As South Pike coach Willie Brown has stated since August, his team is the only road block that may hinder itself.
He is sticking to that statement for Friday’s 7 p.m. road game at Purvis, which will likely determine whether South Pike makes the playoffs.
South Pike is currently tied for fifth place at 1-2 in Region7-4A play. The top four teams advance to the playoffs and a loss to Purvis could eliminate any hope.
“The first thing I told them on Monday is there are a lot of scenarios about this playoff thing,” Brown said. “We don’t want to depend on anyone. We want to depend on each other.”
While the Eagles and Tornadoes square off, fans will undoubtedly follow the North Pike-Tylertown score.
If North Pike (6-3, 1-2) loses Friday and South Pike notches a win, both would have identical 2-2 records heading into next Friday’s showdown at Colee field in Magnolia.
Even so, Brown doesn’t want his players losing focus of the task at hand.
“We actually have been focusing on Purvis,” he said. “We need to win this game on Friday. We understand that if we lose we are done. It is elimination time.”
Purvis has rebounded from a poor start to the season and has won three of its past four. The only loss was a 49-22 trouncing last week to Tylertown.
The Tornadoes carry one of the top playmakers in South State in Thamez Taylor. Taylor has 1,092 yards and 14 touchdowns on the season and is the Eagles’ main priority to contain.
“Everybody knows he’s going to get the ball. We just have to stop him,” Brown said. “We know they want him to run the football. We need to tackle him. He’s fast. He wants to get outside and he will cut the football back.”
South Pike is familiar with a game plan involving running the same thing over and over. The Eagles’ Wing-T involves similar formations and nearly identical plays that they run over and over again — it’s only a matter of the defense actually stopping it.
One unfamiliarity Friday could be special teams. Purvis is known to gamble throughout the course of the game and has shown it’s not afraid to surprise teams with onside kicks and fake punts.
There will be no surprises Friday, however.
“They like to onside kick,” Brown said. “We’ve been preparing for that. They like to take chances.”
