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'Facelift' complete in getting Caruthersville FB back to where it should be
Friday, October 18, 2024
Caruthersville defenders Kenyon Bogan (60) and Jackson Napier (51) swarm a Hayti ballcarrier last Friday at Hayti High School.
Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com
New York state native Dom Guglielmo needed Google Maps to find Caruthersville, Missouri when he drove to the Bootheel in the winter of 2022 to take over the Caruthersville High School football program.
He needed the app on his phone to find the town, but once there, he only needed his eyes to see the possibilities that the Tigers held.
“I remember our first conversation when you asked about a rebuild,” Guglielmo said. “It wasn’t a rebuild, it was just a facelift. It was putting a coat of paint on and a few shutters on the house.”
Not three years later, Guglielmo has gotten Caruthersville football back to where the fan base wants, which is to win championships.
The Class 2 No. 7-ranked Tigers (6-1, 4-0 SEMO Conference South Division) won the league title last week with a dominant rout of Hayti in the “Battle of the Bootheel” game. On Saturday, Guglielmo’s boys have the opportunity to run the table in the league as it faces Portageville (4-3, 2-2 SEMO Conference South Division) at 1 p.m. on Hopke Field in Caruthersville.
“Caruthersville (football) had all of the tools,” Guglielmo said of the program he took over. “It just needed a little bit of life pumped back into it.”
What the young Tiger athletes needed was someone to believe in them and to guide them, and Guglielmo and his staff have done just that.
Guglielmo has 18-year Caruthersville veteran coach Brad Treece leading the defense while former Tiger athlete Joey Middleton serves as the offensive coordinator.
Grant Marshall is in his first season as the program’s special teams coordinator and Zach Pinder is in his third season as an assistant coach.
“We have a really good staff,” Guglielmo said. “We have really good support. After Covid and the coaching changes, the program just needed some stability.
“We have that stable staff that cares about the kids, and once you have that, you can let everything else thrive.”
And it has.
In a three-year stretch (2020 through 2022), Caruthersville won just nine games. However, Guglielmo’s program has won 15 of its last 21 games dating back to late in the 2022 season, which was his first.
The Tiger offense averages over 20 points per game more than the program did in 2021, and defensively, Caruthersville has lowered its defensive per game average by an astonishing 25 points per game.
Tiger junior runner Sammy Bryant is the top rusher in the SEMO Conference with nearly 1,200 yards gained, and he also leads the league with 18 touchdowns.
Caruthersville senior wide receiver Jermonte Alexander is tied for the conference lead with 30 receptions and from his safety position, he has picked off a mind-blowing eight passes, returning several for scores.
“Jermonte is special,” Guglielmo said recently.
Meanwhile, Tiger senior linebacker Oscar Dominguez leads the conference in defensive rating at 118 points and a league-best 98 tackles.
“We’re riding the high of building Caruthersville back to where it should be,” Guglielmo said. “We’ve got some really good young guys. We had all of the pieces in place to be successful.
“Where we sit right now, I think we can be really proud of how quickly we were able to get this thing back on track.”