Princess Power
December 9, 2015
Loretia Plemons
December 9, 2015
Nicholls State University first-year football coach Tim Rebowe promised to make the Colonels competitive again on Saturday afternoons in the fall.
It took the new coach about a half-season to fulfill that promise and make it a reality.
Year one of the Rebowe Era in Thibodaux was mostly positive for the Colonels – a three-win campaign that saw Nicholls compete for a full 60 minutes for the vast majority of its games.
The Colonels started slow in 2015 – something that often happens with a first-year coach, but finished with a bang. Nicholls was 3-3 in the second half of the season, including wins in two of their final three games of the season.
The last snap of Nicholls season was arguably the team’s most memorable – a last-second field goal to trump rival Southeastern 27-24.
Rebowe said his first year will always be a memorable one because it will forever mark his inaugural season as a collegiate head coach.
He said things went about as planned, and the strong finish have him hopeful that bigger and better things are about to happen for Nicholls football.
“The first half of the season, we were finding ourselves,” Rebowe said. “The second half of the season, we put some victories together. The guys were playing together, and we executed consistently on offense and defense. Any time you can make progress throughout the year, it makes you happy as a coach, and I think we definitely did that, and we’re excited to build on it in the spring, summer and then ultimately next fall.”
Defense was the biggest source of improvement for the Nicholls team.
Under previous coach Charlie Stubbs, the Colonels were a disaster defensively, routinely allowing 40, 50 or even 60-plus points in games.
The troubles started in 2013 when the Colonels allowed 494.0 yards and 43.3 points per game – numbers that were at the bottom half of the Southland Conference.
In 2014, it all spiraled out of control, and Nicholls was arguably the worst defense in any classification of college football. The Colonels allowed 538.4 yards and 50.2 points per game in the winless 2014 campaign, allowing 40 or more points in nine of 12 games.
But in 2015, Nicholls was far more effective in keeping opponents out of the end zone. The Colonels allowed just 421.9 yards and 32.5 points per game in Rebowe’s first season – improvements that helped keep the Colonels within striking distance in more games.
Rebowe said the improvements came because the Nicholls coaching staff “butted out” and allowed the team’s athletes to make plays.
Linebacker Hezekiah White led the team with 96 tackles and 9.5 stops for a loss. B.T. Sanders recorded 75 stops on the year.
“We wanted to keep it simple,” Rebowe said. “We didn’t want to bog those guys down with too much. We didn’t want our scheme to be overly complex or confusing. We wanted to play fast and get to the football in a hurry. I think simplifying things helped our guys out.”
The coach added that the next step for the defense will be to add beef in the offseason – especially up front. Rebowe said recruiting the defensive line is something he and his staff plan to do heavily in the coming months before National Signing Day.
“We didn’t have any senior starters on that side of the ball,” Rebowe said. “So we’re excited about what those kids can potentially do. We just have to get bigger, faster and stronger in a hurry.”
Offensively, the Colonels weren’t good in the beginning of the season, but they reached a peak in the final month of the year.
Nicholls scored just 17 points combined in its first four games of the season – all losses. But in the final four games of the year, the Colonels scored 109 points, including the 27-point showing in the finale against Southeastern.
In the late-season games, Nicholls ran the ball effectively, using quarterback Tuskani Figaro and halfbacks Michael Henry and Tobias Lofton to keep defenses off balance – a trio that accumulated more than 1,800 yards rushing and 15 touchdowns on the season.
In the final two games, Figaro went down and sixth-year senior quarterback Landry Klann stepped in and provided a spark in the passing game.
“I was so proud of Landry Klann,” Rebowe said. “He handled himself like a true professional in a tough situation to play in. He played well and the kids believed in him.”
So with year one now in the books, Rebowe said the focus is already on beginning year two. The coach said the team plans to begin spring practices in February 2016 with hopes of using the late-spring months and summer to work on conditioning. The Colonels will play another 11-game schedule next season, which will include two non-conference tilts (at Georgia and at South Alabama) and also a nine-game Southland Conference tilt.
But Rebowe said the opponents don’t matter right now, because it’s all about making Nicholls better. The coach said the Colonels have 12 verbal commitments – a list he couldn’t identify, but is expected to include local players like Central Lafourche star Anfernee Poindexter and South Lafourche standouts Jacob Jackson and Harvey Allen, among others.
The coach said those recruiting efforts, combined with a 3-3 finish in the back-half of the season have both he, his staff and the team’s players pumped up and eager for more.
We have so much momentum in so many different phases,” Rebowe said. “We’re not that far away. We’re selling that to our guys here and our guys we’re recruiting. We have this thing headed back in the right direction and we’re proving that you can have a competitive, successful football team right here in Thibodaux, Louisiana.” •
