That Hattiesburg Tigers are 10-0 and Region 4-5A Champions heading into their final regular-season game at West Harrison. There is literally nothing the Tigers can do that will affect their playoff standings, but there are some things they can do that can affect their football team.
“We still have a lot of things to work on as a football team, so we’ll focus on us this week and try to make sure Hattiesburg is as good as Hattiesburg can be come Friday night,” Hattiesburg coach Tony Vance said. “We have a lot of things to work on. There were a lot of things we didn’t do a very good job of last week in the game that we’ll try to fix this week.”
Vance has said every week, “Let’s be 1-0 this week,” and it’s a mantra Hattiesburg has executed well. This week, however, if it can go 1-0 Friday night, it’ll complete a perfect 11-0 season. So, is that discussed this week?
“No, we still have the same message,” Vance said. “Let’s be 1-0 this week and we’ll talk about that Friday night.”
West Harrison (1-9, 0-6) is currently riding a nine-game losing streak after winning the first game of the season against Bay High, and it’s coming off a 37-0 defeat from Wayne County.
The offense has struggled to keep up with opponents on the scoreboard, as region opponents are averaging 42 points per game. Both Picayune and Long Beach scored at least 50 points, and the least amount of points scored on the Hurricane was Gautier’s 26.
Junior quarterback Dayln Anderson has the Tigers’ attention, though.
“The quarterback is a really good player,” Vance said. “He can make plays with his legs and has a talented arm. We played him last year and he made a few long runs against us. The offensive line isn’t as strong as some of the ones we’ve played this year, obviously, but they do have a couple of guys (on offense).”
Anderson doesn’t throw the ball much, averaging 12 passes a game, but he completes around 50 percent of his passes and has 578 yards, nine touchdowns and six interceptions on 52-of-106 attempts. He also averaged 5 yards per carry when he does tuck it and run with it.
The Tigers’ defense will also have to keep an eye on senior Joel Washington at running back and senior Ahmad Gage at receiver.
“(Washington) is the running back and (Gage) is the receiver, and they’re two guys who can take it to the house if they get the ball in space,” Vance said. “We have to do a good job of minimizing their touches and making sure they don’t hurt us.”
Not too many teams have stopped the Hattiesburg offense this season, and even when the Tigers made changes last week and moved D’andre Humbles to quarterback and Jarod Conner to running back, they didn’t skip a beat offensively.
It was a move Vance wanted to “try” to see if Hattiesburg can add another wrinkle, and it worked out. It’s another aspect of the “Automated Touchdown Machine” West Harrison will have to prepare for, too.
“Defensively, their defensive line, they’ll bring a lot of pressure,” Vance said. “We have to be familiar with their blitzing and try to make plays off of that. We have to take some chances in the secondary.”
