Bridge City has a new face that should be familiar to the Cardinal fans. Dwayne DuBois takes over as the head coach of the Cardinals for his first season, but DuBois is a 1986 graduate of Bridge City High School. Coach DuBois comes home after taking the Hardin-Jefferson Hawks to the playoffs in his two seasons there.
DuBois believes he has the players at Bridge City to make an impact on offense. DuBois points out the Cardinals were very young last season, so many of the starters are back including the entire offensive line. Center Nick Menard and Alex Lara will be the leaders on the front line for Bridge City. Coming over from Hardin-Jefferson with Coach DuBois is his son Camden DuBois who quarterbacked the Hawks the last two seasons and ran the offense in 26 ball games. Byron Trahan played quarterback for the Cardinals last year and will see time in the backfield this season. Patrick Morris, Hunter Denton, and Derrick Dearing saw playing time last year and will be counted on this season. DuBois emphasizes his run oriented offense starts with Menard, Lara, Chase Bonneaux, Zane Trahan, and Joseph Adams in the offensive line leading the way.
Inexperience hindered the Cardinals in 2014, but Coach DuBois sees many of those players back in 2015. With a year of hard knocks under their pads, DuBois expects good games from a number of the Cardinals on defense. DuBois looks to Derrick Dearing at linebacker who was the Cardinals leading tackler in 2014 to be a leader again on defense. Cane Booth at defensive end and Riley Harris in the secondary are also expected to contribute on defense.
Coach Dwayne DuBois in his first year at Bridge City is changing the offensive game plan for the Cardinals who must learn a new system during workouts and scrimmages this season. DuBois believes Bridge City has the players to implement the new offense. He adds it is the coaches’ job to teach the kids assignments in the run oriented offense as just basically a new way of doing things.
The situation is pretty much the same on defense as Coach DuBois has a new defensive coordinator which means a change in defensive schemes for the Cardinals. DuBois worked at Vidor with Darin FIetcher who will switch to a 4-2 alignment on defense. The kids will learn different terminology, different techniques, and assignments. DuBois does not want the kids having to think when they are playing, so the more repetition of the new system they get the more it will become second nature for them to do what the coaches are wanting them to do. If they learn what to do, DuBois thinks they will be fine.
DuBois believes the Cardinals will be fast learners, and Bridge City will be ready to compete in the district battles. Coach DuBois reminds that the Cardinals were young last year and those kids have a year of experience now. The schedule is not easy though with Newton and Kirbyville to start with, and then Lumberton and Liberty before starting district action. DuBois knows the district with the likes of Jasper, LC-M, Silsbee, and Huffman will be a dogfight, but he is telling the players about winning the day and getting better every single day and plans to have the Cardinals in the mix for the playoffs at the end of the season.
The Bridge City Cardinals open the season August 28 against the Newton Eagles.
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