Football In MS

This is about more than football. There are lots of sports under the MHSAA banner - including things like volleyball and girls soccer where this would be a huge issue

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Unless there are MHSAA employees whose sole job is verification of home addresses for these private school kids, this 20-mile radius thing is a joke. If schools do not hold their own athletes accountable and checkup on them regularly, nobody knows the reality of the 20-mile radius situation when it comes down to where a student is actually living and sleeping every day. Idk why MHSAA ever began letting private schools crossover into MHSAA domain: but that’s where the problem began. And now nobody has the guts to either police it appropriately or shut it down entirely. In the current environment, private schools should have to sign affidavits stating they’ve verified all team members live within the appropriate radius AND are not being scholarshiped (paid) in any way before the season begins. And any school found in violation of this policy (no matter how big or small the violation) forfeits every win accumulated with the ineligible athlete on the team & forfeits playoff eligibility for 2 years. Enforcing a policy like that is the only way to even begin the attempt to even the playing field. But again - nobody has the guts to man up and implement a no-nonsense policy like this.

The way to fix it is to have schools who choose to be private be MAIS. Public schools can’t just choose to jump ship from MHSAA into MAIS on a whim. The same should be true in reverse. If you choose a private school for your kids, that’s your choice. But private school athletics (MAIS) should go along with it. Scholarshiped athletes shouldn’t be competing in the same division as non-scholarships athletes. And the power points thing is a symptom of a larger issue = the rules in MAIS. At the VERY least, if MHSAA is bound and determined to allow private schools with scholarshiped athletes to compete alongside MHSAA non-scholarshiped athletes, those MAIS should have to play up a class…or 2… to compensate for the scholarships.

Public schools don’t have to scholarship players - big difference. And at private schools, it’s commonplace to pay for kids to attend. Big difference. One schools system openly allows payment and the other does not - which makes consequences different if found breaking the rules.

MHSAA should kick out all the MAIS schools and go back to 6 classes. Done & done. MAIS schools have NO business crossing over to play in MHSAA unless they can provide legal documentation on every single athlete showing no scholarship was provided to the athlete/family for school attendance. (Which is impossible)

So the MAIS lost the 1 school the Jackson area liked to whip up on (PCS) and changed the entire system to make the remaining Jackson area 6A schools happy? This speaks volumes to the integrity of the MAIS. It’s trash.

That officiating was definitely questionable

So did these BHS guys quit the team or transfer schools or what? What’s going on

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