Plaisance unveils challenging slate
October 14, 2014Week 6 Players of the Week
October 14, 2014
Local prep football teams have combined to win 30 games so far in the 2014 season.
It seems awfully hard to believe, but the usually dominant Vandebilt Terriers haven’t contributed a single victory to that tally.
The Terriers are 0-6 and searching for a little consistency and continuity in the second-half of first-year coach Jeremy Atwell’s inaugural season.
Vandebilt has battled growing pains, injuries and a lack of execution this season – all things that Atwell said have added up to a perfect storm on the field and ultimately the winless start to the season.
“I’m seeing the same thing that I think everyone else in the area is seeing – we’re just playing very, very inconsistent football,” Atwell said. “There are plenty of times where we’re sitting and critiquing the film that we see things that we like – things that could allow us to turn this corner and be the football team that we want to be. But there are countless other times where we look at the tape and it’s not there.”
“It seems like the thing we’re most consistent about this season is being inconsistent, and that’s s+omething we’re working on correcting the rest of the way – improving our execution.”
For Vandebilt, a lion’s share of problems have contributed to the team’s winless start to the year.
The most obvious factor is a brutally difficult schedule. The Terriers’ six opponents (E.D. White, Thibodaux, St. James, Patterson, Brother Martin and South Terrebonne) have combined records of 24-11 this season, and three of the six (Thibodaux, Brother Martin and South Terrebonne) have lost just one game or fewer on the season – enough to earn each a place in the LSWAA Top 10 poll for their respective classes.
“We’ve played some good football teams along the way,” Atwell said. “We’ve seen some of the best teams from this area so far this season.”
But Atwell said using the crutch of a difficult schedule isn’t healthy because the Terriers are a proud program that takes pride in being able to compete no matter who is on the sideline opposite theirs. The coach said his team’s struggles center mostly around execution, and that the team hasn’t done that consistently in any of its games.
“We’ve played a tough schedule, but it’s not an excuse,” Atwell said. “Execution is execution and getting beat is getting beat. I don’t think that a schedule is an excuse for not playing to your best ability. Sure, they might beat you up-front or they might have a little bit better skill level on the edges, but you can still execute what you’re asked to execute and to do your job. Right now, we’re not doing that.”
Atwell said he believes a mix of youth, inexperience and a new scheme are all reasons for the team’s struggles. Vandebilt has several leaders back from last season’s playoff-bound roster that won seven games on the field (one was forfeited to give the team a 6-4 record) – names like linebacker Dylan Ward, Chase Hutchinson and Benton Bourgeois.
But for whatever reason, the team’s 2013 success hasn’t carried over.
The coach said there are stretches of good, but they are often followed by stretches of bad. Atwell touts it’s growing pains from a rebuilding process – a process that has been made even more difficult with several injuries on defense and the loss of starting quarterback Bailey Pere.
“We just can’t pull it all together. Something always seems to come up to take our momentum away,” Atwell said. “I’ll give you an example. We made a 38-yard field goal, and then we come back and we shank the kickoff on the next play. It’s just that inconsistency and that learning curve that are hampering us right now. As a coach, it’s humbling because you want to win every game, but we know where we are and where we stand and we’re working to fix it, and we think it’s within our grasp.”
Atwell said the good news surrounding his program is that there is no quit in his players.
Even with the slow start, the first-year coach said that his team shows up to practice every day ready to work and better itself.
The coach said that for a team that’s 0-6, the Terriers have also had very little problems with morale and that the team’s players all believe that they can win each and every Friday – regardless of their opponent.
“The kids are still working. They want to win. We haven’t given up,” Atwell said.
Of course, this is a vitally important thing for Vandebilt because the team’s season is nowhere near over.
Thanks to the public/private split, the Terriers still are very-much alive in their quest to make a postseason run in Division II – the bracket for select schools with enrollment sizes equaling Class 3A or 4A.
Because there are only 13 schools in Division II, everyone in the classification makes the playoffs. That factor, Atwell said, is a big contributing factor in his ability to continue to keep the attention of his players throughout the team’s year-long struggles.
“All of our goals are still in front of us,” Atwell said. “
They’re winless for now, but the coach said he likes the fact that Vandebilt still controls its own destiny – a rarity for a program searching to find a turnaround.
“I said when I took this job that we weren’t concerned primarily about wins and losses, but that we wanted to build a true program from the ground-up doing things the right way,” Atwell said. “We’re doing that, and right now, it’s a bit of an uneasy time. But there’s no panic. The wins will come and when they do, we will know that we’re winning while doing the right things.”
The Vandebilt Catholic football team is struggling to hang onto their hopes for the 2014 prep football season. Sitting at 0-6 and the lone local prep football team without a win, the Terriers tout that their spirits are high and they are ready to turn things around in advance of the playoffs.
