With a short week of practice and a “homecoming win high,” the Trojans could only muster seven points on the road as they lost to Itawamba Community College, 41-7 last Thursday night. But with an upcoming homegame Saturday against a tough Holmes Community College team, MDCC Head Coach Jeff Tatum expects better play from his team.
“We didn’t play well. The short week and the emotional win over Northeast, we weren’t able to go in pads on Sunday as we normally do and that’s our big tackle day,” Coach Tatum said. “It showed the way we tackled on Thursday night in Fulton.”
The loss dropped the Trojans to 2-5 overall and 2-3 in the North division, while ICC improved to 3-4 overall and 3-2 in the North.
The only score and only lead for MDCC happened in the first quarter when Byron Walker hit Lebarron Jones with a touchdown pass. Spencer Romero hit the PAT. After that it was all Indians as they put up 41 unanswered points. Jones had six catches for 94 yards and Tommy Washington and Treveon Miles had four catches apiece.
Defensively, the Trojans were led by KenTerious Owens with eight tackles.
The Trojans will be at home on Saturday, as Holmes Community College comes to Jim Randall Stadium in Moorhead for a 2:30 p.m. kickoff. The Trojan Tailgate Club will be feeding folks with a menu consisting of pork steak, hashbrown casserole, lima beans and blueberry crumble.
The Holmes Bulldogs come to Moorhead with an overall 3-4 record but are tied at first with Northwest with a 3-1 conference record. They have beaten both Northwest (47-42) and East Mississippi (49-42).
“We get an extra two days for Holmes and they do a good job of running the option. It’s an offense you don’t get the chance to see every day,” Coach Tatum said.
The Bulldogs version of the Wishbone offense is called the “Hambone.”
The offense has its origin at Georgia Southern where Tim Stowers invented it, brought it to Holmes and now as the Head Coach at Southwest Mississippi Community College.
“Paul Johnson gets a lot of credit but he was quarterback coach under Tim Stowers at Georgia Southern,” Coach Tatum said. “They’ve got it clicking on all cylinders and they’ve put up a lot of points the last two weeks.”
The Trojan coaches have been working on getting their players to stick to their main responsibility when facing an option offense.
“It’s all about discipline. If you have the quarterback, make sure the quarterback is tackled. If you have the dive back, make sure the dive back is tackled. If you have the pitch back, make sure the pitch is tackled,” he said. “A lot of times, these guys want to have statistics but this is not a stat type game. You have to do your job and do it well and not worry about stats.”
The Bulldog defense is one that plays an aggressively and attacking style that the Trojans hope to take advantage of.
“They do a lot of movement and they gamble a lot,” he said. “They are big play both ways. Big play for them and big play for us. We have to be patient and take advantage of what they give us. We know offensively that we must execute on Saturday.”
The Hambone offense chews up the game clock so the Trojans will be faced with less time to make plays unless they can control the tempo.
“The best way to hurt them like any offense that has a rhythm is to keep them on the sideline where they don’t develop a rhythm. We’ve got to put some drives together to eat some clock and take away their momentum.”
