HATTIESBURG – Sumrall coach Shannon White and Sacred Heart coach Lonny Schraeder have been friends since their college days at Southern Miss, but they’ve never played against one another until this Friday night.
Sacred Heart (2-0) and Sumrall (1-1) will meet for the first time on the gridiron, as the two will meet at the Sacred Heart Athletic Facility for the first game of a home-and-home series.
“(Schraeder) and I talked this summer, and we thought since we’re both getting old, we’d like to play each other,” White said. “It’s going to be fun to just say we’ve played each other, competed against each other and enjoyed those types of competitions.”
Sumrall is coming off its first win of the season last week against Wesson, while the Crusaders have won their first two games powered by a dynamic offense. The Sacred Heart offense has put up “wild stats,” according to White, but it’s the Sumrall offense that might leave Sacred Heart coaches scratching their heads leading up to the contest.
The Bobcats switched to a wing-T offense during the offseason, but it took a jamboree and one regular season game for White to scratch that plan and go back to a more conventional offense.
Sumrall has moved four-star junior wide receiver Dannis Jackson from quarterback back out wide and put junior Billy Garrity at quarterback. Instead of a one-receiver look, like it showed in the wing-T, Sumrall now uses two-wide receiver sets, and has moved back to shotgun.
Garrity was 14-for-18 for 203 yards and a touchdown in his first game at quarterback since junior high. Jackson caught 11 of those passes for 155 yards, too.
“I thought (Garrity) had a good week of practice, and he played outstanding in the game,” White said. “He was a quarterback in junior high, so he has a little background but not much. He’s a junior and practiced four days. What he did was absolutely amazing.”
The run offense hasn’t changed much, though. It’s still the same blocking schemes for the offensive line. As a team, Sumrall ran for 252 yards, as sophomore Gabriel Cocroft led the way with 84 yards and a touchdown on nine carries.
“I still think (the wing-T) is a good offense for us,” White said. “What I learned two Friday nights ago is it’s not a good offense for me. I don’t really understand the sequence of play calls and what I’m looking at, but what I do understand is this offense.”
Even though some of the run plays might be the same, the switch after the first game makes it difficult to game plan for Schraeder and the Crusaders’ defense.
“It would have been nicer if they had done that for the first two games, so we get a little more tendencies,” Schraeder said. “You have to really be eye-disciplined, and that’s really what we’ve been working on this week. You have to follow your keys.
“Don’t stand there in the backfield and try to follow the ball. Don’t look at the motions and all of that kind of stuff, because they’re trying to distract you with of those things. If you read your keys, you’re good. If you don’t, then they’re going to gouge you.”
White expressed how difficult it was to prepare for the Sacred Heart offense, too. Junior quarterback Zach Weatherell and his receivers have put up big numbers, as he’s passed for 460 yards on 29-of-58 passing for six touchdowns and an interceptions.
Joseph Bishop has been Weatherell’s No. 1 target so far this season with 15 receptions for 214 yards, but it’s senior Jeremiah Smith who is putting up the video game numbers. He’s caught five passes for 187 yards and five touchdowns.
Smith joined the team for the first time this season, and Schraeder said Smith hasn’t played football in the six years he’s been at Sacred Heart.
“Just really wild stats,” White said. “I’ll tell you what I’m seeing, the more they throw, the more success they have. I think they’re really confident in their passing game. If you throw the ball more and more, you get more knowledgeable and confident, and the kids do, too. Then, it’s not that hard. They’re really good offensively. They’re a well-oiled machine.”
