John Carr likely smiles every time a reporter calls him to talk.

It’s nearly a sure bet they’re calling about running back Montrell Conner, and at some point in the conversation, Carr will be questioned about Conner’s days on defense.

Then Carr is forced to work through an answer he has repeated many times before. And it’s at that point that the Ouachita Parish head football coach is forced to admit he made a poor decision regarding the early playing days of Conner – HSGametime.com’s No. 11 player in Louisiana for 2008.

“Sometimes you just get ideas in your head about what you think a kid should look like,” Carr said. “In junior high, when I watched him, he was still 6-foot-2, but wasn’t but about 180 pounds. He was a bull. Nobody could tackle him.

“I thought it was just junior high.”

But the same thing happened Conner’s freshman season. He still ran through just about everyone.

And still Carr moved him to defense, the side of the ball he felt like the team needed help the most.

“We thought he had a body type of a linebacker,” Carr said. “We kind of forced him into that role. He didn’t play well. It was a growing role for him. We thought, ‘He’ll mature into it.’ ”

During a JV game, Carr decided to see if Conner’s ability as a tailback remained. Boy did it. Conner rushed for 200 yards that night.

He wasn’t done.

“We thought maybe it was time for a debut on Friday night,” Carr said. “We’re playing Neville, our cross-town rival. He made his full-fledged debut. He rushed for, I don’t know, 200 yards and converted a fourth-and-1.

“Thank goodness we did it his sophomore year.”

Conner has been a beast ever since, blossoming into a 6-foot-2, 210-pound bruiser of a tailback.

Last year, in his first full year at running back, he rang up 1,371 yards and 16 touchdowns. More impressive than just raw numbers – the all-district, all-northeast Louisiana, all-state honoree who averaged 6.6 yards per carry did it while sharing the load in the backfield with senior Chris Brown.

Those numbers did, however, grab the attention of major colleges throughout the country. Oklahoma, Tennessee, TCU, Texas A&M and Alabama all were fawning over the youngster. But Conner eventually chose Mississippi State over the rest.

You can always imagine what he might have missed had he stayed on defense, but Conner wasn’t all that perturbed in those days at linebacker.

“When I first moved to linebacker, I didn’t like it,” he said. “But when you’re young, you don’t know any better. He (Carr) knows what’s best. I just rolled with it. At a point in time, I was liking it.”

Conner has morphed into the team’s most visible player. The pressure on him will be great to outperform his junior season.

There also will be pressure for him to help improve Ouachita’s record from 6-5 a year ago.

“The way I look at it, God works in mysterious ways,” Conner said. “He did it so I can lead my team to a better end of my senior year. My senior year, I have goals – it’s get past the first round of the playoffs, win the district championship and go the state championship.”

That drive is one of the things that sets Conner apart from other high school running backs, Carr said.

"When he gets into the secondary, he’s not a kid that’s going to run out of bounds,” Carr said. “He understands now that as the game goes on, kids get tired of making hits all the time.”

And when the game is in crunch time and Carr needs his offense to capture that elusive game-ending first down?

“When we need tough yards, it’s going to be in Montrell’s hands,” Carr said.

Said Conner, “Every time I get the ball, I think this is the last chance for us to score or the game is on the line. If I don’t get this many yards or a touchdown, we’ll lose.

“That’s what motivates me.”