On Saturday, August 23, 2025, at approximately 5:07 p.m., Shreveport Police officers responded to a major accident at the intersection of Tate Street and Broadway Avenue involving a motorcycle and a vehicle.

Upon arrival, officers discovered that the Shreveport Fire Department was already on scene, rendering aid to the driver of the motorcycle, who was transported to Ochsner Health Hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Due to the severity of the crash, the Shreveport Police Department Crash Investigations Unit was activated and responded to the scene.

Preliminary findings revealed that a black Toyota Camry was traveling southbound on Broadway Avenue when it entered the intersection of Tate Street and collided with a blue Suzuki motorcycle that was traveling westbound on Tate Street toward Illinois Street. The force of the collision caused both vehicles to come to rest on the southwest side of the intersection.

The motorcyclist was later pronounced deceased at Ochsner Health Hospital. The Caddo Parish Coroner’s Office took custody of the victim and made next-of-kin notifications.

The driver of the Toyota Camry, identified as 22-year-old Victoria Jones, was not injured. She was transported to the Shreveport Police Department DWI office, where she submitted to both breath and blood testing. Results indicated she was impaired at the time of the crash. Jones was arrested and booked into the Shreveport City Jail on one count of Vehicular Homicide.

This investigation remains ongoing.

By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports

Former Calvary Baptist golfer Sam Burns did enough for his second straight top 10 finish in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs, closing with a 4-under 66 Sunday to tie for seventh at the season’s final event, the Tour Championship in Atlanta.

All four rounds this week – and his last 10 rounds in the three playoff tournaments – have been 68 or lower. He went 67-66-68-66 this weekend at the iconic 7,440-yard, par-70 East Lake Country Club layout.

Coupled with a fourth-place tie at the BMW Championship a week earlier, adding Sunday’s $1.121,667 check to the $910,000 he netted in Baltimore, the last two paydays combining for $2 million have boosted his 2025 official PGA Tour winnings to $6.6 million – the fourth straight season the Shreveport native and Choudrant resident has topped the $6 million mark.

But was it enough for Burns’ top goal this season – a spot on the 12-man USA team for next month’s Ryder Cup?

He’s hoping to hear good news in the next day or two privately from captain Keegan Bradley, who will make six at-large picks to go with the six automatic qualifiers already established after the BMW. Burns is speculated to be one of eight contenders – including Bradley, who finished tied with Burns and Justin Thomas Sunday, and would be the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963.

The final six will be announced on Golf Channel in a 9 o’clock CDT show Wednesday morning from PGA headquarters in Plano, Texas.

“Yeah, it’s huge. I think definitely my No. 1 goal coming into this year,” said Burns after finishing his Sunday round with an 8-foot birdie putt on the final hole. “Unfortunately, I didn’t put myself in a position to be an automatic qualifier. I think it takes a lot of stress off certainly this week and last week to be in that position. But you know what, I tried to focus on coming into the playoffs and trying to play some solid golf, and hopefully it’s enough.”

He was eager to get home to Lincoln Parish, where he plays out of Squire Creek Country Club.

“It’s going to be a long 24 hours or 48 hours, whatever it is. But it’ll be nice to go home. I’m definitely looking forward to being home and spending some time with (wife) Caroline and (15-month-old son) Bear and just relaxing and resting. It’s been a long three weeks, and I’m really looking forward to that.”

Burns has a trusting, matter-of-fact attitude about his hopes to make a fourth straight USA international roster, and a second straight Ryder Cup team (playing in the 2022 and 2024 Presidents Cup competitions, and the 2023 Ryder Cup in Italy).

“(I have) 100 percent trust in Keegan. I know whatever decision he makes is going to be one that he thinks is best for the team,” he said. “Ultimately I’m Team USA. If I’m on the team, awesome. I would love nothing more. If I’m not, I’ll be rooting for them.”

Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com

By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports

Damari Drake had a sensational junior season for the Evangel Christian football team, earning All-State Class 5A honors at linebacker with 150 tackles, and scoring 12 touchdowns – 11 as a hard-to-stop fullback.

He’s doubling down for the 2025 season.

