It would have taken a nearly perfect for New Iberia Senior High to upset top-ranked Acadiana High School in their District 3-5A football game Friday night at NISH.

Unfortunately for the Yellow Jackets faithful, New Iberia was not close to perfect in a 47-10 loss to the defending Class 5A state champions.

New Iberia turned the ball over three times, including a pick-6, missed on a couple of passes that receivers couldn’t corral, and gave up big plays on special teams and on defense. And even when things seemed to be going their way, the Jackets couldn’t catch a break. One of the turnovers was a fumble where Acadiana linebacker Caleb Arceneaux came out of a pile with the ball and returned it eight yards to the NISH 21 to set up the first score of the game. Referees said the pile was still moving, though New Iberia coaches protested that the ballcarrier was down even though the rest of the pile was moving.

That wasn’t the only call by officials that bothered NISH coaches. Twice New Iberia recovered Acadiana fumbles, and both times officials said the player was down before the ball came out.

Not that the Wrecking Rams needed help from either the refs or NISH.

“I thought we competed hard the whole time,” NISH coach Curt Ware said. “It’s just you give up a big return, give them a short field. You throw a pick-6. When you’re playing somebody that caliber you’ve got to be perfect, and we were far from perfect.

“They’re everything that they’re advertised to be. They’re a good football team.”

What they were advertised to be is an undefeated team with a lot of speed and good size up front.

Neither team produced points on its first possession, but the fumble return on New Iberia’s second play of its second possession helped the Rams get on the scoreboard.

Tyvin Zeno capitalizes on the Arceneaux fumble return with a 21-yard run around left end on the first snap following the turnover and Jesus Martinez kicked the point after.

New Iberia responded with a 12-play, 74-yard drive of its own that chewed up almost five minutes of clock. A 27-yard gain on a third-and-10 pass from Matthew Thomas to Markel Linzer kept the drive going and Luke Landry’s 36-yard field goal got the Yellow Jackets on the scoreboard with 11:48 left in the half.

Then came a 68-yard kick return from the speedy Zeno to the NISH 24-yard lined. Two plays later, quarterback Jerimiah Brown went in untouched on a keeper from 18 yards away to make it 14-3. A 15-yard scoring run by Omiri Wiggins capped off Acadiana’s next drive to make it a 21-3 lead and on New Iberia’s third play after the ensuing kickoff, Drailun Anthony intercepted a ball after a teammate tipped the throw into the air, returning it 32 yards for a touchdown to give Acadiana a 28-3 lead.

The Rams scored on three second-half possessions as well, then knelt twice on their fourth possession to run out the last 50 seconds.

Acadiana ran for 257 yards, but spread the ball around with Kevan Williams leading the team with 64 yards on seven carries. Jayvee player Dylan Dronet had a 54-yard run on his only carry late in the game. Wiggins had 53 yards, Zeno added 43 yards and Brown had 23 yards. All five players had touchdown carries.

The Jackets finished with 109 yards on the ground and 164 total yards. Tyce Fusilier led NISh with 54 yards on 14 carries. Thomas had 27 yards on five runs.

“It’s real, real tough to move the ball on them because their front and their linebackers are so good, so it’s really hard to run the football, and that’s what we do,” Ware said. “They forced us to throw the football a little bit. We made some throws, but that’s not our game, obviously.”

There were some positives for NISH, the coach said.

“I thought we played hard,” Ware said. “We didn’t lay down. Actually, believe it or not, we played a lot worse last week. We showed an improvement. If we’d’ve played like that last week against Lafayette High (in a 7-0 loss), I think we win the game.”

A similar effort this week could help the Jackets get back on the winning track after two straight district losses. NISH plays at Comeaux, which was 0-2 heading into a game district game Saturday at Sulphur. The Spartans’ previous two games were canceled.

“Comeaux hasn’t played in two weeks, so I’m not exactly sure what they’re doing,” Ware said. “I know the first week they played their regular offense, and then they kind of switched (the second week).

“When you lose two in a row you kind of have that little doubt, but I think we’ll come back and work hard Monday and we’ll get back on track next week.”