Man, I feel for HLB football

It really stinks that now-former H.L. Bourgeois head football coach Daron Franklin is taking his talents to another program in Louisiana.

I understand his reasons and totally respect the man’s desire to be closer to his wife and kids. But without Franklin, the Braves will be thrust with the very difficult task of replacing a top-notch coach that is in the early stages of his coaching career.

If you can’t tell by now, I really like Coach Franklin. I think he’s a really good guy who had a very good vision for where the Braves football program could (and should) go in the future.

Under the coach’s watch, H.L. Bourgeois took strides and went from a program in disarray to one that was suddenly very competitive – possibly a year or so away from making a push toward the playoffs.

That’s a change from what the team had gotten accustomed to in the several seasons before Franklin’s arrival – a dark time in the Braves’ program where simply scoring a touchdown was rare and 40 or 50-point losses were happening too often.

It didn’t use to be that way for the Braves – a program that actually was pretty darned good about 10 years ago. Franklin was bringing that back, and I surely hope that the school’s next coach continues that forward push because local prep football is much more fun when the Braves are a contender.

When I was in high school in the mid-2000s, the H.L. Bourgeois football teams were incredibly tough to mess with. They were the type of team that didn’t win every game, but no matter what, you knew they were there. They were rough and very prideful. Under former coach Randy Boquet (now CCA’s coach), the Braves ran a Wing-T, run-based offense that was a total pain in the neck to all of the teams it faced.

I remember the 2005 and 2006 HLB squads. They were a ruthless bunch that were a handful to the folks in the Houma-Thibodaux area.

From 2005-07, H.L. Bourgeois made the Class 5A State Playoffs in every season. They progressed bit by bit every season and were a tough out to anyone in Louisiana.

In 2005, the Braves started 0-3, but fired off five-straight wins to close out the regular season as district champions. They trumped South Terrebonne, Thibodaux, Central Lafourche, rival Terrebonne and South Lafourche in the winning streak. They then moved to the playoffs and battled Comeaux tooth and nail, but lost in a close, hard-fought battle.

The next year, H.L. Bourgeois was back at it, earning a six-win season. In 2007, they did it again and were 8-2. In that season, they were the best prep football team in the area, and it wasn’t really that close.

But after those days, the Braves program stumbled and fell flat. They’ve had several coaches come in and out of the program and stability hasn’t been a strong suit for the team.

But Franklin was the exception to that rule. In his two-year run, he dedicated himself to the program and to the kids within it.

He was going the extra mile to make sure that the best athletes in the school played football and dedicated themselves to the sport. Franklin created a very strict offseason lifting program to create a culture where players were bettering themselves year-round – something that was missing under some of the coaches that the school had in years past.

And it was working.

The Braves were 0-10 in Franklin’s inaugural season and, frankly, weren’t very good. But in year two, things got much better, and H.L. Bourgeois won two games and were a much, much better football team.

With a high number of players coming back, the team’s new coach will be in a position to thrive if he plays his cards right and puts his best feet forward.

That’s exactly what I hope happens in Gray, because that community deserves a solid prep football team to root for.

Evergreen Junior High School produces too many dominant football players for them all to struggle and/or play other sports when at the high school level.

I’ve been to H.L. Bourgeois High School before. I’ve walked the halls. There are plenty enough big, athletic kids to make a competitive team. It just takes the right man in charge to make it all happen.

Franklin was that. He was a guy that was building something that was about to pay off in a big way.

Will the next guy do the same?

We surely hope so. We actually hope he takes the founation in place and builds on it. Those folks deserve that.

Gosh, it stinks to see Coach Franklin go. Whoever lands him in the future will be getting a very good football coach and a really cool dude.

Best of luck in your new digs, coach.

We’ll be following you from afar and knowing that had you stayed, you would have built the H.L. Bourgeois football team into a power – the type of program that no one in the area looks forward to facing. The same type of program that we hope the next coach comes in and creates, as well.