JACKSON — The Starkville Academy football team’s 2017 championship season will forever have a myth associated with it.
It’s unclear how many fans on the Volunteers’ side of J.E. Logan Field saw it, or even believe it happened. But at least one eyewitness stated on the record he saw Starkville Academy coach Chase Nicholson race over to the bench in front of his team’s fans. The bench gave him a perfect spot to stand up and get up close and personal with the students and several former Starkville Academy football players, including Drake Gordman and Houston Clark.
Nicholson didn’t want to say hello.
Instead, Nicholson wanted to stir the students and his former players into a frenzy because he wanted Starkville Academy to exploit every advantage it could playing at home against Adams County Christian Academy.
Nicholson didn’t stand on the bench long, at least that’s what one eyewitness claims. The coach was said to have raised his arms over his head in an excited fashion before he jumped down and ran back to the sideline to resume coaching.
Senior quarterback Noah Methvin wouldn’t be surprised if the story is true. All he knows for sure, though, is Nicholson said the tale is a “myth.” If that’s the case, expect Methvin to trust his coach because that is the type of relationship they have.
“On a personal level, that is where the trust is really made,” Methvin said. “He cares about us as individuals. He shakes our hands at school and talks to us to figure out how our day has been. When we get out on the field, the trust we already have had bonded kind of leads over to the practice field, and then it leads over from the practice field to the game field.”
On Saturday, second-seeded Starkville Academy used that trust to beat top-seeded Indianola Academy 21-14 in overtime to win the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools (MAIS) Class AAA, Division II State title at Jackson Academy.
The victory capped an 11-game winning streak to end the season and helped Starkville Academy (13-1) secure the program’s seventh championship.
For its accomplishment, the Starkville Academy football team is The Dispatch’s Prep Player of the Week.
“We found our identity a little bit more from game three to now,” Nicholson said Saturday night, referring to a 35-21 loss to Indianola Academy on Sept. 1. “We saw some things, like those quick passes we hit over the middle that we knew we were good at, but we didn’t change. We are who we are. We are who we are since day one. The thing we have done is tweaked our schemes.”
Starkville Academy didn’t rely on a lot of flash because it had a stingy defense that kept it in every game. That defense, which is led by Brad Butler and assistant coach Bubba Davis, had three shutouts to open the playoffs. It then bottled up Indianola Academy with an aggressive approach that limited big plays. Even after the Colonels had a 49-yard run in the second half, the Volunteers answered with an interception by Zach Barnes.
“They were everything,” Methvin said of the defense. “We leaned on them. We leaned on them all season, and we leaned on them again tonight. The last play, they won the game for us.”
Methvin was referring to a fourth-down stop from the 1-yard line. The Colonels couldn’t complete the center-to-quarterback exchange, but the Volunteers didn’t give them an opportunity to escape as they swarmed the football and then started a celebration that didn’t stop as the rain started.
“We kept telling ourselves when it was 14-7 going into halftime, just score and they’re going to get stops,” Methvin said. “We kept pounding and pounding. We finally broke through. We got the turnovers at the end. We don’t get the turnovers we don’t win, either, because they would have punched it in.
“Defense wins championships. That is what they say, and they won it tonight.”
The Volunteers had plenty of reason to doubt. Taylor Arnold slipped on the artificial turf after he fielded the opening kickoff. The play forced Starkville Academy to start at its 1-yard line. A fumble by Ben Owens on the next play gave the Colonels the ball on the 2. One play and a kick later, Indianola Academy led 7-0.
Starkville Academy’s Matt Miller blocked a punt that led to a Ben Guest recovery for a touchdown that tied the game. From there, though, the offenses struggled to get much going. The defense continued to make big play after big play and refused to get down when the Volunteers couldn’t capitalize on offense.
But Starkville Academy finally broke through on a 5-yard run by Methvin with 8 minutes, 38 seconds left in regulation to tie the game at 14.
From there, it was time to trust.
In the overtime, Nicholson called a play that would have left some players scratching their heads. On second down at the 10, Nicholson told Methvin he wanted running back Taylor Arnold to throw a pass to Kyle Faver. The Volunteers had success with the play every Thursday in practice, only Arnold hadn’t thrown one of those passes.
“I didn’t make a very good throw, but he just made a heck of a play on it,” Arnold said. “I didn’t think he caught it, but they said he did, so I was OK with it. Whatever works.”
Starkville Academy then trusted its defense to do its job. The results weren’t surprising because Nicholson trusts Butler to run the defense. He also trusts his players to make play calls and to change things when something else might work better.
On Saturday, the only thing the Volunteers changed from the previous meeting against the Colonels was they played harder. As a result, they were able to put an exclamation mark on a season that was marked by repeated Nostradamus-like interjections of “Nov. 18” by Faver.
Credit Nicholson because the confidence and trust he built with his players helped them make Faver’s words a reality.
“We know we’re going to win Saturday,” Methvin said Tuesday, nearly four days from the game. “It is one of those things that we have so much confidence in ourselves that there is no other way to look at it.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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