“The way to top it is to have an excellent, amazing year, times two – and that’s what I’ve been working on all summer. Doing things two times harder – go harder, run harder, lift harder, wake up harder, go to sleep harder,” he said during the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl High School Football Media Day early this month.

“If you really want to go somewhere with this, you should go 10 times harder than how you used to do it.”

Drake’s work ethic not only translates to being a highly productive part of the Eagles’ team, it has earned him a spot on college recruiters’ radar. He is the No. 35-ranked prospect in the state according to 247Sports.com, rated a three-star recruit.

He recently committed to Grambling, despite interest from bigger programs and reported offers from Miami’s Hurricanes and Arkansas State. He likes the idea of playing on both sides of the ball.

While college is a cornerstone of the immediate future for the voracious reader, his career plans after football don’t necessarily require higher-education classroom instruction.

“I would love to get a good blue-collar job, work for a good HVAC company, a plumbing company, oilfield construction. Coming home dirty, that’s me,” said Drake. “I love a good work day.”

That’s borne out in how he spends his spare time.

“If I’m not at school, I’m working, reading, or going to work making money. I cut my grandmother’s grass. I go to my uncle’s barber shop and sweep,” he said. “Whatever I can do to stay afloat.”

Although he’s either surrounded by defenders when he’s carrying the ball (he had a 5.9 yards per carry average and 11 rushing TDs last fall), or leading the Eagles to opposing ballcarriers (12 tackles for loss, among highlight plays topped by a game-clinching 50-yard pick six to beat Captain Shreve in a first-round playoff game last November), given his preference, Drake is more into solitude.

“I like to read books. I like to walk outside. I’ll leave the phone in the house and walk outside for about an hour. I like quality time to myself,” he said. “I don’t like being around crowds.”

He’s eager to have the Eagles in contention for the District 1-5A crown, a goal that teammate Aiden Carter shares. The senior safety is determined to see the ECA defense much improved over a unit that gave up 40 points per game in a 6-6 season that included a 4-4 district mark.

They get tested every day, practicing against a record-breaking offense led by high-major prospect Pop Houston, the Eagles’ junior quarterback.

“We should be better (defensively),” said Carter. “We have a lot of experience back. We have one of the best offenses in the state, so for us to go out there and compete, shut them down, it’s a dream come true, almost. It’s really good.”

That experience gives Carter faith that Evangel can make a run at the 1-5A title.

“That’s my goal, to win district. There are a lot of good teams,” he said. “We haven’t won district in about six years, so we would make a mark.”

The Eagles kick off Sept. 5 on the road at last year’s Class 5A semifinalist Neville in Monroe.

Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com

By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports

BATON ROUGE – LSU head football coach Brian Kelly gave positive vibes about his team at the start of preseason practice.

“I feel really good about the football team that we put out on the field in the next four weeks,” he said on July 27.

As the No. 9-ranked Tigers transition today to their opening game week of the 2025 season, a road matchup as a 4-point underdog at No. 4 Clemson looming on Saturday at 6:30 p.m., Kelly’s opinion of his squad is stronger after 21 preseason practices.

“The tangible signs are the depth of this team, the ability to push each other and keep that competitive edge in every single practice,” Kelly said. “I’ve been really pleased with their details, their habits, how they come to the building, how they use nutrition the right way, and their recovery. All those things are excellent signs that we have a group that’s mature and understands how to take care of themselves and prepare themselves for the season.”

For Kelly, it’s been a four-year journey of coaching staff changes, roster rebuilding, navigating the new frontier of NIL and the transfer portal, and hiring the necessary player personnel expertise to find the various pieces of the talent puzzle.

After his first season in 2022, he fired his special teams coach. He replaced his entire defensive staff after his second season in 2023 and promoted quarterbacks coach Joe Sloan to offensive coordinator, replacing Mike Denbrock, who moved to Notre Dame.

Then, following last season when highly valued defensive line coach Bo Davis jumped to the New Orleans Saints, Kelly hired former LSU All-American defensive lineman and retired six-time NFL Pro Bowl honoree Kyle Williams.

But perhaps Kelly’s biggest move came in January 2024 when he acquired Austin Thomas as LSU’s general manager. Thomas, who had previously worked at LSU twice and then at Ole Miss the last two seasons, is regarded as one of college football’s best talent evaluators and roster builders. He replaced Will Redmond, who accepted a similar position at Auburn.

