Cougars fall to Braves on senior night in 63-7 loss

North Putnam senior quarterback Gabe McFadden (4) and coach Greg Barrett huddle before a play. (Banner Graphic/JARED JERNAGAN)

ROACHDALE -- The North Putnam football team held its annual senior night festivities on Friday night and welcomed the Brebeuf Jesuit Braves to the field. The Cougars could not pull it out as they lost 63-7.

"That's one of the best teams in 3A," NPHS coach Greg Barrett said. "They are a great team with lots of speed and athleticism. Tonight we just did not maintain blocks or keep drives alive. That was a little disappointing because I thought we could have played a lot better tonight."

Despite losing the last home game of the season, playing Brebeuf did pay its dividends. The players got to experience a much faster and athletic football team which will help them next week against Cloverdale and going into sectionals.

One huge bright spot on the night for the Cougars was the special teams. The kick returns were very well played except for one misjudged kick. Senior Beau Green had six returns for 80 yards.

Green also did a great job punting the ball and pinned the Braves back on every punt. Each attempt was high and when it hit the ground it got an extra 10-15 yards of roll. Green had three punts that went 50 yards or more, which is a strong improvement over the beginning of the season.

"Beau's done a great job at giving our defense good field position. He has done a heck of a job all year for us, and it's been great," Barrett said.

Another bright spot for the Cougars was their disciplined approach to the game. In years past the Cougars have struggled with mental mistakes and having sometimes close to 15 penalties in a game. North Putnam changed that outlook tonight as they only committed two all game long.

"I think we did a better job tonight. We work on that daily. I think that the few penalties we did have tonight were questionable whether they were holding or not but, we are not where we should be yet," Barrett said.

The lone Cougar score came in the third quarter. The NPHS defense played solid and held the Braves to a three-and-out and then the special teams came up with a big fumble recovery when the ball was snapped over the head of the Braves punter. The Cougars gained possession at the Brebeuf six-yard line and were in their best position to score all night.

After two runs amounting to just one yard the Cougars decided to pass on third-and-goal from the five-yard line.

Senior Gabe McFadden took the snap, rolled out to the left and found junior Danny Smith in the back of the endzone for the first score of the game for the Cougars.

Before the game North Putnam honored the very successful senior class who have had a 28-17 overall record and were state championship runners-up in 2010, their freshman year. Coach Barrett only had good things to say about this years graduating class.

"They have been great positive role models, they are a hard working group of kids. They are actually great kids. Unfortunately things haven't gone our way this year," NPHS head coach Greg Barrett said.

After losing 14 seniors this year the underclassmen for North Putnam will have to step up in a big way next year. The seniors showed the incoming freshman the right way to handle themselves on and off the field this year, along with the sophomores and juniors.

"They lead them the right way. They have taught these younger kids how to play and they try to make sure that they are doing all the right things in the classroom, in the community, and on the field," Barrett said. "We had a great group of seniors, I feel awful for them."

North Putnam visits the Cloverdale Clovers next week and hope to earn their first win. The Cougars will try to avoid their first winless season since 1995.

At North Putnam
Brebeuf.............21 28 0 14 -- 63
North Putnam......0 0 7 0 -- 7