The East Mississippi Community College Lions (5-3, MACCC 3-2) need a final regular season game win to solidify a second place finish in the MACCC North. The Trojans (0-8, MACCC 0-5) just need a win. The Lions haven’t been their usual selves competing for a national championship and look to be on a downslide after their one and done “Last Chance U” TV show adventure. Head Coach Buddy Stephens has a little history with Trojan Head Coach Tavares Johnson Sr., as he recruited Johnson’s son, TreShun, who eventually signed with Northwest and later transferred to Coahoma Community College.
The Lions are still nationally ranked at #14 but according to Coach Johnson, it’s all hands on deck for the Trojan season finale.
“This is a must-win game for them. But I told our guys, we don’t have anything to lose and we have a chance to salvage our season and make it whole again by knocking off the so-called brand,” Coach Johnson said. “On my son’s recruiting visit all he talked about was ‘the brand, the brand and what side of the S do you want to be on?’”
Coach Johnson believes the Trojans can match up with the Lions and he’s been spending plenty of time in the film room breaking down East’s offense and defense.
Last Thursday, nationally ranked #4 Jones Community College (8-0, MACCC South 5-0) came to Moorhead and reportedly had several players out sick. The Bobcats still came out on top, 31-10.
“We’re trying to find a running game. That’s been our Achilles heel all season long,” Coach Johnson said. “We made a lot more adjustments and went under center. We were able to keep the game manageable. We were down 24-0 at half and I told our guys, ‘that’s only three possessions and if we take care of our business, we can’t lose. Let’s stop killing ourselves.’”
The Trojans are looking to keep building on the positives from the Jones game including putting together three possessions at the end of the game where the offense was clicking.
“That’s the style I want to play. That’s Trojan football right there. I think we got our 10 points out of those last four drives,” he said.
He noted the Trojan defense has been breaking instead of bending and giving up big plays.
“Defense was solid but again we’ve got to minimize those big plays,” he said. “If we do that, we’ll find ourselves in a ballgame.”
Today’s game time is 6:30 p.m. at Jim Randall Stadium and the Trojans will celebrate their sophomore players before the game and sophomore band members, cheerleaders and more at halftime. The Trojans will also wear pink accessories as October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.
