CardinalBacker

Please don't fire Crouch.

Yeah, but it was the best team Silsbee has had in my memory, too.

Sheesh.... Y'all didn't even win district.

I’m not even kidding. We put 170 band kids on the field. If you add in the drill team and cheerleaders were easily around 210 or so in the supporting cast. Lcm and Lumberton both advanced to state in marching band competition (Lum was 5a). We’ve barely missed making that trip the last two times. Huffman’s band isn’t too shabby. You can see some great halftime shows for 4a schools. The football is just bad, though.

I think this district is an insult to high school football and should be ignored.

In all honesty, a Newton D1 isn't like a typical D1. You can tune in and eventually you'll see D1 kids from other schools playing college ball. It's kinda like Newton kids go into the witness protection program, never to be seen or heard from again. I've got Newton in this one, regardless.

We got destroyed by Diboll and Jasper. Those are both smaller schools. I'm not knocking either of those schools, but I don't think we'll be watching either of them playing in December. You shouldn't be getting destroyed by smaller playoff teams if you expect to be in your own larger classification playoffs. It's hard to believe that two years ago we were talking about this district having four stout teams with BC, Silsbee, Huffman, Navasota and even potentially LCM all fighting for playoff spots. Any of the teams that made the playoffs in 2016 would WRECK this district today. It's pitiful.

I've been saying this for months. Bad football and awesome halftime shows. Probably the whitest district, too.

We all know that Newton’s the real deal this year.... this week we’ll find out if WOS is. What a matchup.

We played Jasper to a 47-48 loss against a resurgent Bulldog team in 15. We didn’t play you guys in 16, then got mollywhopped the last two years. Losing I can take.... just getting destroyed is ridiculous. It’s nice to see the HJ turning their ship around. That speaks volumes.

It’s way too early to get down on the new coach. It’s not like we’re installing a new offense. We just can’t run the old one anymore. I think the LCM game should be a competitive one this year.

There was allegedly a conversation on the first day of 2-a-days between a coach and a certain returning starter at a skill position as to whether or not whether or not he belonged with the skills group or with the linemen. Too much Whataburger and not enough (or any) strength training or conditioning. This is a kid that should be a leader... A few years ago the kids got in trouble for copying a key to the weight room so they could sneak in and train after hours. We went three rounds deep that year. It’s not like everybody else just got a whole lot better. We’re a whole lot worse.

Get over yourself, bro. I whack off while I’m on Setx.

I’ll give them some credit. They kicked the crap out of us. In fact, I’ll jump out in front and give everybody else that we’re going to face this year some credit. Because other than Livingston or maybe LCM, I don’t see us winning a game this year. And I wouldn’t bet on either one of those. We stink. We’ve got a bunch of kids that watched the 15&16 teams have some success and expected the train to keep rolling. A lot of these kids were on a freshman team that had a lot of success in 16. The word was out... we were going to be good this year and next. But somewhere along the way, the group lost sight of the goal. Everybody knows that the weight room has been a ghost town. You haven’t seen kids running track in the spring. You don’t just show up and become a stud lineman your junior year. The work has to be done in the offseason, or you’ll get exposed by kids who were working out when the season actually rolls around. Well, our lack of hard work is being exposed on a weekly basis. Last year would have been a slightly down year, but the injuries killed us. Nobody’s hurt this year, and smaller schools are spanking us. Literally pulling down our pants and painting the back porch red. I’m a supporter, but I’m not a blind supporter. I’m not saying we have the talent to go deep into the playoffs every year. But there are enough athletic kids that we shouldn’t be getting beat down by the Dibolls and Jaspers of the world. We can compete with schools like that if we wanted to. Getting thrashed like we have been is just embarrassing. To go from 10-3 to 1-7 to whatever happens this year is just not acceptable. Everybody we face didn’t get that much better. We fell off of a cliff. Our district is weak in general, but it looks like we will very likely miss the playoffs.

I think he did to a certain extent. It’s not just about eyeing up talent... size and speed. It’s also about judging the work ethic and commitment of the group. It’s obvious to people familiar with the program that the team hasn’t been willing to do their part. Of course some have, but across the board it’s a “no.” If you’re a player that waits until two-a-days to get serious, you’re setting yourself and the team up for a big failure. If you do that for a few years, you’ll end up with a disastrous high school career. Some dudes just want a letterman jacket.

I’d like to give a big shout-out to our superintendent. Thanks a lot.

I’ll be honest here.... Newton is a monster this year, but they have always had a tendency to break down under pressure. If the Chain Gang gets a stop or two early, I think we’ll see Newton making a long, quiet bus ride back up 87. I’m still picking Newton in this one, though.

If HJ wins this one, I guess I'll be a Hawk fan for a while.

I was at the game in Diboll... it wasn’t good. I can’t stress how badly our O-line got handled. All of the misdirection in the world won’t work with 3-5 defenders on your side of the line of scrimmage. I’m a big supporter, but I can also admit when things look bad.... and they do. I didn’t realize that Hamm was sitting out this year. Not that I blame him with a legit baseball future on the line, but we were counting on him on both sides of the ball. They really need to move one kid from RB to O-line. I really, REALLY didn’t see any breakaway speed from ANYBODY that was handling the ball. Turnovers were a killer. The QB is a bright spot. The bad news is that we still have to face tougher competition from here on out. All is not well in Cardinal Land.

Bridge City by 10. I mean, we’ll be back to Bridge City by 10 if we leave after halftime.

It looks like a good year for people to snake wins over the Stangs while they’re down, but so is LCM and BC. We had one of our best groups two years ago that would have been competitive against WOS, except WOS had an all-time great team that year. WOS looks a little bit beatable right now, and I’m not sure we could handle the Stangs JV squad right now. FML.

Their fans were all at Whataburger, standing around dipping snuff and revving the engines on their trucks. It’s just another Friday night in Woodpile.

Boy.... that was brutal. Diboll has some good kids, but we played some really, REALLY bad football. Diboll’s lines absolutely destroyed us in the trenches. The only times we moved the ball were when we threw the it. That’s not a good look for a team that relies almost totally on the run game. Our only score was set up by a long pass play that put us deep in the red zone. Our qb Skinner was a bright spot. Maybe the only bright spot. Well, unless you consider “opportunities to improve” all over the field a bright spot. We honestly looked like a team trying to implement a new offensive system. It was bad. Diboll has size. No offense, but I think we made them look a lot better than they are. Not trying to knock them, just being honest. They beat the crap out of us. An interesting note... Splendora edged out Sterling. Otherwise every team in our district got smashed by a smaller school this week. This is possibly the worst district in 4A D1. Lumberton (Jasper), LCM (Woodville), Huffman (Liberty), Livingston (Shepherd), and BC took big losses in games that should have been locks based on size alone. Sad times.

Yeah.... that's what we said about the freshman group from 2016.... Which is the junior class this year.

[Hidden Content] I think it’s time to remind ourselves what LiCk’eM is all about. LCM fires it up and gets this one, I believe.