'I'm ready to do this’

The last time Ruston quarterback Josh Brantley played live football he had the game of his life.

Flash back to Dec. 9, 2023 — Ruston versus Zachary in the Superdome — for the Division I Non-select championship.

For the Broncos, they keyed in on stopping All-State running back Jordan “Jet” Hayes from taking off. It worked — for the most part. Ruston’s primary weapon may have been held down, but the Bearcats had an answer in their back pocket, one Zachary wasn’t prepared for.

Brantley, then a junior, took control of the offense, and truly the entire game, to lift the Bearcats to their first state championship since 1990 with a career-best 328 total yards and 3 touchdowns. For his efforts, he was named Division I Non-select MVP.

But in Brantley’s mind, that may have been a warm-up for what he hopes to bring this year leading the Bearcats.

After all, it’s 1-ART (After Ruston’s Title). The Bearcats are the target of every school in Class 5A this fall. They’re no longer hunters. They’re being hunted. Rivals and fellow traditional powers want to dethrone the champs, and Brantley knows it.

But the thing about Ruston’s quarterback is he enjoys proving people wrong. He enjoys having pressure to perform.

Doubters? They make him work harder.

So, after recently being named to the Warrick Dunn Award Preseason Watch List — given to the state’s best football player — Brantley, ahead of his senior season, is putting the state on notice that he’s coming for the respect he believes he and his teammates are still due.

“That just makes me want to go even harder, just knowing that people see me as one of the top players in the state,” Brantley said. “I feel like I got big shoes to fill. I’m ready to do this. I am one of the top players in the state.

“I’m not going to lie, the state championship really showed me I can do all this. Now, I know what I’m capable of doing so I’m going to do that every week, week by week.”

Brantley burst onto the scene last fall for 1,175 yards and 9 touchdowns to go with 866 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns — the most total scores (20) by a Ruston quarterback since Eric Outley had 31 total touchdowns in 2018.

Ruston head coach Jerrod Baugh can see Brantley wants to show more this season, both as a runner and thrower. He can sense his quarterback is out to show his state championship performance wasn’t a flash in the pan. Between the Warrick Dunn attention and his commitment to Tulane this summer, Baugh said Brantley’s busy preseason is well deserved.

“That’s a very special award. Jadon Mayfield was up for that last year. I didn’t know a lot about it before,” Baugh said. “I think they had done it and then stopped for a period and then brought it back last year. After learning about that through Jadon, it’s a very special thing and for him to be on the watch list going into the season is good.

“Josh has a chance to do something very special here as the quarterback of our football team,” Baugh continued. “He’s accepted that and I think he wants to prove to everybody that he can play game-in and game-out similar to what he played in the state championship game. I think he’s worked towards that.”

Before Brantley’s outing in the Dome, the first sign he enjoys big moments and catching teams by surprise was Ruston’s road battle at Neville on Sept. 29.

With the offense struggling to move the ball and find the endzone, the Bearcats needed a second-half surge, led by Brantley, to pull out a 14-10 victory.

One-hundred-forty-six rushing yards and a pair of touchdowns later, Brantley and his teammates walked out of hostile territory with a statement win — what would be his first that he can deliver when the moment gets big.

“The Neville game, we couldn’t get anything else going and that’s where it was first like OK, we gotta make something happen. They just let me start running, and the more I started running the more confidence we got as a team. That carried on week by week,” Brantley said.

This fall, Ruston will head into the season knowing what to ask of Brantley on the ground and through the air, rather than adjusting midseason. Baugh expects it will give Brantley and his cast of playmakers a leg up from where they were this time last season.

Baugh, not one for one-to-one comparisons most of the time, said Brantley’s 6-5, 210-pound frame is unlike the recent quarterbacks he’s coached and allows Ruston to get creative in play calling.

“The thing that Josh brings to the table is obviously his stature,” Baugh said. “He’s a heavy runner so you can be in an empty set, and everybody thinks it’s a throwing situation, but you got a running threat in the backfield and as big as he is they have to account for that. He brings some things physically that you have to account for, keeping guys in the box and that helps you in the throwing game. Or if they remove those guys, it leaves them shorthanded in the box. That’s a problem for coaches just to make a decision of what you’re going to give up.”

Brantley knows it for himself now too, having diced up some of the tougher defenses in 5A last fall.

And with Hayes, Dylone Brooks, Ahmad Hudson, Joran Parker, and himself at the offense’s disposal in each play, Brantley is eager to take the field once again and lead a dynamic unit.

“Everybody said I was one-dimensional, so my pass game has gotten much better. The targets I got? Way better,” Brantley said. “They just know how to make plays, and we’re going to get those plays made on the field.”

As he talked more and more about the offensive cast at his fingertips, Brantley couldn’t help but crack a wide smile. He couldn’t stop thinking about how the Bearcats’ offense is shaping up to be no joke this year.

“I’m not going to lie to you, I’m loving this offense,” Brantley said. “ Last year, we were something but this offense, I feel really good about it, especially since I’ve developed more as a player. I’m more useful having all these targets now. Zhy (Scott) was one of my favorite targets, but Ahmad has stepped up big time and he’s been making some plays lately in camp. I’d say we’re really off to a better start than where we were last year.”

Brantley and the Bearcats will battle Neville in the 2024 Bayou Jamb on Aug. 31 at Malone Stadium on the campus of UL-Monroe.