HATTIESBURG – It’s been quite a while since the Bobcats have lost two games in a row, but here they are in that situation.
There’s no panic from PCS coach Joey Hawkins, though.
“Hey, it’s a long season,” he said. “You have to keep playing and continue to be excited and do the things you have to do to win the ballgame.”
This week is homecoming week for PCS, but it’s not a typical homecoming week game. It’s not going to be a breezy celebratory night when Oak Forest (5-0) comes to town. The Yellowjackets have won four of their five games by a wide margin, as their closest win came in a 34-28 decision over Simpson Academy at home.
“They’re playing hard and really well,” Hawkins said. “They’re making plays to win ball games, so you have to give them credit.”
Oak Forest runs an offense similar to the wing-T offense, which is full of misdirection out of the backfield. It’s run the ball 194 times this season compared to 63 passing attempts, and a combination of 13 different ball carriers have totaled 1,189 yards and 18 touchdowns.
Sophomore Josh Falcone leads the offense with 487 yards and seven touchdowns on 61 carries. He’s averaging 8 yards per carry and nearly 100 yards per game. The Yellowjackets have two other backs with at least 150 rushing yards, as senior Trent Smith has contributed 288 yards and five scores and Thomas Lee has posted 157 yards on the ground with a touchdown.
Hawkins said his team has seen a little bit of the wing-T offense this year, but there’s no question his Bobcats have a tough task this week.
“We just have to be tougher up front,” Hawkins said. “We have to get better up front, come downhill and make better tackles. That’s going to be our goal this week. We gave up too many easy plays last week, so we have to make them earn things a lot better than we’re doing now.”
Defensively, Simpson Academy’s 28 points is the most any team has scored on Oak Forest, and in the other four wins, teams averaged 6.5 points per game. In PCS’ last two losses, it still had 200 rushing yards in both games, but penalties and timely negative plays hurt drives in both contests.
“We had some personal fouls, a lot of false start and things you can’t do against a good team,” Hawkins said. “Those are things, and our kids are aware of that. We’re trying to get there. We’re a team, we’re a work in progress and we have to continue to come with effort every day and play as hard as we can.”
Despite the two losses, Hawkins believes his team is still on track to be a dangerous team at the end of the season.
“I think we’re getting better,” he said. “We have a lot of things to work on, a lot of places to improve and we’re still trying to find the correct personnel. We’re going to do it, too. We did some good things Friday night. We couldn’t find drives, but we built on a lot of things last week.”
