? I think Rio had the participation numbers for two reasons. One, he did stuff like blasting the music at practice rather that be rap, country or gospel. Two, he had Johnny Freeman and DJ Mann as assistants who kids wanted to go play for regardless if Rio was there or not. Coach P was a player's coach also, and not that Rio didn't require accountability, but Coach P required a lot more of it and I think that turned some kids off. I think that's the majority of the impact on participation we're still feeling at Crosby today. IDK if it's a positive or negative but if they continue to build at the same rate in Crosby I wouldn't at all be surprised to see our enrollment up around 3,000 by the 2030 realignment. That may be our only hope for increased participation?

New additions for Crosby looked solid. First pic is the transfer LB in the photo with Windfont. For size comparison Windfont(#42) is 6’1” and ~ 225lbs. New kid(#99) is 6’2” and ~ 210lbs and can move. Other pic is the transfer WR(#12), goes 5’11” and ~ 185lbs. This is the one I said plays a lot like Kirkwood. *Don't have the pics but the 6'4" DE transfer from North Shore is eligible this year and was also on the field. The 6'1" GCM WR transfer was also on the field and looked solid. I expect him to be our primary deep threat and also our best 50/50 guy in the redzone with his leaping ability.

Crosby’s starting RB’s yesterday. Junior RB already sitting on a couple of P5 offers, senior RB was unanimous 1st team all-district 8-5A-D1 last year. Both measured over 5’10”, weighed around 200lbs and ran 4.5’s. Might have a nice rushing attack if they can both stay healthy.

Yeah, he did it at the THSCA coach’s convention a couple years ago. UTSA coach he said it to coached at North Shore prior so he let people know. I’m not saying you lie to recruiters but some things are probably left better unsaid.

I don’t know if we’re going to beat anybody this year but on the hoof we’ll certainly look like Crosby again. Kade Eudy can flat out spin it. He looks like a kid with mid-90’s mound velocity. We’re solid at RB, looks like we have more than two if needed. Receivers didn’t have the best day but I’ll chalk it up to not being synced up yet. Defense looks like we’re going to have some nice size as well as speed. Probably don’t have a Casey and Coop but definitely have the athleticism to be as goo as the ‘21 defense.

Coach Snelson is like Coach P’s mentor. Coach Snelson is well informed of his situation. At the end of the day a coach should never tell a recruiter “that’s not the kid you want to offer”, all kids aren’t the same. It was just going to be easier for him to play at Dickinson than it would be in the district.

If the RB doesn't fumble late Crosby most likely ties the game up and we're having a different conversation. Either way, coaching happens to y'all every games so there's not really anything y'all can do about that.

That was my main concern running that style offense. Two games I would point to is our game in 2013 against Elgin and last year against Longview. Both ran 21 personnel and neither had a great offensive line but both rushed for around 400 yards on us. Elgin ran a lot of overload/student body type stuff and Simmons ended up with like 45 carries for 345 yards and just wore us down. Longview had a great RB but the way they could playaction off of their run game just made all of our defenders stand still which eventually led to bad run fits when they did decide to hand it off. I said all that to say you can make the offenses look completely different out of the same set but Coach Willis has a more pragmatic approach than Rio and Coach P so I think you're going to see a variation week to week regarding how we attack our opponent. The receiver we got from BH last year transferred to Dickinson but we have two receiver transfers that are eligible and both are built like and play similar to Kirkwood, the GCM transfer is even a little bigger than Kirkwood. With Eudy's arm strength and accuracy I think it's safe to say we'll be going up top quite a bit. Not sure the defense will look a lot different scheme wise. We're still going to run a three safety base set but I think it will look more like Carthage's version of a cover 3 vs just calling it a three safety look and playing the box safety on the LOS like we did with Michael Ray. We also got a linebacker from the swamp that looks like he'll go great with Windfont on the second level.

First day of practice for Crosby today. Feels like we have a better group of senior leadership this year, we'll see how it works out. With the hiring off the new safeties coach last week I believe the staff is finally complete.

Guy is pretty convincing, has a lot of gravitas on the high school level. It’s a different approach than the last two guys but I think he’s made some solid hires of alumni recently to work in different capacities that could help stabilize the program, if not anything else.

Was thisclose to having a transfer RB to pair with him

Yeah, that was really my main concern. It doesn't feel right as a parent not giving your kid what you think is the best opportunity for success. It sucks to watch your kid run over players from teams like FB Marshall and then watch the kids he ran over pick up double digit offers, Offers that they would also be in line for if they were at that school, simply because they're at that school. Luckily, I think my son will end up in an OK situation. The backup RB from last year picked up a couple of FBS offers and Rivals rated him a 4 star so I think that will draw additional recruiting interest to the program. Based on the texts and DM's from the coaching staff where he's going to camp this weekend I think he's in good shape to pick up his first D1 offer but again, as a parent you want to put you kid in the most promising situation possible.

What would I be taking up with the UIL? Coach said he would sign the PAPF but would first like an opportunity to go over some things with my son, they talked for a couple hours and my son called and told me he wanted to stay. End of story/situation. Just like DA parents can get on social media and argue in favor of the school choice bill, I can freely state my opinions here as long as they're within the guidelines. The vast difference between me and most people is that everybody in Crosby knows exactly who I am and I don't have any problem being asked/confronted by a coach or parent about anything that I've ever posted on here. In short, you don't have to take screenshots because it will always be here.

Which ones? The one that asked me to write a letter to the UIL for him or the ones who don't post but DM things that they want in a public forum? Maybe it's the ones who text me and say, "You didn't hear this from me but . . . "? Different coaches on our last two staffs did it for years, so with 1000% certainty I can tell you that coaches don't laugh a parents who contributed multiple all-district sons to the program.

