LAUREL – It doesn’t count towards a playoff berth, but it’s one of the biggest weeks of the year for Hattiesburg. It’s the Battle of the Little Brown Jug, the annual rivalry between Interstate-59 foes, Laurel and the Tigers.
For the past three years, the brown jug has made it rounds in the offices of the Hattiesburg School District, but for this week, it sits in coach Tony Vance’s office.
“Our players understand what it’s about,” Vance said. “It’s the Little Brown Jug, and the last few have been pretty exciting. Our players look forward to it, and I’m sure Laurel’s do too.”
The Battle of the Jug will kickoff at 7 p.m. on Saturday.
When the Tigers’ winning streak started, they were a 6A team. After the move down to 5A, Vance and Laurel coach Todd Breland talked about if the two met in the playoffs, would that count as the Jug game? They both decided on just the regular season game counting, knowing the two would meet in the playoffs a lot.
That’s exactly what has happened. The two have met in the postseason in both seasons Hattiesburg has been in the same classification as Laurel, and while the Tigers have won the Jug games, the Golden Tornadoes have claimed both playoff games.
“Win, lose or draw come playoff time, we’ve got he jug,” Vance said. “Laurel is the team to beat. They’re the defending 5A South State champions. The road to Ole Miss goes through Laurel until somebody beats them for the south championship, they’re the south state champions.”
After taking a trip to the 5A State Championship last season, Laurel has had to replace a lot of key guys on offense. Sophomore quarterback Xavier Evans and running back Zias Perryman led the team to a 24-12 win at Callaway last week.
Perryman had 113 yards and a touchdown on 15 carries last week.
Perryman only recorded five carries for 18 yards last season, and Evans didn’t see any action at quarterback. Also, of the four receivers who caught passes last week, only a combined one reception last season, and that was senior Juan Nelson who had 13 catches for 115 yards and a couple of scores as a junior.
“They have a running back who is really good,” Vance said. “He reminds me of a little baby Bo Jackson. He runs extremely hard. He’s probably about 5-10, 5-11, but he looks about 195-, 200-pound back. He’s tough to tackle. They have a couple of wide outs who are your typical Laurel receivers. They can go up and make plays and they can fly.
“Offensively, that’s what they bring to the table. It won’t be any different than the Laurel teams of the past. They’re going to be explosive on offense, and it all starts with their quarterback.”
On defense, Vance said he didn’t have to put any extra emphasis on who his team was playing this week.
“Defensively, they’re big, fast and physical guys who can run in the secondary,” he said. “I told our players (Monday), ‘We’re playing Laurel. You won’t play a more athletic team all year,’ and our kids know that and they expect to be challenge.”
Hattiesburg’s junior running back Drexlan Allen received the most carries last week against Petal, leaving senior Mississippi State commit Fabian Franklin with just 10 carries for 40 yards. Allen had 13 rushing attempts for 60 yards and a touchdown.
Vance said this week that there wasn’t a hidden message behind that. He believes Allen is Division I talent, too, and he wants to save Franklin’s wheels for the district schedule and the postseason.
Hattiesburg senior linebacker Will Robinson saw a couple of snaps on the offensive side of the ball last week, and he even had a long pass reception that was brought back due to a penalty Vance didn’t agree with. Vance has been saying for months to expect his players to see both sides of the field. That includes Conner playing linebacker, too.
