From Special Reports
MACON — Tyrone Shorter doesn’t see the Noxubee County High School football team’s season opener against Starkville High as a chance for redemption.
A year ago, Starkville amassed more than 400 yards of total offense and used three touchdown passes from Brady Davis to blitz Noxubee County 51-19 in the season opener for both teams.
At 7 p.m. Friday, Noxubee County and Starkville will renew their rivalry in Macon to kick off the 2015 season.
Both teams are coming off victories Saturday at the New Hope High Jamboree at Mississippi State’s Davis Wade Stadium. Noxubee County defeated Holmes County Central 12-0, while Starkville beat Grenada 27-6.
But those two quarters of action only gave Shorter and Starkville coach Ricky Woods a taste of what to expect Friday night. They know they are stepping up and squaring off against an opponent that compares to the best teams in the state.
“I kind of like the matchup because they lost a lot offensively and we lost a lot defensively,” Shorter said. “We have a lot returning offensively and they have a lot returning defensively. It kind of evens itself out.
“They have some talent. They graduated some guys offensively, but I think the other receivers they have are pretty good, too, besides A.J. (Brown).”
Shorter said he was pleased with the way senior quarterback Timorrius Conner threw the football, but he didn’t like the fact that the Tigers scored only two touchdowns in six trips into the red zone. He said he was kind of disappointed in the effort of an experienced offensive line. He attributed to lack of success up front to offensive linemen making incorrect calls.
The weather might have had something to do with Noxubee County’s performance. Lightning pushed the start of the Tigers’ scheduled 3 p.m. start against back several hours. Despite the long wait, Shorter liked how his defense played and how the running game responded, especially the effort of senior running back Shunessey Sherrod.
Shorter knows the Tigers will have to do even better if they want to protect their home turf.
“They know the whuppin’ we got last year,” Shorter said. “I am not really saying they have to redeem themselves, but they are coming to our house. That is what the kids are talking about.
“Everybody is fired up. Coaches are fired up. We know it is going to be hard. We are playing this big 6A school, which is probably one of the best programs in the state of Mississippi. We know we are going against a giant, but our kids are fired up. I don’t know what the outcome of the game is going to be, but I know we are going to play well.”
Shorter hopes Starkville’s depth doesn’t wear his team down. He knows the Yellow Jackets have a lot of weapons on offense and that they return an experienced defense. That being said, Shorter said Starkville probably has the advantage in that it has a new coach. Woods takes over for Jamie Mitchell, so Shorter isn’t sure how much this year’s Starkville team will resemble the one from 2014. He knows the Yellow Jackets won’t have Davis at quarterback, but he also knows senior Montario Montgomery looked good at that position Saturday against Grenada.
Woods thought the team and Montgomery played well. He said Montgomery would have “graded out high” if he evaluated his performance.
“If he plays well, we’ll win a bunch of games,” Woods said.
Woods said Noxubee County’s aggressiveness on defense likely will be his team’s biggest challenge. Although the Tigers will have only three senior starters on defense, Woods knows the Tigers have a lot of speed and quickness and have a reputation for swarming to the ball.
“We’ve got to move the ball,” Woods said. “They’ve got an explosive quarterback. You’ve got to contain him and not give up the big plays. They’ve got good receivers, so it ought to be a great football game.”
Shorter agrees, but he hopes his team doesn’t have to learn as painful a lesson as it learned last season to achieve the same result. Last season, Noxubee County rebounded from the 32-point loss and suffered only one more loss (West Point) en route to the Class 4A state title, the program’s third, and second in three years.
“I just know one thing from watching them at the jamboree: They can play,” Shorter said. “They are really good, especially defensively. They looked good offensively, and they didn’t have their best player (senior wide receiver A.J. Brown, who was at an All-American baseball showcase in Chicago). We know they have a good football team, and so do we.”
Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino and Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait contributed to this report.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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