Parkers Chapel aiming to bounce back on road
When Jacob Midyett returned to Parkers Chapel, there was always the possibility that he could have the opportunity to coach against a fellow colleague from South Lafourche (La.), the school where he began his coaching career.
Tonight, he has his chance, as the Trojans (3-1, 0-1) travel to Woodlawn (1-3, 1-0) for an 8-2A contest.
Game time is set for 7 p.m.
Neil Barbaree, now in his third season as Woodlawn's head coach, coached at South Lafourche before Midyett's arrival along with Terry Farmer, who guided England to the 2A state semifinals last year before leaving to become the head coach at Loy Norrix in Kalamazoo (Mich.)
“You can tell coach Barbaree has worked for coach Farmer,” Midyett said. “They’ll line up in the Wing-T, then they’ll line up empty, then they’ll lineup in the double wing. They do anything and everything. That’s one of Farmer’s trademarks, and you can see he’s under that coaching tree. I heard a lot of good things about him when I was down there, so it’s kind of weird crossing paths.”
Midyett compared this week's preparation to that of Lafayette County two weeks ago.
“They’re going to line up in multiple stuff and we have to be able to see what they’re lining up in and adjust and make sure our calls and checks are right,” Midyett said.
After an 0-3 start, the Bears rolled to a 46-6 win at Hermitage in their conference opener last week, and although the Bears are struggling with low numbers, Midyett said his team is not taking the Bears lightly and staying focused on bouncing back after losing to Hampton last week.
“We don’t have any room to be saying that because they have a better conference record than us right now, so who are we to say, ‘Who are these guys?’” Midyett said. “Obviously, you have to fight that,
because they read and know what Woodlawn has, but that’s a bad mentality and one that we’re trying to fight every week. They're playing hard. They don’t have a lot of numbers, but the guys they do have, they fight and compete.”
The Trojans will likely head into tonight's game short-handed.
Junior Jacoby Edwards left the Hampton game late in the fourth quarter and likely won't play.
“He’s a little worse than we thought,” Midyett said.
“It was kind of self-inflicted. He went in with his head down in a pile and knocked himself that way. Probably not this week, but the next couple of weeks."
Senior Canon Morgan took a hit while being tackled and was taken off the field on a stretcher, but Midyett said Morgan is doing well.
"He’s been cleared. He’s been checked out," Midyett said. "Everything is good, but we’re going to ease him back slowly."
Senior Jason Parker is also on the mend.
"We thought his leg was broken, but it ended up being a really, really bad case of shin splints and some muscle fiber tears, so we’re going to take it slow and ease him back into it,” Midyett said.
Senior Amonta Harris, who got only one carry last week and has been slowed by a thigh bruise suffered during the Trojans' scrimmage against Smackover, is doubtful to play tonight, Midyett said.
Quarterback Caleb Jacobs left the game after going down awkwardly on a tackle, but the sophomore returned to the game and is fine, Midyett said.
In Jacobs' absence, junior Lane Harbour delivered a solid performance, going 6-of-9 passing for 118 yards with a touchdown.
With Morgan's status up in the air, Midyett said it's possible Jacobs could move to wide receiver with Harbour taking over at quarterback.
"With Canon kind of being in limbo right now, that takes away one of our playmakers outside, so it could be something we could definitely look at with Caleb moving out, because he did play some receiver during the summer," Midyett said.
“Lane has a great arm. He throws the ball well, it’s just the movement stuff. We like to move the pocket a lot and run the quarterback a lot, and that’s not really his game. He’s more of a pocket passer.”
Despite the loss to the Bulldogs last week, Midyett said there was plenty the team can learn from.
“As bad as the score was, we dropped two touchdown passes early in the game,” Midyett said. “We gave up two fourth-and-15’s that led to scores. We didn’t go a good job on focusing on the little things.
“We have done that in practice, and we’ve been preaching that to the kids that one of these days it’s going to bite you, and it did last week. There’s a lot of positives from it. You never want to lose. You never want to see it happen that way, but I think we’ve seen the light and what happens when you don’t prepare the right way. If you don’t prepare to win, you’re not going to win no matter who you play. As bad as it was, we can learn from it.”
With the Trojans set to hit the road for the first time in league play, Midyett said the focus this week has been on fundamentals.
“We’ve got to focus on ourselves,” Midyett said. "That’s what we’ve been doing this week. We’re getting back into the fundamentals and making sure our individual groups are doing what they’re supposed to be doing every play, because that’s what happened last week. One or two guys messed up and lost focus and big plays happened, so we’ve got to make sure we get our individual positions right and move forward.”