Eighth-Ranked Carlisle Rolling Along in Clay Baker’s First Year as Head Coach
[By Stephen Amason, Special to ETSN.fm]
In his first year as the Carlisle head football coach, Clay Baker has got the Indians hitting their stride.
Eighth-ranked Carlisle has a record of 6-0 and 1-0 in District 10-2A Division I. The Indians are led by a talented group of seniors, and they’ve been dominating all year, outscoring opponents, 314-52, on the season.
“We got a good group of seniors that have done a good job of leadings us,” Baker said. “This group of guys have got big expectations, they’ve had success the past couple of years so, this is what we expected.”
One of those seniors is quarterback Gerald Turner, who has 846 passing yards and 602 yards rushing with a total of 22 touchdowns on the year.
“He’s definitely a special talent, there’s a lot of times he makes me look good as a play-caller when it’s just him making something happen,” Baker said. “It’s always good to have a guy back there like that, he’s a dual threat and the defense has got to respect him. He’s also done a great job at learning our offense and giving me another coach on the field, he understands why we call certain plays and he’s commanding our offense for us.”
Defensively, the Indians have only allowed opponents to score an average of eight points per game.
Last Friday, Carlisle defeated an undefeated Cushing team, 69-8. In that game, senior linebacker Walker Adams had a big game with 13 tackles and one interception.
“Walker has been big time for us on the defensive side of the ball,” Baker said. “What he did for us last week was nothing new for us, he does that every week. He’s the same way as Gerald is for us on the defensive side, he’s a coach on the field for us, there’s no doubt he’s the leader of that side of the ball.
“Our guys on defense have done a great job of knowing the game plan and knowing what we got heading into that week, and they’ve really been ready to go every week.”
Carlisle has a home game Thursday night against a very good team in the Alto Yellowjackets. Both teams won their district openers and, Baker knows what he’s up against when it come to the ‘Jackets.
“They’ve got one of the better traditions here in East Texas, year-in, year-out they’re always gonna put out a good football team. I think (head coach Ricky Joe Meeks) has done a really good job and he’s got them guys ready to go and got them fired up, so I think it’s going to be a good game for us."