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I have no issues with it. I knew it was coming eventually. Those other classes do deserve that 7pm Friday night and Saturday night spot. And i kinda like the idea of playing at 12 noon on a Saturday if Hattiesburg made it and the 6a title game was scheduled for that day

issues?

Gonna hate the year when 7A rotates to Thursday.

Ricky Black had to be #1

But even when we were up 7 I did not feel comfortable. Georgia just had our number this year. Simple as that. We were also down a nickel in game two and fought our way back into it. Georgia used up all their energy and good karma to beat us and I think it definitely affected their performance in Omaha.

State was also up a TD in game one as well. A good bullpen would have used that size of a cushion as leverage.

I didn't seem to find Howard Willoughby in the top 25 at the end of the video. I would have thought he would have made it. Glad to see Jack Carlisle make it though.

I like Bauer and Miller, think they can become really good. Davis had moments but was inconsistent. Most of that group though, very blah. I think you could tell a month or two before the postseason that State’s season would end via bullpen failure, and that’s how it played out. Blew late leads in both of the Super Regional games.

It appeared late that they had 6 or 8 pen arms but had no confidence in any of them. Maybe all those guys were all hype and not good enough for that level of ball.

The Varsity Voices Podcast guys are back with a list of the greatest high school football coaches in Mississippi history? This episode ranks an official Top 10 based on overall accomplishments, state championships, program building, player development, and long-term impact on the game in Mississippi.

I think their older arms weren’t that good and their best arms were inexperienced. Also the bullpen was hurt mightily by the combination of McPherson getting hurt and Charlie Foster (transferring to OM, BTW), being totally and completely unreliable. Duke Stone started the year as one of their top two bullpen options and pretty quickly had to become their Saturday starter. That definitely trickled down to hurt the pen in a negative way.

I will put more of it on the pitchers. Coach can prepare them but it is up to the pitcher to perform. Too often, wildness and inconsistency were our bullpen problems. I think we will see an improvement there next year.

4a 6a on Thursday Dec 3 2a 7a. Friday. Dec 4 1a 3a 5a Saturday Dec 5

What if any part of the drop off in the bullpen was due to Parker? were the guys simply not as good as their high ratings?

2027 should be another good year with a more realistic shot at going to Omaha. With Coach O’Connor and the staff (except Parker who was already here) having a year under their belt, the continuity of the staff and players will be better. If you look at the beginning of the season, our lineup was quite different from what it was later in the year. Next February, I believe that we will have a more settled lineup, though with the depth we will have, it will give Coach the luxury of playing more guys situationally. As I mentioned previously on different occasions, we were a top fifteen team this year. Next year I think we can be a top ten team with the potential of winning it all. But we know how difficult that is to accomplish.

If they have the same qb from last year I dont expect too much.

October 2025 #'s 8th-10th grades 7A #24 Horn Lake 988 6A #1 Meridian 958 #2 Pearl 922 #5 Terry 871 #14 West Jones 765 #15 Hattiesburg 762 #16 Forest Hill 758 #19 Jim Hill 742 So 3 of the 7, JIm Hill, Pearl, and Meridian are located north of I-20. I believe Jim Hill will go region 2 but you never know if Canton, Ridgeland, Callaway, Murrah, Warren Central just might get Meridian and not Jim Hill or eveb Pearl.

You are right. For some reason I thought they won it that year with Kevin Norwood.

Hopefully it will work out so you can get 5 home and 5 away. Realignment could come into play to schedule non region games next season. Some have speculated that Meridian could be 6a next season and in 2028. That would probably have them in the region with Hattiesburg and that would open up an opponent for non region play.

Yep. As I mentioned hopefully he will be able to reset that after this year’s rotation is complete. That will make for a tough schedule this year but with Coach Tony Vance, I believe the team will be much better disciplined wise, organizationally, fundamentally etc. on the field this year. I don’t really care about wins/losses this year, I just want to see a functional team on the field. And only three Friday night home games as well. The last home game is on a Thursday night.

It had to be on the non region part of the schedule. With five region games you will always have the 3/2 2/3 split. Looks like last season Meridian had the 3/2 split with region home games they also had the 3/2 split with the non region games as well which reversed the schedule this yr making it 2/3 and 2/3

2026 MAIS Master Football Schedule https://www.capitalsportsms.com/capital_sports/football/2026-mais-master-football-schedule/article_5266ed6a-1e06-4500-9214-42a0cc39e78d.html

Honestly, Long Beach should've never run Forrest Williams out of town the way they did. He was the last coach who was successful there. He went 6-5 and he was also the athletic director, and they decided to push him out of Head Football coach, and athletic director and made him an assistant principal. Was the last coach who was good there, and everyone else has been in a tailspin.

State and Ole Miss both in the same Arlington tourney next year as well. Dallas Baptist, UCLA, Wake Forest, Penn State also going to be there, not sure who is playing who yet (doubt State and OM play each other though). Yeah they’ve done a really nice job of filling holes in the lineup. Hard to expect the offense to be quite as good as it was last year given how historically good Reese and Sullivan were, as well as others, but it doesn’t feel like they’ll have that much of a drop off. And you’d assume they’ll be better on the mound with all the experience and talent that is returning. Haven’t added as many portal arms as one might think, but I do think they’ve added a couple of nice bullpen options. When your whole starting rotation is returning, can’t imagine it’s easy to recruit portal arms who know they probably are not going to be starters here. And everyone wants to start in this era.