Bulldogs92

Yeah. Alvarez always seems to have his teams ready come playoff time. He started out with us as an assistant under Gene Walkoviak while I was in high school. Good dude...

Jasper JV 34, Newton 20.

I don't either, but I'll hope for WOS to do it if they end up knocking us out.

I agree. I think the team that we had in 2018 was our best in a long time and other than WOS, we went undefeated during the regular season without playing anyone. If Montavien Hunt would have stayed 100% healthy, we would have had a real shot at winning the whole thing. I know the deal with if and buts very well because there's always something with our team, but he was a gamebreaker unlike few that we've ever had in Jasper. WOS knows that from the first meeting when he went nuts on them. WOS was a lot better when we met the second time, so that wouldn't have happened twice, but he would have made a difference.

Winning does that to fan bases sometimes. They weren't doing anything before Surratt got there and he probably won't be there forever. Football karma will bite them in the butt eventually.

I know you guys have a soft spot for the Barbays there in Coldspring. I've said for the past few days that we'd have to make some big adjustments to be able to beat them. Go Trojans!

Someone needs to. I'd like it to be us with another shot at them, but we'll need to knock WOS off to have the opportunity.

Praying for both of you.

The Jasper job isn't for everybody. Expectations are the same there as they are at Newton and West Orange even though we don't have skins on the wall like those schools do. There was a lot of turnover for about 15 years in between Walkoviak and Barbay. I don't know entirely what those situations were, so I can't speak on that. I think we're fortunate to have Barbay, though, because he and his family seem to like living in Jasper. We win at almost the same rate that we did under Walkoviak and I think we'll eventually win a title under him if he stays long enough and adjusts his philosophy enough to rally in games like the one we played against Carthage. I'm not a coach at all, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. I just want us to win like everybody else that has ties to the program.

If Barbay leaves, that's where I would look. There's no indication that it's gonna happen anytime soon but every good AD or school board has a list ready just in case.

Is this about Burkeville? 😁😁

Do you really want to see that?

I'd feel good about our season if we got another shot at Carthage, but I would be disappointed to get that far only to lose to them again. I think Carthage is good enough to have won in DI again and they would probably even do really well in 5A-DII. I was frustrated Friday night when we didn't change anything that we were doing to try to get back in the game when Carthage pulled away, but all in all we did okay.

Yeah. We'll have to get through WO-S in the second round and another really tough team in the third round just to meet up with Carthage again. If all of that happens, we'll be in much better shape to play them. On the other hand, they'll be an even better team by then.

The way the matchups look, we'll get WO-S in the second round. We're gonna have to get a lot better before then or that might be it for us. I watched their game with Silsbee and the Tigers were completely outclassed. The Mustangs look really good.

You guys will be fine. The Brahmas always get better as the season goes on. We got that memo last year. LOL

I expected Jasper to fall a couple of spots in the polls after losing to Carthage. We're getting a lot of respect in being left at #4. Carthage gets to stay at #1 after beating us. LOL

I had mixed feelings. I was encouraged by the first half, but I felt like we got too conservative once Carthage pulled away in the second half. I think we would have been right there if not for a few illegal procedure calls that killed drives. For some reason, we couldn't get lined up right and the staff didn't fix the problem. Anyway, I do feel bad for the Pirates. I have a feeling that we might put some ungodly numbers up on that team. I'm not endorsing that, but it seems like the perfect storm. My call for a 59-6 score might be a bit conservative.

Might as well move on from the less than impressive showing against Carthage. Shepherd has been respectable at times over the years, but they've really struggled so far this season. This is a good opportunity for Jasper to work on diversifying their offense and maybe throw the ball some, but I think they'll shorten the game and give the younger kids some playing time in the second half. DCTF has the Bulldogs as 58-point favorites. Carl Limbrick and Andre Thomas should have huge games and I'll go with a 59-6 win for the Dawgs. Honestly, it's really hard to get fired up as a fan/alum for games like this. Any thoughts?

I still think we'll go at least two rounds deep. We showed that we could hold our own until the penalties and their lines took over the game. We do have to open stuff up though. Like you said, we won't beat a top-notch team with that offense.

Final score: Carthage 35, Jasper 18.

Yeah. I don't know what our coaches are thinking. It's like they conceded defeat. I'm interested to hear what Darrell says after the game. This game plan will beat most teams, but we'll never win anything meaningful playing this way.

You're right. Totally predictable. That and the penalties are killing us.

Carthage is imposing their will and we're not doing anything to help ourselves at all. 35-10 late in the 3rd.

We threw a pick on the first drive and they scored. 28-10 Carthage. That hurt.