“For 34 years, I’ve effectively signed the scholarship checks and been primary in the roster and putting together a roster,” Kelly said. “It’s a centralized operation for my entire career around my thoughts and my decisions.

“Now, I don’t want to paint the picture that I’m not involved in those decisions. But we’ve hired a great GM and a front office staff that can handle a lot of that stuff for me, which allows me to stay focused on our players, because there’s no way I could be negotiating contracts and working towards some of the creative ways through revenue sharing on a day-to-day basis.

“I’ve adapted to it quite well, and I’ve empowered the guys that are really good at that stuff to go do their job, and they’re doing a great job.”

At Ole Miss before his move to LSU, Thomas helped assemble the nation’s No. 1 transfer portal class for the 2024 season. This year for the Tigers, he repeated that feat.

The fact that all 18 of LSU’s portal Class of 2025 signees are listed on the current two-deep depth chart (nine of those players listed as starters) is a testament to the work of Thomas and his staff.

It’s a portal class that addresses finding experienced Power 3 conference veterans to fill vacancies and strengthen the offensive and defensive lines, the defensive secondary, and wide receiver.

And because Thomas and staff did their homework, finding transfers who were fits athletically and socially, the acclimation of the newbies has been seamless, which is vital for almost instant chemistry.

“It started when we were recruiting all those guys, trying to get them here,” said Tigers’ starting linebacker West Weeks, one of many returning veterans who served as hosts for the transfer portal prospects on their LSU visits. “Everybody knew what pieces we needed. We had to get those dudes. Trying to get them here established a natural connection that grew when they signed here. All the guys I hosted ended up signing. I was 4 for 4.”

Many of the transfers have already noted that the 2025 LSU team is the closest and most connected they’ve ever played on.

“The amount we all hang outside of the (football) building is special,” said senior edge rusher Jack Pyburn, a transfer from Florida. “Those brotherly bonds to want to play for one another make for a really good team. What makes really great college football teams is being player-led. The way you get a player-led team is by having that closeness and being able to compete with each other every day, talk crap, and get other guys going. It’s not personal. It’s brotherly love.”

Before Thomas’ arrival and his installation of a roster-building plan influenced by his visit to the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks during LSU’s open date week last season, the Tigers’ transfer portal shopping was adequate but not enough to contend for national championships.

Developing Arizona State transfer quarterback Jayden Daniels into the 2023 Heisman Trophy winner was an unexpected bonus. So was the eventual emergence of Arizona defensive end Bradyn Swinson and Alabama wide receiver Aaron Anderson.

But many of the positive portal buys were overridden by LSU’s string of defensive back failures who were either injured, had attitude problems, or who transferred after a year.

The 2025 portal class makes its official live action debut on Saturday. Yet, judging from practice, its athletic and maturity level is far greater than LSU’s previous transfer classes.

Credit Thomas and his staff for handling all the hard lifting, which includes scouting, evaluation, negotiating with players’ agents, and understanding how much it can pay players by combining NIL money and revenue sharing. Also, Kelly’s public announcement that he would donate $1 million towards the school’s NIL pot spurred an additional $2 million from 1,600 donors. 

He said his visit with the Seahawks’ front office was eye-opening and validating.

“We were all ears listening to what they had to say in ways that we could maximize our roster and the allocation of funding across all the positions,” Thomas said. “The visit made us feel sound in our judgment, how we were building it, and how we were allocating our funding across the position.

“Every season is different. Every team is different. They’re all independent. What you have to do is retain the players on your roster first. Then, you build on that foundation in the high school class and in the transfer portal to make us the best team we can be.”

Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com

By T. SCOTT BOATRIGHT, Lincoln Parish Journal

GRAMBLING — Second-year Grambling State University football coach Mickey Joseph is taking some different approaches as he prepares his Tigers for the 2025 season opener, which kicks off at 7 p.m. Saturday inside Independence Stadium in the Shreveport Kickoff Classic against Langston.

