Matt Vines

COUSHATTA – The playoffs start now.

That’s the mentality that the Red River football team has to take as the No. 30 Bulldogs are in mad dash for one of 28 playoff spots in the final two weeks.

The Bulldogs (1-7, 0-3 District 4-2A) enter into an almost surely must-win situation when they head to Lakeside (5-3, 1-1).

Red River hasn’t been able to build upon its lone win three weeks ago, an impressive victory over a ranked Class 1A Logansport squad that still has just the one loss.

The Bulldogs slowed down a pass-first Tigers team that week, but three almost exclusively running teams have averaged more than 50 points per game in losses to Winnfield (68-39), Many (43-22), and Mansfield (48-12).

Enrollment and parish population size undoubtedly play a role as the Bulldogs’ roster size is only a little more than half of those three teams.

Red River has the athletes in the skill positions to compete – Lathyn Lewis and Landon Wilson are two of the best pairs in the district while quarterback Ashton Johnson has improved by leaps and bounds in his first season as a starter thrust into action by Wilson’s preseason injury.

But the lines of scrimmage are what’s costing the Bulldogs as depth and size along the line is the difference.

Lakeside has a similar roster size (34 Warriors and 29 Bulldogs as listed on maxpreps.com), but they’ll bring the same run-first philosophy as their other district mates.

Freshman running back Malik Thorn is nearing 1,000 yards as he leads a stable of runners in the Wing-T that includes quarterback Levi Bogdan.

Head coach John Ware has rebuilt Lakeside into a competent program again, bringing his hard-nose style from North Webster.

The Warriors didn’t have the guns to hang with district favorite Mansfield in a 42-15 loss, but Lakeside has won its five other games aside from that one.

They topped Winnfield 20-14 at home and will try to eat clock and yards on the ground to outlast Red River.

The Bulldogs have an athlete advantage and will want to create explosion plays on the edges, but they’ll need to consistently convert third and fourth downs to keep drives alive while getting off the field enough on defense.

While Red River could certainly get in the playoffs by winning just one of its final two games, the finale opponent Loyola (5-3), which was ranked in Class 3A earlier in the season, is the likely tougher draw.

Which means the Bulldogs need a win to climb into the playoff picture heading into the regular-season finale, and hope the power points from the Lakeside and Loyola games are enough to keep them in the postseason should the Bulldogs not pull a Loyola upset on the road.

Lakeside is 5-3 with five wins in their last six games.

A closer look reveals that some of those wins (North Caddo, Plain Dealing and Oberlin) combined three wins. Ob has zero, PD 1, and NC 2 But East Beauregard and Winnfield each have 5 or so wins combined 10

The Warriors score against Mansfield is similar – 42-15 loss to 48-12 loss for Red River.

The style is going to be similar to Mansfield and Winnfield, power run game, want to dominate lines of scrimmage.

Freshman RB Malik Thorn is close to topping 1,000-yard mark that leads a stable of backs. QB can run.

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