The highly anticipated Halloween showdown between undefeated Catholic League powerhouses indeed proved to be a movie Saturday — just not exactly the one most people expected.
St. Augustine (9-0, 6-0) stole the show in the form of any number of horror villains rolled into one with its explosive and relentless dismantling of Edna Karr (8-1, 5-1) with 52 straight points to have the Cougars’ 35-game win streak already feeling slashed down by midway through the second quarter of the 52-14 onslaught.
“They came out energized, they came out prepared, and, look, they took it to us,” Edna Karr coach Brice Brown said bluntly. “I ain’t got my ass whooped like that since I was born.”
The Cougars haven’t lost many games in recent years — including none for nearly three calendar years — and hadn’t lost any in Saturday’s fashion.
Asked Edna Karr’s biggest issue in the contest, Brown replied, “All three phases,” with even special teams disappointing despite a promising start with a blocked punt by sophomore defensive back Jaylen Lockett recovered in the end zone by sophomore safety James Lee for an 8-0 lead.
The rest of the contest belonged to the Purple Knights, emphatically and nearly exclusively, until the Cougars tacked on an inconsequential touchdown late in a fourth quarter that had long been under the running-clock mercy rule.
“I just felt that if we had time to get the ball to some of our players, those guys can do some special things with the ball in their hands,” St. Augustine coach Robert Valdez said. “We knew that offensively that they were gonna be a little bit more ball-control, not as fast as they used to be before, so we wanted to jump ahead and try to score quick so we could put pressure on their offense.”
Junior quarterback Jaelle Noble was as electric as ever with five passing touchdowns to four different receivers — Ray’Quan Williams (Tulane), Lucas Jefferson, Kamari Navarre and twice to Miguel Whitley (Ole Miss) — and another two among the slew of dynamic plays made with his legs.
He marched the Purple Knights right down the field after the early Edna Karr score to only allow the deficit to linger for just 35 seconds as he barreled into the end zone twice to knot the game at 8-8.
“Man, we had a big chip on our shoulder coming from last year,” Noble smiled, asked about ending the program’s five-game losing streak to the Cougars, including twice in 2025. “Even though I didn’t play last year, we had a big chip on shoulder, and I feel like we came into this game as a team and competed as a team and took home the dub… Those guys were on me all week. They weren’t gonna let it be my fault that they lost their senior week. So I told those guys this week they’re not leaving this school when they graduate without a ring.”
The St. Augustine defense rarely bent and never really broke, continuing to win possession right back with a combination of fourth-down stops and three interceptions by freshman defensive back Louis Brown III, including a 98-yard pick-six in the second quarter.
Noble ripped deep bombs to Williams and Jefferson to take a 20-8 lead into the second quarter.
Senior defensive end Jacques “Tre” Robichaux III made a read an attempted reverse by the Cougars on the first play of the new period and slammed the door on a promising drive with a well-disciplined and hard-hitting play behind the line of scrimmage.
“I don’t really want to make it too much about me,” the Southern Mississippi commit said. “I really just want to give it all to God and my teammates, because without them, none of this would be possible. Me making the play, that was just me being coachable and me being in the right place at the right time and making the play when it was time to be made.”
Noble and Whitley landed their first scoring strike, a quick slant sliding into the end zone, just a minute later.
And as the Purple Knights continued to stack fourth-down stops defensively, their third straight proved the best as Brown made a leaping interception of a deep shot toward the end zone and dashed his way up the sideline 98 yards to the 33-8 advantage that had the contest officially start feeling all but over.
“I was just back-pedaling, we were in Cover-2 and I saw him on the corner and I was run on top, and I caught it,” the freshman said. “And when I caught it, I didn’t think I just ran… I wasn’t thinking I was just running.”
Even when Edna Karr managed to force a punt on the opening possession of the third quarter, the return was muffed and pounced on by senior linebacker John Carter Jr. to set up the Noble-Navarre strike the next play.
The Cougars never got to the ensuing kickoff, gifting the Purple Knights a short field Noble and Whitley immediately cashed in.
And, after another Brown interception, Noble and the offense made their way down the field again for an eventual highlight-reel run by Noble on which he danced through a little traffic, shed one arm tackle, spun off another and cut back past another few defenders on his way to the 26-yard score and 52-8 lead.
“(Noble) is growing,” Valdez said. “I think that he’s starting to learn to play within himself and within the system that we have. And the good thing is he’s on our side.”
Edna Karr junior quarterback Marlon Jones pulled a ball and ran in the late red-zone score for the final tally.
As plainly as Brice Brown laid out the lopsidedness of the matchup, he also said the Cougars clearly “will be back.”
They won’t have to wait long for an opportunity to cleanse their pallet — if they can regroup effectively and quickly for their Thursday date with Jesuit (7-2, 4-2).
“What I’m gonna tell ’em is we’ve got Jesuit on Thursday — that’s the first thing,” the coach said. “We can’t lick our wounds. We’ve gotta be able to process it. In this league, in this district, when you’re playing against a well-coached team like St. Aug, No. 1, you can’t have all the turnovers. So a part of it is us, and then the other part is their effort and how they played. That’s a credit to coach Valdez and his coaching staff.”
The coach declined to reflect much on the significance of the now-ended 35-game winning streak that had climbed the state record books to No. 8 all-time and No. 2 in Class 5A.
“To be honest with you, I don’t even know what the win streak was at,” he said. “It’s not if the win streak was ever gonna come to an end — it was when, right? You know, football teaches us so much about life and how you respond through adversity and who you respond when your back’s against a while. St. Aug did a great job, losing to us twice last year, and they responded. They responded tonight. So we’ve gotta go look ourselves in the mirror. We have to process it, and then we have to accept it, and then we’ve got to move on.”
St. Augustine will host Archbishop Rummel (7-2, 4-2) on the same field Friday, a matchup in which the Purple Knights can complete their first undefeated regular season in decades and close out the outright district title and No. 1 seed in the Division-I Select playoffs.
“Didn’t really know what type of team we had,” Valdez said. “I just knew we had guys that worked hard and believed in the things that we’re doing. Like I said, I’m just so happy for those kids, the time they put in, their parents, and they came out tonight to play like that against the No. 1 team was fantastic. So we just take it 1-0 tonight, and then tomorrow wake up and we get ready for next week.”