As the Tigers conducted their Fan Day workout this weekend at Eddie G. Robinson Memorial Stadium wearing only helmets along with T-shirts, many of those sleeveless, and shorts, they did so at a slow, deliberate pace and covered all phases of the game.

“We want to keep them fresh,” Joseph said of the decision to practice without pads. “The NCAA allows you only two (full contract) scrimmages. We did our two scrimmages and took them to the ground (allowing tackling). That gave us what we needed to evaluate these kids, and that’s what our coaching staff did.

“And we’ve got to keep them fresh. I didn’t do that last year and that’s one of the mistakes I made last year. I pushed them and pushed them, and don’t have enough resources to get them back. So, now, we’re doing things a lot differently. We’re having halftime. We give them a five-minute break and then give them an eight-minute break at halftime. We have pretzels and other snacks out here just to refuel them.”

There are other changes Jones has made in the way his Tigers will operate this season.

“On Tuesday and Wednesday, we’re doing something different that we didn’t do last year,” Joseph said. “We’re going from 24-page scripts to 16-page scripts. And all of that is part of just trying to keep the players fresh.”

Joseph stayed close to the team during the workouts, several times calling a player over to the side for a quick talk, sometimes showing specific hand or foot techniques while doing so.

“This kind of day lets us try to make sure we’re all on the same page,” Joseph said. “Because it’s getting to be the time we have to be. It’s about practicing hard but also focusing on the mental part of the game. 

Joseph has yet to name a starting quarterback for the Langston game. It’s a two-man race between redshirt sophomore C’zavian Teasett and redshirt junior Ashton Frye.

Frye played sparingly in four games for GSU last year, completing four of his seven pass attempts for nine yards with no touchdowns or interceptions.

Teasett played in 10 games in 2024 as a Southern University backup quarterback, completing 71-of-129 pass attempts for 941 yards and six touchdowns with two interceptions.

While Joseph has indicated it’s likely both will see action in the season opener against Langston, it was Teasett who got the most work with the first-team offense on Saturday.

As that workout ended, Joseph stressed to his team the need for them to focus on and think about Langston and nothing else.

“What you don’t want is for Langston to hear that you’re getting ready for Ohio State,” Joseph said. “We don’t want them to think we’re going to overlook them. I was the head coach there. And we beat (Arkansas Pine Bluff) and Tuskegee while I was there at Langston. And Tuskegee and Pine Bluff both had pretty good football teams.

“I was coaching for a Langston team that came here and nearly beat Grambling (in 2008, when the G-Men won 13-2). We can’t overlook Langston. We can’t let that happen. We’ve made progress, but we still have a way to go. Today was about getting them thinking about all of the little things, because those little things can make a difference in a ballgame. This season is about to start. We need to focus on beating Langston, nothing else.”

Contact Scott at tscottboatright@gmail.com

By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports

Part of the transition of high school football is one senior class moving on and leaving the coaching staff looking to find a way to fill the void. Any coach would tell you that he’d love to have plenty of starting players returning from one year to next, but that’s not always the case.

Especially at Byrd.

Seems like every year, the Yellow Jackets are hit hard by graduation and every year, they bounce right back.

As the 2025 season approaches after going 9-4 a year ago, fifth-year head coach Stacy Ballew is faced with replacing nine offensive starters and more than half of his defensive starters. But this is not something new to him. 

“I learned a long time ago that your level of stress increases when you go from assistant to coordinator to head coach,” Ballew said. “As a head coach, sometimes it can be overwhelming the things you have to worry about.”

Summer isn’t the time to worry about all of that. But when summer begins to fade, that all starts to change.

“You get a sense that this is about to get real and things are about to get really busy,” Ballew said. “It’s always nice when you feel like you’ve had a good season and you can relax and enjoy things around school and at home. But when the summer ends, you better get ready. The closer you get, the less joking around there is.”

Running back Christian Maxie returns after rushing for 991 yards and eight touchdowns while junior quarterback Jackson Davis (6-1, 166) takes over under center. Collin Deere, who started five games a year ago, is at fullback after rushing for 743 yards in 2024.. 

