The third week of Louisiana’s high school football season featured some of the most eye-catching and message-sending results yet.
Some of the state’s highest profile matchups featured surprises, impressive rallies, reassertions or reminders of power and dominant, lopsided margins against fellow contenders.
Fans around the state who have followed Louisiana vs. All Y’all through the years are familiar with the weekly feature during each football season to spotlight some of these notable victories that carry some big-picture storyline.
But it’s often important to remind folks that the “Statement Wins” moniker does not exclusively mean the most surprising outcomes of the week. The “statement” may vary between each game, but each game included said something of note that caught our eye. Sometimes there’s a surprise element, but that’s not always the primary factor.
Here’s a look at the five that topped our list this week, including some real marquee matchups and memorable results.
1. ST. THOMAS MORE 43, CATHOLIC-BR 42
A 30-10 loss to Jesuit in Week 2 raised some early doubts about the ceiling of this year’s St. Thomas More team in the stacked Division-I Select pecking order. But the Cougars quickly rebounded and re-asserted themselves with a road defeat of a Catholic-Baton Rouge squad that has widely been considered one of the top handful or half-dozen teams in the state this season. St. Thomas More showed incredible fight for both the night and the season with a pair of touchdowns in the final 1:02 to swing a 42-28 deficit into a 43-42 victory and stun the Bears’ faithful on hand for the latest edition of the typically hard-fought series. As much of a message as St. Thomas More sent relative to its own team and status this year, the outcome also further emphasizes the overall strength of the Division-I Select picture — and, for that matter, only further strengthens the quality of Jesuit’s win the previous week.
2. EDNA KARR 21, RUSTON 14
Anyone particularly surprised to see Edna Karr win a big game — or any game — hasn’t been around very long. But the feel around the state seemed to be that the highly anticipated Inspire the City showdown with Ruston marked a rare instance and maybe the first time in a few years in which the Cougars were considered a big of an underdog. The perennial power, even with so many newer faces in bigger roles after huge 2026 graduations, quickly looked its typically strong self, though, with a 14-0 lead and went on to finish with a shutout second half and, most importantly, the victory. Coach Brice Brown downplayed the significance some — and understandably so for a program that expects to win games on that Caesars Superdome turf in December and knows more than two months of gauntlet still remain before that conversation. But Saturday certainly served as a reminder that the Cougars remain as much the standard in the state as any program — “Second to None,” as the mantra states — and have another cast of players more than capable of carrying the torch of championship expectations in 2026.
3. ST. JAMES 43, TERREBONNE 14
St. James entered this season oddly under-the-radar and under-discussed for a program that has reached the semifinals each of the past four years, including two title games. Whether the apparent doubts were the result of a disappointing final impression in last year’s semifinals or some behind-the-scenes roster availability dynamics, the Wildcats did not appear to garner their typical respect in preseason conversations. Fast-forward three weeks, and they’re the only team in the Louisiana Sports Writers Association’s preseason top 10 in Class 3A to still be undefeated with all three wins coming by at least 28 points. And, even despite battling key injuries, this weekend marked the most notable victory thus far with a roll past Terrebonne, a Class 5A program to whom St. James had suffered two of its six losses the past two years.
4. MANGHAM 52, OAK GROVE 24
The Dragons and Tigers have provided one of the state’s top small-schools matchups every year since 2021. And regardless of which team has won or by how much, the programs have combined for nine out of a possible 10 quarterfinal trips and five semifinals. But more than doubling up another of the top contenders in your playoff division is always attention-grabbing. And Mangham’s two deepest playoff runs in that span, a 2022 semifinal and a 2025 title game, have come the years of their biggest wins in the series. And the impact for potential playoff seeding may be as notable as anything, whether the teams run into one another again or just for any other deep-bracket showdowns. Mangham and Oak Grove have been a combined 16-1 at home during the past five postseasons, compared to 6-6 on the road, including a 2023 quarterfinal in which the Tigers won the regular-season matchup in Mangham, 28-12, and then edged the Dragons, 31-30, in Oak Grove two months later.
5. EUNICE 27, KINDER 12
This matchup might not have grabbed the statewide headlines the same way other games on this list did, but the significance is easily identifiable upon closer look. The Bobcats had dropped the meetings with Kinder the past two years, 22-16 on the road and 22-20 at home, and hadn’t started 3-0 since doing so back-to-back seasons in 2018 and 2019. Those two seasons were also the two most recent times Eunice has earned single-digit playoff seeds, including the 2018 run to a state championship as a No. 2 seed. In the past eight postseasons, the Bobcats are 6-2 at home, 2-4 on the road, 8-1 as the higher seed and 0-5 as the lower seed. The playoff picture is still less than one-third of the way developed with seven more games for the Bobcats and countless twists and turns around the state. But Eunice has laid as strong a foundation as possible thus far with its best start in several years with a notable early-season road victory among three good wins overall.
