Destrehan is getting set to host a Captain Shreve team that has garnered national attention over the past week – and its very sharp offensive attack – at Wildcat Stadium this Friday night.
The Captain Shreve offense is, to put it mildly, productive.
Very, very, very productive.
The Gators are fresh off of an overtime victory over Evangel, earning a 77-76 victory. That came one week after Captain Shreve dropped a one-point game to Airline, 69-68.
“Their tempo is probably the fastest I’ve ever seen,” said Destrehan head coach Marcus Scott.
Capt. Shreve represents the first of three consecutive home dates for Destrehan. This continues the trend of upper echelon non-district competition for DHS this season itself, after games with top contenders Catholic-Baton Rouge and Alexandria earlier this year. Shreve went 9-2 last season and reached the 2nd round of the Division I select playoffs, and brings back a talented quarterback in Brodie Savage who is surrounded by a wealth of offensive talent.
The Gators have increased their scoring total in each game thus far this season, scoring 29, 35, 40, 53, 68 and 77 points in succession. It has wins over Ouachita Parish, Natchitoches Central, Benton and Evangel and losses to Huntington and Airline.
“They’re big, and strong and fast. I don’t remember an offense that I’ve faced in high school that’s put up as many points consistently as this group,” Scott said.
The game against Evangel is one that will be talked about for a long time. Evangel quarterback Peyton Houston threw for a national record 817 yards and 102 rushing yards in the game – and it still wasn’t enough for the win. The game featured the most combined yardage ever in national prep history – 1,816 – and though the game went to overtime, only 20 more yards were accumulated in the extra frame; the game outpaced the second largest yardage total by 33.
Jarmarcea Plater rushed for 347 yards in the game. Savage tallied 547yards through the air. Both were Capt. Shreve program records.
The offensive line is where it all starts, Scott said, but the talent on this team is all over the field.
“It’s a big, strong offensive line,” Scott said. “Their skill guys are excellent. (Savage) is really accurate and (Plater) is as elusive as we’re gonna see. Their wideouts go up and really challenge for the football.”
Savage, Scott said, has complete command of the offense.
“He really knows where to go with the football and he doesn’t turn it over. They take care of the ball, they play with tempo – sometimes very fast, sometimes they go regular – they get lined up and make plays with those playmakers,” Scott said.
What makes their offensive tempo so particularly tough to deal with, Scott said, is that Shreve can go blindingly fast – but will also pull it back and go with a more customary pace, keeping a defense guessing.
But when they go fast …
“Put it this way, it’s so fast there are times the camera can’t keep up from play to play,” Scott said.
With all the talk about offense coming into this one, of course, both defenses may well play with a bit more edge. The Destrehan defense is annually a proud group that suffocates opposing offenses, and one would expect this is a challenge that they’re amped up to tackle – that being the operative word here.
“The main thing is the tackling. They’re going to make plays – we have to be able to get them on the ground and play the next play,” said Scott.
FIELDS RETURNS – The Wildcats’ quarterback made his return to the lineup in last week’s 33-7 victory at H.L. Bourgeois. And after missing four games, he was very sharp – he completed eight of nine passes for 110 yards and two touchdowns before giving way to backup A’ushai Smith.
“(Fields) is a gym rat,” Scott said. “With Jackson, he’s always going to be prepared. He studies a ton of film and it’s one of the things that makes him a special player. It was killing him to miss that time … he did a great job of helping A’ushai whenever he came off the field. He prepared as if he were going to play (throughout his absence).”
Fields was one of the state’s most productive passers last season and his return bolsters a Wildcats’ lineup that will need to match firepower with Captain Shreve this week.
Scott had a wealth of praise for Smith as well. The freshman played beyond his years in his starts in place of Fields, leading the team to two wins and keeping the Wildcats in the game in others.
“I’ll tell you, for the schedule we’ve played, for a 14-year-old who was a middle school quarterback last year at Albert Cammon – he did an outstanding job,” Scott said. “Now we know we have some good depth at that position.”
Jayden Bailey had a big night as well last Friday.
Bailey’s pick six interception allowed him a chance to go back to his roots on the offensive side of the ball – Bailey played running back last year before moving to defensive back this season. On Friday night, he found himself in the endzone again.
“He turned into a running back pretty quickly – he showed great hands and body control,” said Scott. “We got a huge block downfield from Cameron Florent that got him all the way to the end zone. It was a big moment in the game,” said Scott.