Mason Kinley is one of the new faces on the offensive line. The 5-9, 191-pound senior who played center in a reserve role last year, will be moving to starting tackle after an interesting summer of working at a local crawfish distributor. “I did it all,” he said. “I got them prepared in the kitchen. I scooped them, I brought them out to people, I did everything. Didn’t see any fights, but I did get cussed out a couple of times,”

Senior safety Ja’Cari Williams had a more low-key summer. “I did a lot of yardwork here and there,” he said. “I do anything and everything. Trimming, edging … whatever you need me to do, I got you.”

The Jackets will need him to pick up where he left off as one of the returning starters on defense after making All-District and All-City a year ago. The biggest losses on the Jackets’ defense were in the front of their 4-2 defense.

“We just band together and stay as one,” Williams said. “If we work our hardest and keep out heads up, we will be OK.”

“We just have to come together as a team,” Kinley said. “These are some of my best friends and we have to stay together. I have to trust the guy next to me to do his job and they have to trust me to do my job.”

“We just want to be successful week in and week out,” Ballew said. “We need to concentrate on the little things and execution. And that’s all you can ask for. Are your kids playing at 100 percent and have you prepared them to be able to execute? My job is to prepare them to know what to do and their job to execute and you just hope all of that comes together.”

The Jackets open the season on Sept. 5 against St. Amant at Lee Hedges Stadium.

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com

It was famed television sports producer Don Olymeyer who once said “the answer to all of your questions is money.” It was said in a sports context, but who are we really kidding here? These days, that pretty much applies to everything.

That point was brought home once again Thursday when the Southeastern Conference announced it would be going to a nine-game league schedule in 2026.

Though I’ve always believed this was what the SEC should have done, I always recognized that it’s their league and they have every right to do whatever they damn well pleased.

Sure, it’s a what-took-you-so-long move, but it was not without some internal opposition from those who thought adding another game might hurt a borderline team’s chance of making the College Football Playoff.

Putting that aside, it might have been some external issues that suddenly brought this about after years of talking about it at the league meetings and never doing anything about it.

One factor was the announcement that CFP powers-that-be were going to be using schedule strength as a key factor in their choices. (Care to explain why that wasn’t the case before?)

But a bigger external factor was the recent buffoonery of the Big Ten in trying to flex its muscle in recent times. You win back-to-back national championships and all of sudden you think you can call the shots? Where were you the rest of this millennium?

The Big Ten has been floating one crazy idea after another to try to change the fabric of college football. First, it was the concept of adding even more schools to its league and then the league doubled down on its own idiocy by coming up with a proposal to have up to 28 teams in the Playoff.

That would have meant seven teams each from the Big Ten and the SEC, which was basically an attempt to rope the SEC into going along with this over-the-top, self-serving scheme. Nothing quite says Playoff Fever like a matchup between Minnesota and South Carolina, two seventh-place teams last year.

The SEC didn’t bite. And then went ahead and did the correct, and sensible, move by going to nine games. Sensible, thy name is not the Big Ten.

This is where Olymeyer’s quote comes into play. Even though some small-picture-seeing people might think that another conference game might tip the scales in the wrong direction for a team trying to get into the post-season, the bigger picture comes very clearly into play in the form of dollar bills. 

Lots of them.

Think about the possibilities that ninth game could have. What if LSU had played Georgia last year? Or if Texas had played Alabama?

More big games – and the SEC has a lot more of them than anybody else – means more inventory for networks that will pay handsomely for that as opposed to a riveting Alabama-Mercer matchup.

There will be the usual moaning about who gets the advantage when the three permanent opponents are named, but the bigger reality is that a school will rotate the other 12 (six per year), so that no school goes more than two years without meeting everyone in the conference. And every school will travel to every conference location in a four-year span.

Perfect.

Go ahead and fight over who gets to play Vanderbilt, but there won’t be the scheduling imbalance like there has been in the past.

Amazing fact: Georgia has played Texas A&M in Shreveport more times (1) than it has in College Station (0). And the Aggies joined the SEC in 2012, three years after beating Georgia in the Independence Bowl.

Good for you SEC. And if the Big Ten shows up on your Caller ID, don’t answer it. That’s a headache you don’t need.

None of us do.

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com

BATON ROUGE – The Southeastern Conference has always given the rest of the college sports world the okey-doke.

