NEDERLAND -- When Larry Neumann scanned his 31 years of coaching background, he placed only Craig Stump on the plateau with Bulldogs senior quarterback Dustin Hood.

That's the degree of respect, the amount of freedom and latitude granted to the 18-year-old Nederland field general. Given that high praise from such a thorough inspector, one also needs to

understand this about the son of Kirby and Kristi Hood: Dustin's really hard on himself.

The great ones usually are.... Therefore, when the District 20-4A passing leader tried to place his five-interception outing against Beaumont Ozen in his rearview mirror, it required several days for Hood to feel right again.

"I tried to forget about it," Hood said. "Like it never happened. I will flat-out tell you it will never happen again.
 

"I just had a bad day... a bad performance. I was sick to my stomach the following week."

Hood generally has caused opponents to feel sick to their stomachs. He's completed 97 of 176 passes for 1,704 yards, and 20 touchdowns. Take away those five Ozen pickoffs and Hood's eight-game interception total without the Ozen game contains only three intercepted passes.

The 6-2, 185-pound undisputed offensive leader of the Bulldogs, Hood will direct arguably the most quick-striking offense in Nederland history into The Reservation on Friday night for a visit to Port Neches-Groves.

More than coincidentally, the Indians know all about pass interceptions. They lead Southeast Texas defenses with 16 pickoffs, including four by Ben Watson and Tyler Falcon and three by Leyton McElduff. But Hood does not expect a bunch of purple jerseys to catch his passes this week.

"I'm not the same quarterback I was last year," he said. "The mistakes I made in the game last year won't happen again this year."

Hood is not guaranteeing that PN-G will not intercept any of his passes.

In fact, it's OK with Nederland's quarterback if the Indians should pick off a few, just as long as the Bulldogs win.

"If it says six interceptions, or maybe four, beside my name, and we have the 'W', then that's fine with me," he said.

Oh well, it might be fine with Dustin, but Nederland offensive coordinator Monte Barrow may be about ready to get sick to his stomach. Neumann and Barrow do provide Hood more play-calling flexibility than any quarterback ever at Nederland. There's not even a close second in that regard.

"The extra that we get from a guy like Dustin is the ability to put more on him... allowing him to have more say in changing plays at the line of scrimmage," Neumann said. "More than just a few times, Dustin has gotten us out of what could have been a bad play into a good play.

"He has such field awareness in reading receivers. He knows the receivers better and they know him better. He's starting to know where they're going to be and vice-versa."

If Hood rated his own season performance on a scale of 1 to 10 right now, he guessed he would give himself a '7' but again, Dustin has tended to be hard on himself.

"I can't base my whole season on one game but if I gave myself a 10, we would have to be undefeated," Hood said.

Dustin would like to keep playing athletics, either football or baseball, at the college level. He likely will not take any visits to schools until after football season.

Even this Friday night -- after his short bus ride to PN-G -- Hood will stay hard on himself. But any kind of a victory over the Indians will suffice... It might even be enough for Dustin to lighten up on himself over the weekend.

Bulldog Bites

Junior defensive back/kicker Clint Whitaker missed Monday's workout with a stomach virus. Whitaker's appeared to be the only NHS player in question for Friday's game at PN-G.... Nederland will have a pep rally in the Dogdome on Friday afternoon at 2:30 p.m.... NHS athletic secretary Charlotte Wallace indicated that all reserve seats on the visitors side of Indian Stadium had been sold out by Tuesday at noon. Approximately 750 general admission seats and an unknown quantity of NHS student tickets remained on sale at the NHS front office by mid-afternoon. The front office will sell tickets during Wednesday and Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and from 8 to noon on Friday.... A record 11 NHS defenders scored 80 or above on the video of the Lumberton game, led by Tyler Thompson, Ryan Butler and Jordan Rash at 88 apiece, followed by Blake Amy (86), Ron Mohica and Trey Thibodeaux (85 each). Top offensive grades belonged to Micah Mosley (86), Butler and Michael Young (83 each) . . . Much of the history of the Nederland-PN-G rivalry, including old game stories from the Port Arthur News, can be found on the website midnightmadness.com . . . Friday's game will be telecast by the Port Arthur News Friday Night Experience. It will air first at Sanderson's Friday at 11 p.m., then be shown Saturday and Tuesday at 7 p.m. on Cable 7.