The Southwest Mississippi Community College Bears are in a familiar position.
They’ll be starting a quarterback who didn’t start the week before for the third time this season.
The Bears (2-4, 2-3) have gone from playing the experienced hand at quarterback to the hot hand, to the healthy hand, to the steady hand and now to whoever played best last week.
The problem has been that on any given night those roles changed.
Ryan McCall was quarterback for both Southwest wins this year, Josh Edison started against Copiah-Lincoln before leaving with an injury, but he will get the call on Thursday against Pearl River (6-1, 3-1) after hitting 20-of-39 passes for 247 yards with a touchdown and an interception against Jones County.
“Right now it looks like Josh will be it,” Southwest head coach Charles Anthony said. “One thing that he does give us is he can scramble and run the ball. When you’re playing good teams he adds that extra option.”
With Pearl River near the top of the state in pass defense, an extra set of legs to run with and keep the Wildcats off balance will help the Southwest offense.
“Statistically they’re the best defense in the league,” Anthony said. “They’re head and shoulders the best pass defense we’ll see. They present some problems and hopefully we’ll be ready.”
Pearl River has allowed seven touchdowns in seven games this year. Southwest has allowed 13 and sits in second by six touchdowns.
The Wildcats have also allowed 50 fewer yards per game than the next best defense in the state, which means the Bears will be looking for good field position and to take advantage of turnovers like they did last year.
The Wildcat offense has things settled a little better than when they played Southwest last year, though. Two quarterbacks combined to throw six interceptions, two of which were returned for touchdowns in the Bears’ 24-17 win.
Emil Jones lines up at quarterback for Pearl River and has thrown for more than 1,500 yards in seven games, but has just eight touchdowns and nine interceptions in those seven.
Their receiving corps will be difficult to defend like most teams in MACJC, Anthony said.
“They have four or five wide receivers that can fly and have good hands,” he said.
Southwest and Pearl River are coming off games on Saturday and have a short turnaround with the game on Thursday.
“Fall break definitely helped us,” Anthony said. “We were able to go out in the morning and afternoon Monday and had meetings at night. We went out in the morning Tuesday and we’ll give them (Tuesday Wednesday) to get their legs back and healthy.
“We did lose a practice, but Pearl River played Saturday too so they’re in the same boat.”
