School Spotlight: Scotlandville Magnet High School (Baton Rouge, LA)

Scotlandville Magnet High School is a 5A, district 4 school of around 1,000 students in the northern part of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, near the Southern University campus. Their football team, the Scotlandville Hornets, went 7-5 (3-2 in division) in 2022 under first year Head Coach Ryan Cook. The team improved from their 2021 season, in which they went 4-6. Coach Cook is new to the position of head coach, but not to the school; he previously served as an assistant coach for Scotlandville for two seasons, 2016 and 2017. Before his first stint at Scotlandville, Coach Cook served as an assistant coach at McKinley High School, also in Baton Rouge, from 2007 – 2015. From 2018 – 2021, Coach Cook served as the Defensive Coordinator at Madison Prep Academy in Baton Rouge. Coach Cook came back to Scotlandville ready to compete, and his team did just that, improving by 3 wins over the previous season.

Scotlandville doesn’t have a long history with football. The school actually didn’t sponsor a team from 1984 – 2005. The school did win a 3A state championship in 1969. Since the school’s football program came back in 2006, they haven’t won any state titles, but have produced a few NFL players, most notably Brandon Bolden (current Raiders RB), Dontrell Hilliard (current Titans RB) Tenzel Smart (current Jets DL), and Kelvin Joseph (former LSU and current Cowboys CB). Some notable alumni who are no longer playing in the NFL include Dallas Thomas (former Dolphins Guard), Korey Lindsey (former NFL CB for several teams), and Leon Seals (former Bills DE). Most recently, Scotlandville made the playoffs in 2022, beating East Jefferson (Metairie) in the first round before losing to Edna Carr (New Orleans) in the second round, a team Scotlandville actually beat by forfeit earlier in the season. An astounding 13 seniors of this 2022 team will be playing college football come fall.

I interviewed Coach Cook recently and talked to him about the current state of his team. Coach Cook is optimistic about the future. He mentioned that his goal is to obviously win state titles, but realizes that Scotlandville plays in an extremely tough division. He hopes to, at the minimum, have another winning season, in a year that may be considered a rebuilding year. Coach Cook also wants to help his players to maximize their full potential. Scotlandville will lose a lot of good players this upcoming season, including a multi-year starter at Quarterback, and an all-district OT, RB, WR, and two DL. Coach Cook wants to get as many kids playing time next season in order to find the best candidates to replace all these players. Coach Cook also hopes more kids come out for football next season; the roster is thin in many spots depth-wise.

Coach Cook mentioned several players that he believes will make big impacts in 2023:

Jeremiah George is a linebacker from the class of 2024. There are no pictures or statistics online for his 2022 season, but Coach Cook mentioned that he was 1st team all-defense last season in their division.

Kyree Langley is a running back and a linebacker for Scotlandville. He is a dual-athlete, as he also runs track for the school in the spring season.

Broderick Davis is a cornerback from the class of 2024. He is also a dual-athlete, as he plays baseball for the school every spring.