NEDERLAND — The moral of this past Saturday’s Lumberton-Beaumont Central game at the Butch Thomas Center may very well be that Central is a football team capable of scoring the big win.

“I told our football team, in the five games [now six] we’ve played, it’s probably the most athletically skilled team we’ve played since Crosby,” Nederland coach Larry Neumann said. “That puts them in a pretty elite category in our minds in terms of the matchups we’re going to have to be dealing with Friday night. It’s going to be a huge challenge.”

One would expect a huge challenge when two teams that shared last year’s District 22-5A championship meet to maintain at least a share of first place this time around Friday night in Nederland.

Nederland’s defense must find a way to slow down four-star Central running back Devwah Whaley. The Texas A&M, Georgia and Oklahoma recruit (among others) scored the Jaguars’ first three touchdowns in the 28-21 win over previously unbeaten Lumberton, upping his total to seven for the season.

Whaley’s athleticism, and that of his teammates, grabs Neumann’s attention the most about Central (2-3, 2-0). Online video shows Whaley’s ability to break down defenses in a split second with his downhill speed out of the backfield.

“I’ve been coaching 15 years, and I coached some NFL players and a bunch of college players, and he has about as much ability as anybody,” Central coach Toby Foreman said. “He has the ability to run like a cannon and he has good lateral movement.”

The Jaguars’ offensive linemen also move fast, Neumann said, and can probably cause defenses to not be aligned correctly in time. That’s been a point of focus in the Bulldogs’ practices this week, as they try to better their 413.8 yards allowed per game, second only to Baytown Lee’s 429 for most in 22-5A.

The good news for the Dogs (3-2, 2-0) is that the Jaguars’ offense total only 312.6, seventh-best in the eight-team district.

“They do what they do extremely well,” Neumann said. “They give you different looks and run their offense out of those different looks. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll probably be misaligned.”

Tonight’s duel at Bulldogs Stadium can be viewed as a battle of two of the best running backs in 22-5A. Whaley’s 754 yards are second only to the 814 for both Nederland’s Austin Krautz and Beaumont Ozen’s Calvin Tyler. Krautz, who has eight touchdowns to his name, also averages 8.92 yards per carry.

For Foreman, it’s more about slowing down the total package that is Nederland.

“Nobody has stopped them this year, but we have to slow down Krautz, [Tavian] Mayfield, [Jalin] Johnson and [Connor] Perkins,” Foreman said. “They have two really good tackles. They’re playing like a well-oiled machine and they’re rolling.”