Football In MS

Agree to disagree OG was the more talented team. May not have played like it in your viewing - but the talent level there is much more diversified among team multiple members. Meridian has Hill.

6 in every region is the most fair. Especially when it comes to playoffs. Tupelo and Oxford have switched out every 2 years between R1 and R2 to keep things even and equal. Same could happen for R3 and R4. Petal and OG have to travel north over an hour for every district game except each other (and even those 2 schools are 30 mins apart). Same for Madison Central & Germantown in R2. Honestly, 1-1.5 hours really isn’t that bad for the largest division in the State. It’s just not gonna be what these 1-3A distances are.

Having watched that livestream, Meridian definitely should not have won that game. In fact, OG should’ve had at least 1 more TD than the scoreboard showed after the ref made the crazy call in the endzone and nullified the pass reception with a minute left. It was clear the refs got tired of hearing Vance’s bellyaching on the sidelines in the 2nd half and quit calling things on Meridian just to hush the crybaby and keep him from running on the field & getting in their faces after every play. No doubt Meridian is better than their norm. But not necessarily an overall team improvement - it’s all Hill. Just like in 2023 with his older brother when Meridian went into playoffs as the R3 #4 seed. Went down to R4 #1 seed Ocean Springs and beat them, then went to OG in round 2 and lost. But R3 is generally & historically better than R4 anyway top to bottom. We’ll see if this year is an exception like last year was. It had been nearly a decade since someone other than Brandon or OG went to the ship from the South up until then

So right now region 3 7A looks like this: 1. Brandon 2. OG 3. Meridian 4. Petal Meridian and Brandon meet next week. If Meridian can upset Brandon, that would shift OG into the top spot, move Meridian to #2 and push Brandon all the way down to #3. Call me crazy, but it could happen. Even if not, nobody is gonna want to see Meridian in playoffs!

I never understood why EVERY SINGLE ONE of y’all picked against Petal at home at last week. And it didn’t make sense to me why OG seemed to be the huge upset opportunity at their own hoco. Even when the older Hill boy was Meridian’s offense a couple of years ago, OG beat Meridian at Meridian. And the last time Meridian beat OG was a decade ago. So all the chatter on this one seemed more like OG hate than anything else. And for whatever reason they seemed to get a lot of hate surrounding this game. (IMHO, Vance is a big part of that leftover from his HHS days…) Both games had missed calls and both games had coaches who were HOT about it. But in the end the teams who lost just didn’t do what they needed to get the job done when it all came down. You can’t fault refs for missed kicks. And in the end, that was your ballgame in both places (notwithstanding the OG touchdown with a minute left that was not called as a touchdown).

Binoculars? You can’t be seriously comparing that to actual replay footage. Seriously dude. Reevaluate your devotion to the program & accept reality. Bad calls happen. That’s life. You should play so well that some random bad calls don’t lose you the game. Multiple terrible series of decisions shouldn’t happen. That’s the issue here. If you truly saw the TD the refs didn’t give OG via the actual replay footage, you’d understand my post. Refs at the Petal game were bad too, but Brandon can’t blame the refs for their own kicker. And neither can Meridian.

Not claiming there weren’t any missed penalties. That happens on both sides of every game. Kids get away with holding and all kinds of stuff - it’s just part of the game. But the blatant stuff week after week has got to stop.

Try again. If you watched the livestream and saw any of the replays, then you know the truth. Refs got tired of listening to Vance moan and whine so they stopped calling penalties on Meridian. At least the refs didn’t take any points off the board for Meridian - but they sure did for OG. Go watch the replays. It’s all there.

This officiating has GOT to get better. 2 clear no-calls against Petal for pass interference vs Brandon at the end of the game that would’ve changed the ending of that 1 point game. Then although OG did pull out the 1 point win vs Meridian, OG scored another touchdown with 1 min left on the clock that would’ve put them up by 6 (likely 7). Yet the refs didn’t give them the score. Receiver had possession of the ball and took 3 steps inside the endzone with the ball in-hand. No explanation. No penalty. Ref just waved off the TD and gave the ball to Meridian - since that had been 4th down. What is going on with MS refs?? My 3 year old could do better

Probably trouble finding officials. Thursday is JuCo night already - so the best officiating teams are already committed there. And the others were contacted for the slew of games already rescheduled for Thursday. Then if there were any leftovers… they were left over for a reason…

They’ll need to beat 2 in-district to have a shot. Nobody would assume they’d stand a chance vs OG, Brandon or Petal. So they’d needs wins vs NWR and Pearl to have a shot at playoffs. We’re about to find out tonight. A loss vs Pearl means they’ve gotta stand around and wait on the other Region 3 teams to beat up on each other to get back into the convo

Yep. Brandon is a must win for the Panthers this year if they have any hope of approaching playoffs in the drivers seat

Yeah, well…. OG 29 Petal 28 FINAL OT Despite some REALLY questionable officiating all night long (and more picked up flags than I’ve ever seen in 1 game) courtesy of the Thursday night game change, I’m sure, OG pulled out a nailbiter in OT on a gutsy call to go for 2 at the end. Boyles is a great coach. No doubt about it. But give it to Causey at OG. That 2pt conversion at the end showed how big a boss he is. Ballsy call. Brandon comes to town next week - setting up a huge opportunity for a 3 way tie at the top of if Petal can take care of Brandon and then Brandon can best OG.

48-45 OG according to MaxPreps

OG should take this one Could be interesting from a fan perspective given those twins who left Petal to play for OG this year as seniors. Idk if Petal’s student section will be all razzed up about that or what. But if they are and can get OG players emotional and making mistakes, they may have a chance to make it a game. OG been fighting penalties all year. They gotta stay out of their own way and they’ll win.