Nothing against Rancho Grande, Carmela's and Casa Ole' but there are times when a guy needs to leave those enchiladas alone. Marcquis Pitre knows.

By the time young Marcquis reached Memorial high school in summer 2006 as a freshman, his weight ballooned toward the big 3--0--0.

Marcquis only stood 5-11 and had to play a mobile right guard spot on the offensive line. That meant Marquis went to the chow line more than his football coaches could tolerate.

Marcquis is on the bubble in Nov. 2009 as a Port Arthur Memorial senior. His fellow Titans football players are too. For much different reasons, Pitre has been on a bubble of a different kind in previous seasons.

He's on the bubble as a potential Port Arthur News Super Team selection in his final high school football season. His Memorial squad is on the bubble for a potential Class 5A state playoff berth going into the regular season's final week.

That's a major contrast from the bubble confronting Pitre earlier in his high school football career.

Marcquis' earlier bubble was that he simply was too big. He was carrying around too much cargo. Food tasted good. Workouts were hard. Running was not fun. You get the idea.

When Memorial meets Baytown Lee on Friday in Baytown's Stallworth Stadium at 7 p.m., Pitre needs to leave the bubble back in Port Arthur and go all-out from 7 to 10 p.m. He needs his teammates to do the same. That's not what they did last week in a terribly humiliating 36-30 loss to previously winless Channelview.

Marcquis was not even looking ahead to Lee on Friday when he was talking Tuesday afternoon to this reporter.

"We just have to go out and have a great practice today," he said. "If we work hard Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, then everything will fall into place on Friday. We didn't do that last week. We came out flat. Then we regrouped by halftime and realized what we needed to do, but it was too late by the time we fought back."

An 0-8 Channelview ambushed Memorial for a 21-0 first quarter surprise because the Titans failed to prepare adequately enough. Marcquis departed Memorial Stadium for the last time that night in tears. A revolting two weeks had caused Memorial to go from one extreme to the other. The players had trouble coping with the disappointment of losing to West Brook.

This week's workouts have convinced Pitre that the Titans have refocused for Lee.

"We're going to be more focused, I promise you that," he said. "This is a do-or-die situation. There's really no tomorrow and you're not supposed to take any team lightly. We were licking our wounds from the West Brook game the whole week. That ain't going to happen again."

The 17-year-old son of Marcus Pitre and Sabrina Ransom has felt a closeness to his head coach Kenny Harrison who advised Marcquis to reduce to 275 by the start of this summer's pre-season workouts.

Pitre noticed a different Titans head coach last week. The loss to West Brook devastated Harrison. The resignation of Dr. Mark Honea devastated Harrison. Kenny's sister Eukisha Tyler was in the hospital for three days. The Titans simply had a difficult time trying to refocus.