Carencro High School is approaching a new era of Golden Bears football as Tony Courville, who guided the program to a state championship back in 2020, decided to retire at the beginning of the year.
His replacement is Gavin Peters, who called the plays for that state championship team, will now step into a new role of leading the Golden Bears moving forward as the head coach. His defensive coordinator Kobie Pettis and three of their top players went to our Gridiron Football Media Day back in late July to talk about the upcoming season that starts this week.
Coach Peters and Coach Pettis have put a lot of emphasis this offseason on getting better in all areas of the game while working on their physicality.
“We’ve been doing our summer sacrifice. We are up at 7 A.M. and then about at 12 P.M. We get in a run, a lift, and our individual drills. Then, we feed them lunch and we come and meet for special teams. This summer, we have put a big emphasis on special teams. That’s one of those things where we have put a big emphasis on and I expect that to help us.”
Carencro Defensive Coordinator Kobie Pettis
“We really get after it in the spring. There is a lot of Oklahoma, a lot of hitting going on so we don’t really like going against somebody else. Iron sharpens iron so that’s how we have been operating. I think we have gotten better in the spring. We are a young team going into the season, but those young guys have game experience. They played varsity football so going into the spring, the front is new, but in the backend and skill positions we have a lot coming back.”
Carencro Defensive Coordinator Kobie Pettis
With a lot of young players coming back from a 9-3 team, the expectations are high for this team to compete for a district championship and a deep playoff push. Led by signal caller Chantz Babineaux, who made the transition from wide receiver to quarterback, made it look easy by being named All-State last season. Babineaux was highly regarded by his former coach Tony Courville a couple of years ago as the best freshman he has coached since Kevin Faulk. Going into his junior season, Babineaux will always give the Golden Bears a chance to win games this season.
“We still run the ball, but we are definitely throwing the ball a lot more. Having a guy like Chantz Babineaux as your quarterback, it is tough to not throw the ball. We still get under center. That’s not going to change and that’s what we are going to do, but we will spread it out. We are getting to empty formations. We will get it to one back formations. We try to be balanced on both sides of the ball. That is our mentality as we want to attack teams in multiple different ways offensively and defensively.”
Carencro Defensive Coordinator Kobie Pettis
This explosive, yet balanced offense will feature plenty of weapons including a couple of names to keep a close eye on this season.
“Kendrick Bernard made a lot of key plays for us last year. He is one of our better guys and really took a big step up this spring in being a leader for our offense. He plays receiver for us, but he should get some carries in the backfield as well.”
“A name that wasn’t able to play for us last year because of some eligibility rules is Kydon Davis. We think he is going to be one of the up and comers. He is a big tall receiver at 6’5. He is long and is a guy that can help us in that role.”
Carencro Defensive Coordinator Kobie Pettis
Defensively, the Golden Bears will be more experienced with six returning starters including two way player Brian Amune Jr., who will play both linebacker and running back, and Arkansas Monticello commit Jakalyn Roy, who may be a little undersized as a defensive end, but makes up for it with his physicality and quickness.
“Defensively, we are a 4-3. We are a multiple defense. We get into a couple of different fronts. We get in a three down. We try to attack in multiple ways in every game. We try ways to run our best four down against them, our best three down against them. It is what three down front is the best and what four down front is the best to change it up to fit what the offense is giving us.”
Carencro Defensive Coordinator Kobie Pettis
Carencro wants to win games in multiple of different ways because the coaches know they not only play in one of the toughest districts in the state, but they also have one of the toughest non-district schedules in the state.
“We lost Comeaux in our district. They moved down and are out of our district. That’s a school we lost, but we gained three non-district games. In Week 1, we have STM. We got LCA in Week 2, and we finish our non-district with Zachary. In district, we have Barbe, Sam Houston, Sulphur, New Iberia, Acadiana, Southside, and Lafayette High. Our schedule is tough, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Carencro Defensive Coordinator Kobie Pettis
Coach Peters arrived back in 2018 while Coach Pettis arrived with the program three years ago. Both attribute the administration and the community as positive supporters of the program. Because of that, they want to do them both right by winning ball games while doing it the right way.
“We have a great administration. One of the biggest things they try to do is that everything is Carencro. We try to make everything as one. Whatever we do with a football program, we try to make sure that it benefits them as students. Whatever we do as a program, we try to give back to the school. Our administration is very supportive and the majority of what we need, they try to make it happen to the best of their abilities.”
Carencro Defensive Coordinator Kobie Pettis
“The atmosphere is a great atmosphere at home games. I am from Slidell. It’s in the metro area and it’s more of a city. At Carencro, it is a lot more country. There is country music pregame and the players love it. The fans love it. We are trying to get our attendance to go up a little more, but we have been doing a lot social media wise, fan engagement, and community engagement. That is going to help.”
Carencro Defensive Coordinator Kobie Pettis
The 2024 season for Carencro starts this week and with another fall season coming in, the Carencro Golden Bears want to make sure that the support is still strong as ever.
“Continue to support us. Continue to follow us and watch what we do. We are not just raising football players. We are raising young men. If you send your son to Carencro, your child will be taken care of. We will be looking after him not only as a football player, but as a person.”
Carencro Defensive Coordinator Kobie Pettis
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