Citizen’s return highlights scrimmage

Tre’Vonte Citizen was filled with hype and promise when he last played football in Lake Charles.

He was one of the country’s best high school running backs with a bright future.

Two seasons at Miami were filled with injury and frustration, as Citizen waited for his chance.

That will come this fall, but he gave McNeese State fans a preview of the coming attraction Saturday inside Cowboy Stadium.

With his second carry of the Cowboys’ first scrimmage, Citizen raced 50 yards, running over, through, and around defenders. It wasn’t even his best run of the day.

He later had an even more electrifying 44-yarder that ended in his second touchdown on his first two drives. He would finish with 131 yards on just seven carries in his homecoming, a 19.6 average per rush.

“I felt great today,” said Citizen. “It was good to be back home in The Hole, you couldn’t ask for anything better.”

The Lake Charles College Prep product was not the only runner making a comeback.

Senior D’Angelo Durham, who has had injuries cut his last two seasons short at McNeese, showed he still has some gas in the tank. He ran for 97 yards and four touchdowns on just five carries.

“Good to see T.C. (Citizen) get out there and contribute early,” said McNeese head coach Gary Goff. “He is a big, strong guy.

And D-Low (Durham) had a big day. He’s so patient and so big and strong himself, and he’s a veteran who’s played a lot of football so that was great to see. That backfield, we got a lot of weapons.”

The offense ran the ball 36 times for 322 yards in all.

“We have a lot of guys who can run the football in our room,” said sophomore Joshon Barbie, who led McNeese’s ground game last season as a redshirt freshman. “The competition is great and it is making us all better.”

Barbie had 13 yards on four carries.

As for the quarterbacks, newcomer Clifton McDowell, a Montana transfer, finished 8 of 12 for 121 yards while returner Kamden Sixkiller was 12 of 20 for 126.

“We had some drops and some missed reads,” said Goff. “Overall, we had some good and some bad, which is to be expected. We did some good things and we have some things we have to clean up.”

The Cowboys were tagged for six holding penalties, which may have been partially accounted for by the way the officials called the scrimmage.

“I asked the officials to be hard and to call everything,” said Goff. “Some of those are on me, I wanted them on tape.

“We have to learn from those mistakes. We had three penalties early on that stalled drives and penalties are drive killers so we have to be locked into our assignment and not put our body in a position to make mistakes.”

Another new guy had a big day. Curtis Deville, a transfer from Purdue who attended Iowa High, had four catches for 54 yards and a touchdown.

“That guy is a playmaker,” said Goff. “He makes tough catches look easy.”

Deville was by far the best receiver for McNeese during spring workouts.

The coach’s son, Tyler Goff, had a 9-yard TD grab himself.

As for the defense, Marques White, Micah Davey, and Stephen Johnson each had a sack. Jaylen Jackson had the only interception while Johnquai Lewis forced a fumble recovered by Joshua Pontigo.

Cleaning up a defense that allowed 250 yards a game on the ground last year is a key to the Cowboys’ success this season.

“Defense has to be a lot better, we know that, said Goff.,” It’s going to help the entire program and help the offense but very pleased today they gave up some third down and longs early on but they adjusted and started flying around and putting some pressure on the offense.”

One of those brought in to help do that, linebacker Tristan Driggers, a transfer from Louisiana-Monroe, thinks it will happen.

“I just feel like we have a lot more experience in the front seven this year, I feel like we got dogs all around,” said Driggers.

Tyler Larco booted a 50-yard field goal early in the scrimmage. The kick bounced off the crossbar and over for the day’s first score.

“Overall it’s our first scrimmage it’s hot, it’s easy for guys to start having their mind caving in but that’s something we’ve been harping on is being mentally strong and that’s all the adversity we need,” Goff said.

McNeese will open the season at Tarleton State on Aug. 24.