Exactly! After I told him that his exact words to me were "I appreciate that, and I respect the hell out of you for coming to me first." before we watched film over the offensive system he's going to run this year. What's even funnier is the other day when he walked over to the senior citizen fans who go to every practice and workout and want to fire the coach after every loss and said "What are your concerns, ask me anything you want?". These are the guys who will tell a kid's parents "That boy can't play dead in a western." so you can only imagine the stuff they said. Coach Willis stood over there in that brutal sun and answered every question they had, I liken that to Coach P showing at at the park in Barrett Station to make sure people weren't trying to steal his kids. I'm sure Coach Willis never had to deal with narcissistic parents at Cedar Park or C'ville Heritage and Coach P never had to go to the hood in Corpus to keep his kids from being swiped. Some coaches adapt and some don't. We'll see how it works out.

It's going to be interesting if Crosby somehow gets it worked out. Even for a down year last year we were a failed 2pt conversion at BH and one score away at PAM(starting RB and QB didn't play) from winning another district championship. With the new free agents that got cleared and the old ones from last year that are finally eligible, this Crosby team should have the largest collection of offensive and defensive skill talent since the days of the Twins, Singleton, Perry, etc. Crosby is going away from our normal 4 wide spread we've ran for the last decade or so and will switch to a multiple offense with 21 being our base personnel formation. TCU baseball commit(pitcher) Kade Eudy will finally get his time under center, he's the best passer of the football we've had since Jaiden Howard. Both running backs are north of 195lbs, run in the 4.5's and have looked very healthy on the camp circuit and Summer workouts. The junior running back has earned 4-star status after picking up offers from TCU and UTSA this Summer and the senior running back returns after being a unanimous first team all-district selection last year. Last year was the first time in a long time that Crosby didn't have a real deep threat on the outside which allowed defenses to load the box against the run game. With the free agents being cleared we now have four receivers that are over 6' and 180lbs, three with verified track speed. Really excited about the GCM transfer who was killing people in 7 on 7 before we had to stop playing and has Kirkwood type ability to play both sides of the ball. The receiving core has a chance to be extremely dangerous with Eudy back there getting the ball to them on time and on target. On the defensive side of the ball junior LB Copelin Windfont has picked up multiple FBS offers this Summer and big 6'3" 330lbs AJ Johnson has switched from OG to NT where he started at as a freshman in the '21 playoffs. We were already going to be fast in the back seven but free agent we picked up back there should really bolster us. Coach Willis is walking into a team with more overall skill talent than Riordan walked into in '12 and more than Prieto walked into in '19. May not mean anything at all since Crosby was a lot better in the trenches in those years though? When we hired Willis I was worried about our participation rates and that is still a major concern, especially since it's almost certain we'll be moving to 6A in '26. That being said, Willis has the sideline looking like an HBCU step show right now. Jabara Williams will be our DC, Coach Williams was drafted by the Rams in 2011 and played LB in the league for few years before he started coaching. Craig "Sqwirl" Williams will be our RB coach, Sqwirl scorched this area for years at Crosby and will get his first coaching opportunity at his alma matter after graduating from Baylor last year. My cousin and classmate Stephen LaSalle has just been hired as an assistant after being at North Shore for the last three state championships. I think Crosby still has a lot of question marks but based on what I've seen so far I still felt confident enough this weekend to bet one of North Shore's coaches a bottle of 1942 that we would finish better than 4-6.

Parents can't sabotage a coach, especially "before they ever get started". I was being facetious when I said he was 60, that was to highlight he's by far the oldest coach Crosby has initially hired in my 25+ years following the program. We don't have a prim and proper community like Cedar Park or Colleyville so you have to be able to deal with the BS as just part of your job at Crosby. I didn't want him because he wasn't going to move the needle participation wise and what do you know, rates have dropped even more and kids have transferred out so I was dead on in that assessment. I just talked to him for about an hour to see if I could clean PAPF and I told him I don't think Crosby will make the playoffs or be very successful in the offensive system he runs. Instead of getting through that we sat in his office and he broke down film of Coastal Carolina vs BYU to show how Crosby would operate against fronts like CE King, talked through recruiting contacts and set up a meeting with my son about trying to get him to stay. I'm not against everything but I've been doing this for a long time and know what good football is supposed to look like. Meanwhile, we haven't run a single offensive play this Summer. I'm sure you know a lot more than me about what goes on at Crosby and I thank you for your concern about the program.

Girls sports are always going to take a backseat, as they should. Football and sometime boys basketball are the only sports that have a chance to end up as a net positive for for the school financially. I just talked to Coach Willis about singing my son's PAPF to transfer out and she happened to be there and assured that football was still the priority. She's there for football, the girls' stuff is just an added benefit.

Coach Willis screwed over the guy he promised the head girls track coaching job to so Coach Cam could get the job. He's a guy who's a lot better suited to run the football recruiting side of things too. That's one of the reasons none of the guys really trust him or want to work for him. Coach Cam is a generic recruiting coordinator that's going to handle all sports. She's more suited to be a college on-campus recruiting coordinator than a "help you get football scholarships out of high school" person. She will very much help the girls' programs as we've never had anybody to help promote them.

Take out the state title year in '12 where he won his first year as head coach at CP with Chris Ross' program and he's a 99-60 or .623 for his career. For comparison, Crosby's old coach Jeff Riordan is sitting at 100-37 for his career even after going 2-8 his first year at Chapel Hill. Dude can just flat out coach