Arlington Seguin continues its roll with a decisive district-opening win over Burleson
The Arlington Seguin football team had been on a roll to start the 2024 season. The Cougars had won their first two games by an average score of 54-7, including a 50-14 romp over highly regarded Red Oak.
Seguin was hoping to carry that momentum into District 3-5A Division 2 play and the Cougars did just that racing past Burleson 39-7 on Thursday night at Burleson ISD Stadium.
The recipe for Seguin’s success has been an offense that uses a big, athletic offensive line to spring running backs and protect quarterback Chevy Andews to go along with a stifling defense.
That’s exactly what the Cougars used against the Elks.
“I think we hang our hat on flying to the ball defensively and trying to limit possessions for the opposing offense,” said Seguin coach Joe Gordon. “We try to get the ball back to our offense to control the time of possession and hopefully put us in a position to score. That’s the game plan week in and week out.”
Seguin (3-0 overall, 1-0 District 3-5A D2), which started 3-0 for the first time since 2015, jumped out to a 25-0 lead. Andrews was picked off by Burleson defensive back Lynden Kilgore at the Elk’s 11 yard line to end the Cougars’ first series, but Seguin scored touchdowns on three of its next four possessions.
Isaac Bly started things with a four-yard scoring run then Andrews took to the air for two more scores for the Cougars. Andrews hit Carterrious Brown, an SMU commit who is No. 29 in the Star-Telegram Top 100 Players, for a 23-yard score to make it 19-0 with 8:19 left in the second quarter.
“We work hard every week to come out here and perform like this,” said Brown, who had three catches, two for scores, for 70 yards. “This was actually a bad game for us, but we’ll get it back on track for next week.”
G’Mani Smith hauled in a pass from Andrews across the middle and made some nice moves to get to the end zone for a 61-yard TD to up the lead to 25-0 with 5:51 left before the intermission.
“When you break down a team schematically from one week to the next you find the holes and what what the defense gives you,” said Gordon. “Just another week of breakdowns and preparation. We knew where they were going to be and how they were going to adjust and just stayed true to our breakdowns and their tendencies.”
While the Seguin offense was clicking, the defense was smothering the Elks. The Cougars forced two punts in the first half and picked off two passes.
Jakobe Perkins’ Pick 6 from 38 yards out gave Seguin a 13-0 lead with 5:39 left in the first quarter. The second interception came three plays later when Jacob Bly picked off a Burleson pass at midfield.
“We’ve been preparing all week and we knew what they were going to do and the ball just came right to me,” said Perkins, a linebacker. “We play together and like to play fast and physical. That’s all we do.”
Burleson (1-2, 0-1) finally got something going late in the first half, driving 68 yards in 11 plays, capped by a one-yard run by Nate Jackson that cut the lead to 25-7 at the 34 second mark of the second quarter.
Before the Burleson scoring drive, the Seguin defense had held the Elks minus-10 total yards. Burleson picked up 112 yards of total offense on the night rushing 32 times for 23 yards.
“I’m really proud of our guys up front on defense,” said Gordon. “They really played together as a unit and played gap-sound football. We like to play a swarming, relentless style of football, but also want to play very smart.”
The Seguin offensive line of Chris Edwards, Justus Wright, Ramon Villareal, Jayden Robinson and Vaiden Kincaide opened holes for seven different running backs, but more importantly protected Andrews allowing him to pick apart the Elks’ secondary.
“Those big boys are some dogs,” said Brown of the Seguin offensive line. “They practice all day, just like this, against our defense. They’re gonna come.
“Especially Justus (Wright) who’s a sophomore, but he plays like a grown man. That goes for the whole line.”
Seguin, which is primed to make an appearance in the Star-Telegram Class 5A rankings next week, tallied 445 yards of total offense with 157 coming on the ground on 32 totes and 288 through the air. Andrews completed 13 of 16 passes, including 10 in a row at one point.
Andrews threw for four scores adding a 55-yard TD pass to Malachi Meche and another 23-yard scoring pass to Brown in the second half. Meche had three catches for 69 yards and Smith hauled in three for 96 yards.
Nate Jackson was the work horse for Burleson with 44 rushing yards on 17 carries. Jaden Hernandez provided a spark for the Elks with four receptions for 78 yards.
This story was originally published September 12, 2024 at 10:34 PM.