Cullen Matherne took over the Opelousas Catholic football program in the off-season. In a short amount of time, he installed a new offense and defense and put this team together.
After a slow start, the Vikings are figuring things out. Their best win of the year came recently against Catholic of Point Coupee, and they have their eyes on another district title.
With still three regular season games left, we caught up with Coach Matherne to discuss his first year. He is the subject of today’s Prep Profile Q&A.
QUESTION: You took over this program in the offseason and when we talked preseason, you mentioned putting in a whole new offense and defense, and how daunting that was. Seven games in, how do you think some of that’s worked out? What are you guys still looking to to improve?
ANSWER: Yeah it was. It got off to a slow start with it, which didn’t help with the first two teams. We played Oak Grove and Ascension Catholic. Growing pains occurred, but we’re glad they occurred. Last Thursday night we beat a very good Point Coupee team. For us it was one of those barometers where you felt like if the offense was going to click and this is the right thing to do, then it was going to click last Thursday. And it did give us a lot of confidence. And for a team that plays straight man-to-man, last year man, we played zone coverage extremely well. Thursday night got 3 picks out of it. And so the growing pains were necessary. We knew they were going to occur. But we’re feeling pretty good now that the rhythms there, timings there, and teamwork like you said. The chemistry has gotten so much better. So the growing pains occurred, but we’re glad it happened.
Q: When you’re doing something like that, making some changes in the system or coming in and implementing, how important is it to have a guy at the quarterback position, both for the quarterback position on offense and then somebody who you trust on defense to be able to take that in? Because I know you have some senior leaders.
A: Yeah. I mean, Mark Collins and Jordan Luna. Mark is the quarterback offense. Luna, I call him the quarterback of the defense. They mean a lot. They have made this process work, especially from an offensive point of view that I coach. A guy like Mark makes it work. He makes it work and he makes me look smarter than I actually am by doing what he does and so to have guys like that helps. Our coaching staff, we feel like we’ve done a great job, but we realize at the end of the day it comes down to the players.
Q: From here you have a few regular season games left, including some big ones in the district and a St. Eds team looming at the end of the year who’s who’s really good right now. So how do you keep your team focused on the moment and what they’ve got accomplished and then of course getting into what you hope is going to be a postseason run?
A: I tell them we’re really focused one day at a time. One of our mottos is what’s the most important thing we do? It’s what we’re doing right now. And so I don’t even let them talk about Sacred Heart. I don’t let them talk about St Ed’s. I don’t let them talk about the playoffs. We’ll worry about the playoffs when they get here. We could worry about our ranking and where we stand all we want but we won’t know until that day actually arrives. You know the most important thing is how we practice today and in our opponent this Friday.
Q: And lastly as you head into this stretch here what’s the the main thing you’re focused on?
A: You know just keep getting healthy. We’re a little banged up but we’re we’re fine. And then playing JV. We played a good JV game last night. So we want to just try to build the depth on the team up because when you really get down to playoffs, you’re gonna need a full roster. You need more than 22. And so just as a whole, I think our starters are really starting to gel well together and play well together. But it’s getting everybody on board because you never know when you need it in that one day it’s next man up.