Q: What’s your favorite thing about football?
“Playing football,” Tre Bateaste said.
“I love playing football.”
It’s that simple.
Bateaste shows a slight smile despite the rain blowing sideways onto his face. No matter what he tries to explain, it never sounds complicated: how the carries are split between him and Anthony Cain, how his blocking assignments go, his running style.
He probably already knows the answer to any problem he’ll face in a game this season,
Bateaste didn’t have much problem racking up five touchdowns in Amite County’s win on Friday.
Each play was a two-step process and Bateaste was only responsible for one of those steps.
Run.
“The line blocked and I got behind the line,” Bateaste said.
That’s it. One-hundred eighty yards and five touchdowns later the Amite County Trojans didn’t only have a 69-14 win, but the Enterprise-Journal Player of the Week in their backfield.
The Trojans’ offensive line was good enough not only to make two of their backs 100-yard rushers, but to give Bateaste an easy go of it.
“I’m running hard on every play,” Bateaste said. “I lower my head and run them over. That’s what I try to do on every play.
“It’s easy the other way.”
That other way is what happened a lot on Friday night.
The offensive line picked off the defenders and Bateaste had plenty of room to run and pick his spots along with his yards.
The Trojan running back considers himself a back akin to former Dallas Cowboy Emmitt Smith. Bateaste isn’t a dominating figure in his pads and helmet — average height, nothing more. Granted Smith wasn’t a dominating physical presence on the field, especially behind his gigantic offensive line, but he had an eye for the hole and a nose for the end zone.
If nothing else, Bateaste showed the same skill in maneuvering into the end zone on one-third of his carries. Backfield mate Anthony Cain put up 188 yards on the night and scored once on a 64-yard run.
Finding the end zone isn’t what makes it worthwhile and it isn’t why Bateaste respects Smith so much. It’s his running style.
“It’s just how he hits the hole and runs over people,” Bateaste said. “I don’t do the dancing part — just the running.”
Bateaste is perfectly happy on the gridiron. The best part about football is that he’s a part of football. He shares a backfield and the carries without a problem.
“Cain carried it 14 times and I had 15, so we were balanced,” Bateaste said matter of factly. His turn blocking is the same as his turn carrying the ball, it’s what he’s supposed to do. It really is that simple.
