Undefeated Titans not thinking perfection just yet

Published 12:07 am Friday, November 13, 2020

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With the chance at Port Arthur’s first perfect football season in the 18-year history of Memorial High School, and the first time for any high school in the city since 1993 when Port Arthur Austin went undefeated under Richard Marler, Memorial head coach Brian Morgan said his team is still taking it one game at a time.

For the second straight week, Memorial will play for the top spot in the district as

the Titans (6-0, 4-0 in 9-5A-I) take on the Baytown Lee (5-1, 3-1).

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“It’s not something we have talked about as a staff or with the players,” Morgan said. “I think Baytown Lee is a good team. They can put up points. It’s probably the best offense we will face. Someone texted me about (a potential undefeated season) on Sunday and I told them I was just trying to have a good practice on Monday. That is all fine and dandy. If you look too far ahead, you will be 6-3 in a hurry.”

The contest, which is Memorial’s homecoming game, is set to kickoff at 7 p.m. at Memorial Stadium Friday.

Morgan said his team has a weekly plan they stick to in order to help each week feel like the previous. Part of the system involves going over plays that show “championship effort” on the Monday following games.

“You know they understand it,” Morgan said. “During the game, they will make a play and come to the sideline and tell us that we have to put that one down to show. They know what we are expecting out of that.”

Another part of the “weekly blueprint” is to ask the team to play complimentary football.

“We had an excellent example of it last week when Jah’mar (Sanders) threw a pick,” Morgan said. “Two plays later the defense got the ball right back on a fumble. Last week, you can see it because Jah’mar had two picks and as he was coming off the field, the defensive guys were telling him ‘We got you,’ as they were running on the field.”

Even though the Titans’ defense is playing at a high level, Morgan said he has to make sure they are recognizing opportunities to improve.

“If the (Port Neches-Groves) game was the peak of the mountaintop for us, it was not going to be a good season,” he said. “If the Beaumont United game was the peak, it’s not a good season. We want to be better. To be a good team in the playoffs, we have to get better every week.”

Morgan said being undefeated means the Titans will get the best efforts from every team each week.

“We have to understand that we are playing teams that are hitting their peak,” he said. “They are going to give everything they got. We are going to get everything from Baytown Lee. We are just trying to keep getting better. If the team that played Port Neches shows up Friday, we won’t win. We have to be seven weeks better than Port Neches.”

Baytown Lee’s lone loss of the season came at the hands of La Porte in a 37-14 decision.

This week will be a true test for the vaunted Titans defense, who will be facing an offense that has only failed to score 30 points twice, one of which came in the aforementioned loss and again in a 28-14 win over Goose Creek Memorial.

If the Titans win Friday, the only two teams standing between them and a perfect season are Friendswood (2-4, 2-2) and Baytown Sterling (1-5, 0-4).