lumberlayer

Clarksdale is solid, but I don’t know about them beating Louisville. I could see them playing them in the North Half if things play out right, but I can also see an early exit depending on the matchups. They beat Cleveland Central but Cleveland Central had opportunities to win that game just as they had opportunities to beat Grenada. Lack of execution has hurt CC early, so don’t put a lot of stock into that Greenwood game either. CC could be 1-3 as easily as they could be 4-0, so with that being said, it’s hard to gauge where Clarksdale and Greenwood are in terms of trying to compete for a title. I can’t see Gentry making any noise and I think Yazoo City could surprise some folks out of that region. They play Vicksburg this week - not sure what Vicksburg has this year but they went from 0-10 to 2-2, so we might get a better idea on Yazoo after this one between two improved teams.

Wish ‘em nothing but the best on Friday. We lost one to injury on the opening kickoff that may have made a difference but we’ll never know. Our guys probably had some jitters that made them drop some balls early on that could’ve made it more interesting as well. I don’t believe we’ll be back in that position next year with what we’re losing, but maybe our coaching staff can come up with something to keep us in ballgames and give us a shot.

It’s funny that West Point is “down” this year and playing for the championship. I watched Cleveland Central put up a heck of a fight and then West Point got that ball with 6:27 to go and did what they do and that was the ballgame. You’re also correct, Holmes County had them beat, but at the end of the game couldn’t run the ball to get a first down, had a terrible punt, and WP drove it 30 yards to take the lead. Say what you will, but those guys know how to win over there.

Who are the coordinators there now? I haven’t kept as close a watch on them as normal this year, but it looks like they are a few plays away from being 7-5 as opposed to 5-7. Looking through the roster I see a lot of youth. You reference Beamon, and he may be great, but he is a sophomore. 15, maybe 16 years old and getting his first taste of big time ball this year, I’m sure there were some growing pains.

You can take Cleveland as the example, though we don’t have the same number of schools public or private. We had two public, one private in a town of 10,000. Now we have one public, one private in the same size town, possibly a little smaller. The area private schools (Bayou and NSA) still recruit our talent, but they’re mostly only successful with the white students from Cleveland. The black kids that they recruit come from other areas, like Rosedale or Shaw, who may not be able to move to Cleveland but can find a way to get to Bayou daily. We had a pretty decent quarterback who was coming up from junior high to high school who suddenly transferred to Bayou Academy recently with no explanation that I’m aware of. Now I gave all that info for this reason: what kind of success have you seen in Cleveland schools? The basketball teams have won some games, track has won a relay championship (maybe 2, not sure), and football was good that first year of consolidation. The team is fair this year at 6-4 but they didn’t beat anyone of note. There have also been 3 different head football coaches in the short 5 years of the program, so that is contributing to some of the lack of success surely. We were much more successful athletically before we consolidated, though neither school would’ve been considered a powerhouse, per se. Our boys played Greenville High last Friday and the number of fans on their side was shocking. The total lack of depth on their sideline was noticeable as well. I’ve never been there and knew nothing about their program but it would seem that somebody could get that thing going in the right direction. The OL/DL bodies are there, skill players look decent enough for them to do better than 1-7 or 1-8 or whatever they were. There seem to be bigger problems in Greenville public than meet the eye, but I hope they can get it turned around in a hurry or else that town will dry up like all of the rest of the Delta towns.

I like Cleveland Central over Vicksburg this Friday, but this game really could go either way I think and should be a good, close game. Now, when it comes to that Green Machine next week, neither of these teams will beat them in the second round.

Gilbert was at Cleveland High under Greg Robinson, not Cleveland East Side. Not sure what his role was, possibly OC and OL. I know Robinson is the DC at Brandon and has been for many years so I assume he was the calling the defense at Cleveland before he left.

Man it has to do with the district administration. I'm not sure if you're from this area or not but if you are a simple search of Cleveland School District on social media will tell the story.

My sources have told me that Cleveland School District is a mess right now and would possibly pick up someone from current staff. Northside is a mystery, but heard they interviewed at least one coach from Cleveland Central.