Louisiana College Spring Practice

Louisiana College Spring Practice

By: Ini Ubaha

            On Friday March the 20th I was fortunate enough to go out to Alexandria Louisiana to watch the Louisiana College Wildcats partake in practice. Louisiana College is an up and coming division III program that is coached by a Louisiana High School coaching Legend Dennis Dunn. During his years as a High School football coach at Evangel High school Dunn won 14 District Championships and nine state titles. Maybe the most impressive stat is that Dunn never lost a district game at his time at Evangel High School. Dunn’s success goes far beyond his record. At Evangel Dunn coached 19 All-Americans. Dunn also coached former NFL quarterbacks such as Josh Booty, John David Booty, and Brock Berlin.

           When I first arrived at the practice the first thing that I noticed was the tempo and the highly competitive nature in which the practice was run. As we arrived at practice my attention was first drawn to the offense. Dennis Dunn runs a variation of the Franklin Offense. The franklin offense is a high tempo offense that commonly utilizes three to four receivers. This offense is also known to help develop quarterbacks, which is no surprise that Dunn has had three quarterbacks play in the NFL. When watching the offense two players stood out to me the first was Easton Melancon the wildcats quarterback. During my time watching the offense Meloncon displayed good arm strength and accuracy as well an in depth knowledge of the offense. Coach Dunn even went as far as to say that if Easton Meloncon was two inches taller he would be at a Division I school. The Next player that stood out to me was Josh Edwards. Edwards is a massive 6’3 250 pound tight end. During the 7 on 7 drills Edwards really stood out with his ability to make contested catches. He was even able to make a one handed catch on a high ball down the middle. With returning quarterback and a few returning offensive pieces the offense looked crisp.

                With this being the first week of practice and Division III rules not allowing teams to practice in pads the defense was a little tougher to evaluate. The defense had gone through some changes as coaches had just been recently shuffled around. The defense as a whole was in a learning period in which they were installing the defense. With the quality of coaches that are on the Louisiana College coaching staff I firmly believe that they will continue to grow on defense. The last thing that stood out to me about Louisiana College was the personal growth that Coach Dunn’s players go through. From the interviews of two former players Beau Brewer and Ira Jewitt it is evident that Coach Dunn does more than coach football. Both players talked about how Coach Dunn taught them how to be men and do the right thing. This is crucial to college football because a majority of these players come in at eighteen or nineteen years old and away from home for the first time. It is crucial that these players have role models who can teach them skills that go way beyond football such as how to be responsible adults.