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Shepard puts forth a performance for the ages
By Michael Sudhalter
WACO – Attention LSU football fans, help at the quarterback position is on the way.
Not long after y’all were watching your defending BCS National Champions give up a 30-14 lead and lose to Arkansas in Little Rock, 31-30, I was at Waco ISD Stadium covering the next great Bayou Bengal prospect, Cy Ridge High senior quarterback Russell Shepard in a UIL Class 5A Division II Regional Championship Game on Friday.
Now, Shepard, as nearly everyone knows, is widely considered the best high school prospect in the nation. He’ll step on to the Baton Rouge campus in January for a squad in desperate need for a playmaker in the pocket.
So, it shouldn’t surprise me – a sports editor who’s covered Shepard throughout the season – if he finishes with 546 total yards and six touchdowns in a third-round playoff game.
Yes, he was virtually a one-man show Friday night as the Rams lost to Copperas Cove, 55-48.
But the statistics don’t do his performance justice.
Every time he touched the ball, you knew he was going to make something happen. Whether it was flinging a crisp pass to one of the Rams’ receivers or eluding six or seven defenders and then sprinting into the end zone for a touchdown.
And he made it all look so easy. It wasn’t effortless, instead the product of hours and hours of training and practice.
Shepard is in excellent company – not just in Texas high school football, or football in general.
The only time I’ve ever witnessed such an amazing athletic performance in a loss, I was 6 years old in 1986. My father took me to a first round playoff game between the Boston Celtics of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish against the Chicago Bulls and a young Michael Jordan.
Everybody knew Jordan would make a big play every time he touched the ball. He ended up scoring 63 points in a triple overtime loss, but everybody in the old Boston Garden, including the Kindergarten version of me, knew a superstar was born.
I hadn’t quite experienced that same feeling until I watched Shepard last night. You were watching someone in the middle of their masterpiece.
For aficionados of art and music, I’d compare it to seeing Picasso paint his pictures or Beethoven write his classics.
But for sports fans, this was the ultimate viewing experience.
Shepard was basically asked to carry the team, since senior running back Hasan Lipscomb, a Minnesota commit, saw limited action.
Shepard and Lipscomb arguably made up the best backfield in the state, and anyone who watched the Rams’ 68-21 win over Cy Falls on ESPNU last month knows what I’m talking about.
But Lipscomb was injured in the regular season finale and couldn’t play as much as he was once did.
Then, you had junior defensive back Michael Powell, who’s the Rams’ future at running back, getting some carries and even a touchdown.
Down 45-28 with 11 minutes in the game, I knew the Rams still had a very strong chance with Shepard in the pocket.
Some would say the Rams probably should have gone to Powell a little more, to take the pressure off Shepard.
But I know Shepard thrives under pressure and he was going to win or lose that game on his own.
Down 48-40, Shepard faced a 3rd and 11 at his own 29, and scrambled 71 yards for a touchdown. Then, he strolled into the right side of the end zone to tie the game at 48, with no Bulldawg defenders even getting close to him.
The superstar ended up fumbling the ball at the Cove 29-yard line after running into a teammate with less than two minutes in the game. If that hadn’t happened, I’m almost certain that he would have scored within two plays.
But he’s a superstar, not superman. And he was bound to make a mistake.
Cy Ridge’s pass defense has been a question mark all season, and Copperas Cove gambled on a play with nine seconds remaining and ended up taking a 55-48 lead.
Even with six seconds in the game, I didn’t count Shepard out.
I wrote a feature on Shepard before the playoff started, and he told me, “I’m going to turn my game up a notch and do some stuff that nobody’s ever done before in Texas. I’m about to put up some crazy numbers in these playoffs.”
As an experienced sports editor, I’m accustomed to hearing these kind of pre-game declarations, but with Shepard, I believed every word of it.
He scored 15 touchdowns in three playoff games, led his team from behind twice and nearly another time and finished with 43 touchdowns this season.
All while carrying himself as a class act on and off the field.
On Dec. 10, the Touchdown Club of Houston will announce its Offensive Player of the Year.
