Football In MS

Who you got taking Mr. Football in each class for 2025?

I was told today that there were players who “walked out” when Pogue left. Idk if it’s true, but the person who said it to me spoke with confidence.

Wow. That’s scary - as a parent I can’t imagine. Hope he’s feeling better now

I guess we’ll find out on Friday.

You think they’ve been intentionally sand bagging to prevent Pogue from getting wins up until now?

Does this make it more difficult to hire a quality coach moving forward? If the kids are running the team, what does that say about the school’s leadership?

Does the investigation that’s happening perhaps have something to do with that player from 2022?

Exactly. Certainly gives cause for pause to wonder if there’s more to that story. Granted, it’s no secret that the parents at BHS expect a lot. A WHOLE lot. And if they weren’t happy… well, we can bet that nobody was happy. Because they’re a loud bunch. And it would be a rough environment to be in if you’re the subject of a hate campaign… just sayin. ETA: players had a player-only meeting and Pogue was asked to leave following that. Guess the kids run the team. May be difficult to get another top tier coach interested in a situation like that.

This is wild stuff. Especially OG week. Mid-season for a 1st year coach is unheard of without a scandal to explain it. Those Bulldog Boosters must have some major bank! Interested to hear the details as they come

Yep. And that seems to be where OG has struggled. I heard someone say on OG’s livestream that the game they played last week was the first one all season in which they had all starters on the field and healthy. That’s wild! It’s October! So that definitely may explain the vastly different performances we’ve seen out of that team so far this year. Answers a lot of questions I had about them for sure. The Brandon announcers did not make any similar comments (that I heard) about losing multiple starters to injury during their livestream. Doesn’t mean they haven’t - but it wasn’t mentioned (I definitely could’ve missed it since I had more than 1 livestream going simultaneously). I still have major questions about that team and Pogue’s ability to lead them. They’ll make playoffs. But as a 3 seed, most likely. It’ll definitely be R4’s chance get in there and prove something.

Yep. So for Brandon, Starkville, Germantown, Clinton and OG to all voluntarily play each other really speaks to their desire to play the best & not just schedule cupcakes in their non-district matchups. They beat up on each other before region play ever starts and their records may look more rough on the overall because of it - but it makes them all better teams in the long run.

I won’t categorically disagree - but remember none of that matters on the front end because MS is a North State/South State playoff bracket. So this is really about R1 vs R2 and R3 vs R4 up until the championship game each year. Personally, I believe regions 2 & 3 are - year in and year out - the stronger regions all around. And the championship results have tended to bear that out more often than not in recent years (with the exception of Tupelo and Oxford switching back and forth between R1 and R2).

You may be right …. But that’s a tough one to really compare at this point because R4’s competition and schedules just aren’t what R3’s are. You’ve got Brandon and OG playing Starkville, Germantown, Clay-Chalkville and the like while R4 teams didn’t opt for tough out of region matchups. Replace those games on Brandon and OG’s schedule with teams like R4 scheduled and suddenly OG and Brandon are both 1 loss teams. So until these schools go head-to-head in playoffs, I’m not ready to state that OSHS and Gulfport are better than any of the R3 powerhouses. They may be - but I don’t think they’ve proven it yet.

Covid was completely different than guns at tailgates. But if we’re gonna make the comparison, I’ll be quick to add my 2 cents: Parents won’t stand for all the covid nonsense again. I’ve heard it already. They pulled kids to private school faster than anyone could say “tuition” last time. (We all remember Greenville Christian’s team during Covid...) That would happen again - but en mass this time. It would be swift and it would HURT public schools. Nobody would wait around to see what madness the public schools districts would come up with like they did with ticket limits, face masks OUTSIDE, and distancing like they did during Covid. Numbers are back on all that from 2020-22 & the data won’t support it for school age kids. It would be disastrous for the MHSAA and public schools.

They have issues scoring. Their average offense going into last night vs Petal was 13-14 points per game. That won’t win games in 7A.

7A Region 4 at the Half: D’Iberville 20 St Martin 3 West Harrison 14 Gulfport 21 Harrison Central 0 Biloxi 7 Ocean Springs - off

7A Region 1 at the Half: Tupelo 21 Hernando 10 Southaven 10 Lewisburg 0 Horn Lake 14 Desoto Central 7

7A Region 2 at the Half: Clinton 0 Starkville 14 Germantown 21 Oxford 14 Madison Central 24 Murrah 6

7A Region 3 at the Half NWR 12 Pearl 8 Petal 21 Brandon 14 Oak Grove 42 Meridian 7

Doesn’t sound knee jerk as much as CYA. If the MHSAA doesn’t take some action in some way & this continues anywhere in the state, then everyone will be pointing at the MHSAA and asking why they ignored the problem. So this is them making a recommendation & it’s now in the laps of the school districts. If something goes wrong at this point, it’s all on the local district to respond because the MHSAA has already covered themselves. Thank our overly litigious society for creating this environment.

Things change for everyone when one person/group can’t handle the responsibility of freedom

Right. But the thing is - if schools choose to go against MHSAA guidance and something bad does happen, there’s a whole lot of liability for the entity who chose to go against the guidance. It’s why schools forced kids to wear masks during COVID. It wasn’t a state or national mandate for children in schools… but it was the strongly suggested recommendation of the CDC & thus adopted as the MHSAA guideline that schools chose to enforce as local policy. Following that guideline gave schools basic immunity from legal exposure if bad outcomes happened. Same situation here. Exceptions can be carved out if school boards are willing to accept the liability.

Schools are well advised to follow the MHSAA guidelines. If they don’t, they have no leg to stand on if something goes wrong

MHSAA, school boards, admins, etc. can’t carve out exceptions because then that’s going to be seen as discriminatory against those who aren’t the exceptions & a whole new set of people will be upset. It’s why everyone has to carry clear bags & go through metal detectors at college ballgames. It’s why online classes have Honor Lock. A bad apple can ruin the whole bunch. And it’s really sad.

Right. Could get really interesting if NWR pulls out a win vs either of those 2