The wheels of progress move slowly in the league.                       

For instance, it took the league 26 years to expand from 10 members to 12 (adding Arkansas, South Carolina) in 1992, then 20 more years to grow 14 schools (adding Texas A&M, Missouri) in 2012, and 12 more years to move to 16 (adding Texas, Oklahoma) in 2024.

The league has always sauntered at its own pace. The job charge of the SEC commissioner throughout history is to do what benefits the league.

That usually doesn’t happen until the school presidents, chancellors and athletic directors agree.

Do head coaches of various sports have any sway? They can voice their opinions, but it’s the school presidents, chancellors and athletic directors who ultimately have the power to put changes in motion.

In July at the SEC Football Media Days, league commissioner Greg Sankey noted that the conference had been discussing the idea of playing a nine-game league football schedule “since the Clinton administration.”

That’s former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who left office in January 2001.

Almost 25 years have passed. SEC head football coaches kept successfully drawing a line in the sand, saying adding a league game in the most competitive conference in America wasn’t needed for any reason, especially strength of schedule.

Even as recently as the league’s annual spring business meetings in late May, the head coaches rejected the idea of playing nine games.

And then, out of nowhere, the SEC announced on Thursday at 4 p.m. that the league will begin a nine-game conference football schedule starting next season. The presidents and chancellors approved the proposal, recommended by the athletic directors.

Before 1974, SEC schools played six or seven league games annually because there wasn’t a uniform requirement for the number of conference games played by each school. From 1974 to 1987, there was a six-game league schedule, followed by a seven-game schedule from 1988 to 1991 and finally an eight-game schedule from 1992 through this season.

So, why was a decision finally made on expanding to nine conference games annually?

One answer is that the College Football Playoff changed its criteria this week for choosing at-large teams, saying it put more weight on games against top teams.

SEC members have already been playing at least one non-conference game annually against a Power 3 conference opponent or Notre Dame.

“Adding a ninth SEC game underscores our universities’ commitment to delivering the most competitive football schedule in the nation,” Sankey said in Thursday’s announcement. “This format protects rivalries, increases competitive balance, and paired with our requirement to play an additional Power opponent, ensures SEC teams are well prepared to compete and succeed in the College Football Playoff.”

But the underlying reason for adding a league game is the additional $5 million annually each SEC school would receive from its television contract with ESPN. There are also several million more dollars a school earns when it adds a substantial home game to its schedule. It affects season ticket packages as well as corporate sponsorship.

Since the NCAA opened the floodgates for athletes to be legally purchased by schools, as well as allowing athletes to transfer to a new school annually, the almighty dollar completely rules college sports.

Now, with schools having to share revenue with athletes, schools are tapping into every nook and cranny for fresh cash flows.

Anything goes concerning corporate sponsorships. Don’t be surprised if you see Cane’s chicken fingers logos in the Tiger Stadium end zones. And maybe Tabasco sauce patches on LSU’s iconic jerseys, a financial decision spitting on tradition.

Maybe offensive linemen can pick up extra money by placing corporate sponsor logos on the rear ends of their football pants. When they bend down in a stance, the whole world might see that the successful goal-line offense was sponsored by Roto-Rooter.

Schools starved for finding athletic revenue sources are taking drastic measures.

For instance, Purdue-Fort Wayne dropped its baseball and softball programs in June. That’s four months after the school served as the season-opening series for LSU’s eventual 2025 national championship baseball team.

Go to the Purdue-Fort Wayne website and there’s no icon for the baseball and softball programs. It’s as if they never existed.

Mississippi College, a Division II school in Clinton, which had been playing football since 1907, announced two days after the end of last

season that it was disbanding the program and changing its name to Mississippi Christian.

Head coach Mike Kershaw knew nothing of the move until his athletic director told him on the Monday following Saturday’s season finale.

The fact that the SEC will add a league game next year will have financial effects on the FCS (Division 1-AA) opponents that served as non-conference foes.

Since 2019 and counting this season’s schedule, LSU has scheduled home games against all six FCS schools in Louisiana and two of the four other FBS (Division 1-A) teams.

