Football In MS

That OG loss to Curtis was not a clean one as I recall. Due to some issues with refs and no-calls for sideline interference and artificial noisemakers, OG was unable to hear play calls and nobody did anything about it. Was a shame to see 2 great teams match up and not get a clean game.

Excuse me? Round 2 featured 3 teams from R3 and only 1 from R4. I’d say 75% from one region in the final 4 is pretty dominant. Yes, Gulfport did advance to play in the championship game for the first time since 1999 - and good for them! But I hardly think R3 is “eating crow” after beating 3 out of the 4 R4 teams in Round 1. Overall, R3 is just stronger top to bottom. Brandon got lucky and caught OG in Round 2 on a very bad week. I’d have enjoyed seeing a strong Gulfport team rematch at the end of the season against a healthy OG team who opened the season with a jamboree win against them. Brandon looked wholly unprepared for that south state game. It was embarrassing.

Tupelo 21 Oxford 20 FINAL 7A Championship Game to feature Tupelo vs Gulfport This will be Gulfport’s first championship appearance since 1999. They have one MHSAA football championship in school history - 1982.

That one was a shocker. Very atypical OG performance to turn the ball over more times in 1 game than they had in the entire season to date. 7 mins left with an 11 pt lead and lost in OT. That was a wild one

Sounds daddy ball… with the price tag to match

Another “everybody gets to be an all star” game. GREAT. Just what we need.

Understand here… this is a 3-way tie. So untangling the entire tie involves carrying out the “how’d they do vs OG” question all the way through all 3 tied teams. Making it fair for all 3 tied teams by having the same standard applied to all 3. If after all that they’d still been tied past the “how’d they do vs OG” step, THEN you move on to the next step.

Nah - I was more wondering about what would’ve happened for NWR if they hadn’t had to face Gulfport in round 1. They beat Petal and only lost to Brandon by 3 and OG by 3 (at the last second). Arguably the more deserving #2 seed than Petal… or at the very least #3 seed.

Okay. i just find it interesting that you’d go back a step (head-to-head) before you even finish the step you’re on.

So the way they broke the 3 way tie wasn’t carried out the same completely through all 3 schools? There’s certainly space for ambiguity here…

Interesting. Certainly looks that way. But that’s not how it’s written in the list of tie-breakers. The way the tiebreaker is written, the only reason you’d need to go on to the next step (a head-to-head determination) is if at the previous step you’ve still got a tie. But using the “how’d they fare vs the #1 seed” there is no longer a tie among any of the groups. Petal won, then NWR and Brandon each lost to OG by different point spreads. So there would’ve been no need to progress on to a head-to-head… which is why NWR needed up at 4th instead of 2nd even though they beat Petal in the head-to-head. Did somebody mess up here?? Was Brandon supposed to have played Gulfport last week instead of NWR???? ETA: According to these 2 things I found, it really looks like somebody screwed up & didn’t follow each step through to completion. https://oxchargersports.weebly.com/mhsaa-tiebreaker-procedure.html

Dawned on me this morning … Dialing back to the tiebreaker thing for 7A R3… it was stated that the 3-way tie for 2nd place among Petal, Brandon and NWR was broken using the “how did they fare vs the #1 seed” tiebreaker. So let’s look back: Petal was the only one of the 3 to beat OG, so they’re automatically the #2 using that tiebreaker. Continuing on, NWR only lost to OG by 3 pts on the last second FG. Brandon lost to OG 20-7. So carrying out the tiebreaker scenario (that we were told they used) would’ve still put Petal at #2 BUT would’ve put NWR at #3 at Brandon #4. So my question is: Why was the tiebreaker scenario not followed all the way through for R3? I get that Brandon beat NWR in the head to head. But head-to head is not what we were told was the tie-breaker scenario being used, to sort out the 3-school pile up in 7A R3. @s1nglewing @Vott @Rebel Bert@Dubaction y’all got any insight here?

Questionable officiating too. Lots of calls against BHS that greatly benefit OSHS

Really surprised at the low crowd for Ocean Springs at home. This should be a packed house & it’s not at all

Brandon has a widely-known penchant for doing what they want (at all costs to win = thus the BOE mantra). Even when it involves athletes who should not be taking part in competition. They reversed an initial decision last fall and let some students caught drinking at school ((or maybe even drunk )) compete with the rest of their team at a competition after it was determined the team could not win without them. Athletics trumps just about everything else down there. A very sad standard to set for students. But unfortunately, nothing new. Granted, the admin who made that choice is no longer present at BHS as of July 1 of this year (which likely has a lot to do with the lawsuit announced a year ago dating back to the 2022 tragedy) but the culture of “BOE” lives on in infamy…

My upset pick for 7A South this week would be NWR over Gulfport For 7A North, I’ll take Madison Central over Horn Lake (which is “technically” an upset based on seeding, but a 2-3 can always go either way).

I’ve been surprised in recent years how many great teams have virtually NO backup in key spots - like QB or kickers. If those guys get injured, it’s a dumpster fire

Will be interested to see how this plays out for some of the higher classification teams who chose to play tougher out-of-district schedules before the district games began. Will those additional games of added difficulty prove to have been useful in preparing to run the gauntlet in Nov-Dec? Or were they just games that contributed towards losses and injuries

The “top tier” (largest classification of schools) will always feature a huge disparity. The schools at the bottom of that heap (currently 7A) will statistically fit better and compete more strongly with the classification under them. But, I don’t know that there is a good solution. MS is not large enough for 7 classifications.

I’ve been to games there in years past - not since the blue field. It doesn’t feel like a safe area after dark. Especially for kids. Was actually told not to hang out and talk after a game - get in the car & LEAVE. That’s hard to overcome

Yep. OG is one of the harder venues to play in for an opponent. That home field advantage is substantial

Odds are not in favor of 2 R4 teams making it to South State. If it could happen any year, this would be it. However, if I were a betting man (I’m not), I wouldn’t make that bet. R4 will be doing good to get 1 team to South State. But if those 2 are the last 2 standing for the 7A South, Gulfport would play host since they’re the #1 seed in R4.

Meridian has issues top to bottom. If they can get the head coach right & admin/district support, the other things could fall into place. But there’s gonna have to be an ideological shift for that area to experience sustained success.

Marcus Broyles did & took them to playoffs and a road win vs #1 Ocean Springs. Granted that was with Hill under center. But still… Meridian was a dumpster fire before MB and returned to one immediately after he left. And now he’s back at Petal and Petal is back to relevance. An up & coming coach who wants to prove himself could do a lot, but it’ll take someone with the power to change hearts and change culture. When kids don’t even come to practice because it’s “fall break” that’s a coaching issue and something school admin needs to address.

We’re seeing scores like this in more than just this Heidelberg game. Teams who make playoffs should not be getting drilled like that (outside some crazy fluke). Running clocks in playoffs tell us that too many teams are making playoffs. There should be more than 6 teams in a division where the top 4 make playoffs. MS needs to go back to at most 6 classifications, if not 5. Make championships mean something.