The Westlake Rams will be young this season, but head coach John Richardson doesn’t see any reason why the Rams can’t be a dangerous team.

“I kind of heard the McNeese coach say this the other day because they have a young team coming up. He said a young team can be a dangerous team,” Richardson said. “That is what I told my team that I wanted us to be.

“We are going to have some growing pains and things like that, but we are not going to use that as an excuse. We are building something here. We are building something for the future. But we want the future to be sooner rather than later.”

The Rams have just six returning starters and lost three players who are currently on FCS rosters in Tristan Goodly and Ethan Koonce at Southeastern and Kristian Ozane at Davidson College. Goodly was the Rams’ top offensive threat last season with 15 touchdowns and was recently named the American Press Male Athlete of the Year. Koonce and Ozane were defensive stalwarts who recorded more than 100 tackles in 2022 and earned American Press All-Southwest Louisiana Big Schools honors.

The Rams return three offensive linemen in Hadley Hardesty, Jace O’Hare and Aydin LeFrere. Running back Ryan Allen (74 car., 440 yards, 4 TD) came on strong late in 2022 after he was pressed into service because of injuries.

Kevin Rideau is expected to blossom at wide receiver after switching midway through the 2022 season from quarterback. Rideau will fill the void left by Goodly and will be joined by sophomore Peyton Kile.

“I went up to enrollment and made sure I wasn’t missing anybody,” Richardson said. “But we do have two kids that I think have a chance to develop into pretty good receivers.

“Hayden Kile was actually the fastest guy on the football team last year as a freshman. Kevin Rideau, who started off last year as quarterback for us and we moved him to receiver, had a really good offseason, too. Kevin is about 6-2, 6-3 now, so we think he has the potential to be a good receiver, too. Obviously, you are looking at the experience factor but the potential is there for both of these guys to be really good players down the road. He (Rideau) looks a lot more comfortable out there at wide receiver.”

Richardson is turning to a freshman quarterback, Brody Anderson.

“Obviously as a freshman coming in, he has some things to learn, but I think he has a chance to be a really special player. He is already 6-1 and about 170 pounds or so as an incoming freshman, so he is not your typical freshman. He has a really good spring with us and a really good summer. I think he is going to develop into a really good player for us.”

Defense will be a big question for the Rams with one returning starter, a move to the 3-3 stack scheme and defensive coordinator Brad Kellogg now the head coach job at South Beauregard.

“We were able to get Coach McZeal back,” Richardson said. “He had been the defensive coordinator for Jennings for years and worked for me at Welsh and Westlake at one point.

“We also got Lark Hebert on our staff now. We were able to secure some really good coaches on that side of the football. Experience is obviously going to be a thing because we are playing young guys back there, but I think we really have some talent in these younger guys. As the season progresses and everything, I expect us to get better and better.”

The defense will rest on 6-2, 170-pound, senior linebacker Josh Parr.

“Being the only guys with experience, he is going to have to step up and be a leader,” Richardson said. “It is one thing to show all these guys in practice, but when you turn on the Friday Night lights it become a different game. Being the one guy that does have that experience out there he is going to need to lead the way.”