The financial guarantees LSU paid to those schools range from $600,000 to $1.5 million. The average guarantee for the FCS schools has been $708,000, a sizeable chunk of change in those Division 1-AA budgets.

Do those games disappear when the SEC adds its ninth game next year? Maybe some will, maybe others won’t.

The winners in all this are SEC fans. While the league said its nine-game schedule will feature each school playing three annual opponents (traditional rivalries) and the remaining six games rotating among the rest of the league opponents, there’s hope some of the conference’s rivalries lost in past expansions will eventually re-appear annually.

LSU’s biggest rivalry casualty was Auburn, which dropped off the schedule last season after the teams had played 32 straight years. Half of those games were decided by six points or fewer, and seven by a field goal or fewer.

“Fans will see traditional rivalries preserved, new matchups more frequently and a level of competition unmatched across the nation,” Sankey said.

And a new herd of cash cows, stretching from Austin to Athens to Lexington to Gainesville.

The SEC. . .It Just Means More Moooooooooooooola!

Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com

By LEE BRECHEEN, Louisiana Football Magazine

The history of Woodlawn High School football is known far beyond Shreveport. Back in my younger days, my dad would tell me stories of how great Terry Bradshaw and Joe Ferguson were and he would ask, “do you know where they went to high school?”

Living in Baton Rouge, my world was small despite Dad’s efforts. At 8 years old I would say, “I have no idea,” and of course, the answer he shared was well known up north:  Woodlawn in Shreveport.

As years went by and I got into the sports media and scouting at the age of 22, I started meeting many more great players that graduated from Woodlawn. Some became friends and some were high school coaches like John Booty, father of Evangel’s great Josh Booty, who was a proud Woodlawn graduate and one heck of a quarterback for the Knights. He signed with Mississippi State back in the day.

Bet you didn’t know that North DeSoto head coach Dennis Dunn has Woodlawn roots. I had him on my first radio show in 1991 when at that time he was the Knights’ coach.

I have covered some incredible players who are grads of the school: QB/athlete Tyrone Frazier (LSU, then Major League Baseball), LB/DE Fred Harris (San Diego State), and OLB/DE James Gillyard (LSU), who was a quarterback at Woodlawn. There’s more — OLB/DE Torshiro Davis (Texas), and DB/WR Donovan Wilson (Texas A&M), who is a hard-hitting safety for the Dallas Cowboys). I could go on, but you get the idea.

There are more recruitable players from coach Thedrick Harris’ program that will fit into the “up and  coming” category in the Class of 2026 recruiting class — most of them sleepers.

I would also like to mention to any sleeper recruit out there or parent reading this: do not lose hope about being recruited. A few years ago at Woodlawn Leadership Academy, Donovan Wilson wasn’t offered by LSU and hardly any big schools. But Texas A&M gave him a shot, and he had a great career with the Aggies and made the leap to playing on Sundays. Anything is possible — kids just need an opportunity and that happens when they keep grinding.

How did I know this about Wilson? I was scouting for most of the Division I college programs back then, before Hudl and video sharing, and one of my clients was Texas A&M. My contact was Buddy Wyatt, the defensive line coach at A&M in those days. Wyatt had Louisiana as his primary recruiting area. He had an eye for talent which served the Aggies well.

The Class of 2026 recruits at Woodlawn have a chance to be a strong group.

The list begins with OLB/DE/TE Adonnus Smith (6-2, 230) and OLB Mel Washington, who is just 5-7 and 210 (but he benches 355 pounds). The Knights have the best powerlifter in state for his weight, LB TJ Winzer (5-7, 210). Coach Harris calls him “fire plug” and he is a big time hitter,

Athlete Semaj Snow (5-11, 190) is a RB/WR/LB/SS – all of that — and his versatility could serve a college well. Another Knight to watch is WR/CB Kaden Pikes (5-10, 165) who has run a 22.3 in the 200 meters and a 4.48 in the 40-yard dash. FS Kameron Jenkins (5-9, 160) is a big-time shutdown player leader with 4.5 speed in the 40.

A new player that might break out for the Knights is WR Tyler Scott (6-2, 175).

You know Harris will have the Knights well prepared, ready to over-achieve.

I was able to talk with Kaden Pikes and Semaj Snow.