If Shepard doesn’t win it, someone needs to call the Texas Rangers to investigate what happened.
Not long after y’all were watching your defending BCS National Champions give up a 30-14 lead and lose to Arkansas in Little Rock, 31-30, I was at Waco ISD Stadium covering the next great Bayou Bengal prospect, Cy Ridge High senior quarterback Russell Shepard in a UIL Class 5A Division II Regional Championship Game on Friday.
Now, Shepard, as nearly everyone knows, is widely considered the best high school prospect in the nation. He’ll step on to the Baton Rouge campus in January for a squad in desperate need for a playmaker in the pocket.
So, it shouldn’t surprise me – a sports editor who’s covered Shepard throughout the season – if he finishes with 546 total yards and six touchdowns in a third-round playoff game.
Yes, he was virtually a one-man show Friday night as the Rams lost to Copperas Cove, 55-48.
But the statistics don’t do his performance justice.
Every time he touched the ball, you knew he was going to make something happen. Whether it was flinging a crisp pass to one of the Rams’ receivers or eluding six or seven defenders and then sprinting into the end zone for a touchdown.
And he made it all look so easy. It wasn’t effortless, instead the product of hours and hours of training and practice.
Shepard is in excellent company – not just in Texas high school football, or football in general.
The only time I’ve ever witnessed such an amazing athletic performance in a loss, I was 6 years old in 1986. My father took me to a first round playoff game between the Boston Celtics of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish against the Chicago Bulls and a young Michael Jordan.
Everybody knew Jordan would make a big play every time he touched the ball. He ended up scoring 63 points in a triple overtime loss, but everybody in the old Boston Garden, including the Kindergarten version of me, knew a superstar was born.
I hadn’t quite experienced that same feeling until I watched Shepard last night. You were watching someone in the middle of their masterpiece.
For aficionados of art and music, I’d compare it to seeing Picasso paint his pictures or Beethoven write his classics.
But for sports fans, this was the ultimate viewing experience.
Shepard was basically asked to carry the team, since senior running back Hasan Lipscomb, a Minnesota commit, saw limited action.
Shepard and Lipscomb arguably made up the best backfield in the state, and anyone who watched the Rams’ 68-21 win over Cy Falls on ESPNU last month knows what I’m talking about.
But Lipscomb was injured in the regular season finale and couldn’t play as much as he was once did.
Then, you had junior defensive back Michael Powell, who’s the Rams’ future at running back, getting some carries and even a touchdown.
Down 45-28 with 11 minutes in the game, I knew the Rams still had a very strong chance with Shepard in the pocket.
Some would say the Rams probably should have gone to Powell a little more, to take the pressure off Shepard.
But I know Shepard thrives under pressure and he was going to win or lose that game on his own.
Down 48-40, Shepard faced a 3rd and 11 at his own 29, and scrambled 71 yards for a touchdown. Then, he strolled into the right side of the end zone to tie the game at 48, with no Bulldawg defenders even getting close to him.
The superstar ended up fumbling the ball at the Cove 29-yard line after running into a teammate with less than two minutes in the game. If that hadn’t happened, I’m almost certain that he would have scored within two plays.
But he’s a superstar, not superman. And he was bound to make a mistake.
Cy Ridge’s pass defense has been a question mark all season, and Copperas Cove gambled on a play with nine seconds remaining and ended up taking a 55-48 lead.
Even with six seconds in the game, I didn’t count Shepard out.
I wrote a feature on Shepard before the playoff started, and he told me, “I’m going to turn my game up a notch and do some stuff that nobody’s ever done before in Texas. I’m about to put up some crazy numbers in these playoffs.”
As an experienced sports editor, I’m accustomed to hearing these kind of pre-game declarations, but with Shepard, I believed every word of it.
He scored 15 touchdowns in three playoff games, led his team from behind twice and nearly another time and finished with 43 touchdowns this season.
All while carrying himself as a class act on and off the field.
On Dec. 10, the Touchdown Club of Houston will announce its Offensive Player of the Year.
If Shepard doesn’t win it, someone needs to call the Texas Rangers to investigate what happened.
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