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This just means the situation has to be laid out and preplanned well. No problem.

FIFY

Seems shop lifting some diapers and potentially running over an officer with a car resulted in shots fired and an adult wounded and a one year old killed.

Tupelo is organized and has connections in the surrounding counties. The kids feel they will get more exposure playing at a 7A school instead of a smaller school.

Which adds to a new question. Per some of the changes that had been made and were communicated, a student had to be enrolled and everything complete prior to starting the offseason for them to participate over the summer. Also, must be nice to have that many D1 recruits on one team. Not sure there are that many commits/recruits in all 3 coastal counties some years.

Word is that Tupelo has all their football transfers registered and participating in summer activities.

Gulfport did!

Heck Picayune could win a gold ball with a fourth of those D1 prospects and probably a pile of other schools down south. We wouldn't need 18 to do that.

What coach/coordinator in 7A wouldn’t have done just as good or better than Tupelo’s defense last year with the same players? My point is this… It is very easy to get complacent when you have those types of players running around and make excuses. They don’t play very hard at all. They walk around and let teams hang around that shouldn’t. If you have 17-18 division 1 prospects you should win a gold ball. Period. West Point would! Oxford would! Starkville would! Louisville would!

Yes. However a decent portion of the athletes are actually not originally from Laurel. And a number of them as well as done from within Laurel now are trying to get out.

So its more of an internal thing than the team not having any good athletes?

Yep. They have had some internal struggles themselves going back Todd Breland leaving (there are reasons why he left and went to South jones) that have gotten “fiesty” the last few years. Some of it relating to their own recruiting efforts. Some volunteer coaches that think they better than paid coaches (the phrase “too many chiefs not enough Indians” is a good description). They lost 3 long time assistants including the guy doing most of the recruiting and the head coach was said to have interviewed for several other head coach openings, so obviously he may also see the writing on the wall. At least half the returning starters are wanting to transfer to other schools and this comes direct from one of them. But still their district do bad the can get into the playoffs with 2 wins and then who knows.

Are you saying they could possibly make another 5a playoff run this season and still be a bad football team? lol

Yeah laurels collapse will need its own thread. The last 3 years was only the beginning. The weakness of 5A south as a whole has “helped” mask the reality of the situation as they only have to win 2 district games then 2 playoff games to make it look like they are ok. But they really aren’t. If not for the creation of 7A and the resulting split off of Hattiesburg, west jones, picayune. Etc etc into 6A Laurel would have had at most 3 wins and no playoff trips since 2022. Keep in mind since ‘22 they made a run to state in ‘23 and south state last year.

Held Brandon, Oxford (twice), Starkville, Germantown, and Gulfport under their average for PPG. Hartfield was shut out by them (only time all year). The defense only gave up more than 21 twice all season. So again the argument could be made about offense underperforming, but defensively they were very good.

Hankins in Laurel ? You thought it was a bad breakup with him at WC just wait until this plays out. Laurel needs defense not a leather helmet offense reject..

Vott doesn’t care about recruiting because Hattiesburg recruits..

Well, Bo is onto it again..........

Thats because on Defense Jimmy’s and Joe’s cover up X’s and O’s a little more easily. Giving up 21 to Oxford and 28 to West Point and then almost being outcoached by Germantown and giving up 28 is isn’t a problem? Every starter on Defense had multiple D1 offers and Oxford has 2 kids playing college ball.

Weird how their recruited QB actually couldn't tote the water when it was crunch time too.

So, evidently the coaches in Alabama failed to properly inform the parents of the players to properly make a bonafide change of address by the deadline? What else was involved?

I don’t think defense is the problem. A good chunk of their points came from offensive turnovers or JV time. I can see the argument offensively, but defensively they are as good as advertised.

Look at what has recently happened in Alabama. Two football coaches have been suspended for one year and schools sanctioned for recruiting. One in Mobile area and one in Birmingham area. Supposedly both were schools self reporting but more than likely someone from another school district made a few calls.

we have lost a couple key players from last yr that have "moved on" and it hasn't bothered me one bit. I only care what happens on the field. Not away from it.

Funny thing here is there have been a couple from Laurel playing for Hattiesburg the last few years. If anyone wants to actually win a title then Laurel under current leadership is not going to get it done.