“I have talked to ULM in and went to their camp it was impressive,” said Pikes. “It is a blessing to be coached by Coach Harris. He genuinely inspires me to do my best on and off the field. I am a hard worker that will do whatever it takes to win.

“I also have something to prove,” he said, pointing out he’s doing his part. “As far as hobbies, I live in the weight room getting stronger.”

Snow went to camps at Northwestern State and Central Arkansas and made strong showings. Many colleges have shown interest in his future.

“Playing football at Woodlawn Leadership Academy is an honor,” said Snow. “You’re part of a long tradition built on toughness, pride, and excellence .Every time I step onto the field, I feel like I’m representing more than just myself — I’m carrying on a legacy of players and leaders who came before me.”

These young men, influenced by a very impressive coach, are going to play past their senior seasons. First, they will help the Knights take another step forward in 2025.

Contact Lee at lbrecheen@aol.com

(Lee Brecheen is the longtime publisher of Louisiana Football Magazine, covering all of the state’s high school teams each year since 1997.  Free content can also be found at the website lafootballmagazine.com. District previews with scouting reports on every team are posted now. Lee hosts a podcast with guests from around the state — The Sports Scouting Report with Lee Brecheen, available on YouTube)

By JASON PUGH, Northwestern State Athletic Media Relations

Standing at the podium inside Superior’s Steakhouse, second-year Northwestern State football coach Blaine McCorkle reiterated just how deep his ties run with the Independence Bowl.

“Last year, I wore both of my (Independence Bowl) rings, but today I only wore mine from 1995,” McCorkle said during Thursday’s Northwestern State/Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl Kickoff Luncheon. “It’s hard to believe it’s been 30 years, but you guys do a wonderful job in a great bowl and there are a lot of great memories here.”

McCorkle then turned his attention to his current team – the 2025 Demons – which opens the season next Thursday at 7 p.m. against Alcorn State in Turpin Stadium.

That group of Demons will be loaded with in-state products – most directly from high school while others have found their way back to their home state via the transfer portal.

In his 21 months since taking over the Demon program, McCorkle has placed a premium on recruiting in-state talent.

“Our staff has now been through two full cycles of recruiting and 82 percent of the high school signees that we’ve signed are from the state of Louisiana,” McCorkle said. “That’s more than any of the other 13 Division I football-playing schools in Louisiana and that’s more than quite a few of them combined. This state right here has some of the best talent in the country. Everybody sitting in this room knows that. The numbers back it up. We’re going to stay close to home, and we’re going to stay homegrown.

“We brought in four freshmen from right here (Shreveport-Bossier City) this year. We got two from Airline (Ben Taylor and Ben Jump) and  and two from Huntington (Nehemiah Barrett and Tyler Welch), and we got one from Ruston (Sam Nations), so we’re really excited about the inroads we’ve made specifically in this area.”

With family members of some Northwestern players in attendance, McCorkle expounded upon his reasons – beyond the quality of football played in the area – for keeping recruiting close to the geographic vest.

“We’re going to grow them and develop them, and the more you do that – the more grandma and friends and family can see you play – it makes you want play harder,” McCorkle said. “It makes you want to stay. It makes you not want to go four states away. We’re trying to bring in kids who want to call it home and want to be Northwestern State graduates and good alums when they leave.

“So far, I feel like we’re on track with it. We have to watch some of those guys grow up, but we like the progress they’re making.”

That progress will be seen on the field, but it already has shown up throughout training camp, which came to a conclusion this past Saturday in a place McCorkle has called home for nearly two years.

McCorkle said there is not a day that passes where he does not pull up to the Donald G. Kelly Athletic Complex and see a packed Turpin Stadium in his mind

“Natchitoches is a special place,” he said. “My wife (Gina) and son (Sammy) and I have been here for 21 months and have really fallen in love with this town. It’s unique. It’s special. There are a lot of small college towns out there, but I think there is a special connection with our town and this university and this athletic department and this football team. Last year, we had a bad season and finished second in the conference in attendance. 

“That is rare and unheard of, so just imagine what that thing is going to turn into when we start stacking the Ws together. It’s going to be special.”

Contact Jason at @pughj@nsula.edu