MACON — Like many of his peers, Noxubee County High School football coach Tyrone Shorter doesn’t enjoy playing teams twice in one season.
Shorter’s rationale is simple: It is even tougher to beat an opponent a second time.
When that return engagement comes in the playoffs, the degree of difficulty increases exponentially because the loser goes home for the season.
Knowing Shorter’s feelings about playing a team twice in one year, it’s safe to say there are plenty of places he would prefer to travel to Friday night instead of having to go to Houston for the second time in four weeks. But that’s where Noxubee County (9-4) will have to go Friday to take on Region 4 rival Houston (9-4) in a third-round Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 4A playoff game at 7 p.m.
“It’s hard to play a team a second time in a season, especially when you beat them,” Shorter said. “But we don’t have any control over that. I always knew Houston had a good football team.”
Noxubee County, which has won 21-straight regular-season games in Region 4, extended its winning streak to seven games last week with a 20-13 victory against Lafayette County in Macon. Quarterback Timorrius Conner hit wide receiver Kymbotric Mason for a 37-yard touchdown pass with four seconds to go to allow the reigning Class 4A state champions to keep the program’s dream alive to win back-to-back state titles for the first time in school history.
Houston, which finished fourth in Region 4, eliminated Corinth, the No. 1 seed out of Region 1, 31-14 in the first round. Last week, it defeated Rosa Fort 20-6 to secure a second home game against Noxubee County this season. Noxubee County beat Houston 35-10 on Oct. 30 in the regular-season finale.
While the 25-point margin of victory might suggest Noxubee County will be a huge favorite in the rematch, Shorter doesn’t want his players to be overconfident. That is why he said he made a highlight film of all the missed opportunities Houston had in the first meeting. What he produced was evidence to back up his claim that the Hilltoppers left 28 points on the field.
After not seeing the focus from his players in film study Tuesday, Shorter said his players re-focused after seeing how close the first game could be and how they shouldn’t take Houston for granted.
“We know it is not going to be an easy task,” Shorter said. “No matter what you do in the months of August, September, and October, it is what you do in November. Houston is going to play us tough, and they are going to be a tough team to beat.”
Noxubee County has won the last seven meetings against Houston dating back to 2009. Prior to that season, Houston played in Class 3A. The Tigers have outscored the Hilltoppers 252-35 in those games.
Shorter believes Houston will rely on a running game that piled up 282 yards against Corinth and 182 yards against Rosa Fort. Urriah Shephard leads the Hilltoppers with 1,127 yards and 14 touchdowns. Quenton May has rushed for 532 yards and six touchdowns, while Taylor Baskin has 378 yards and seven touchdowns.
Houston has rushed for 100 or more yards in every game except two this season (Kosciusko, 43; Noxubee County, 94). Houston lost both games.
Shorter said it is difficult to tell if it will be harder to get his players motivated to face Houston compared to the challenge he faced the week leading up to the Lafayette County game. He said the emotion behind the game against Lafayette County, which some believe should have been the North State title game, will make it more difficult to get his players back to that level. But he said that’s what the Tigers will have to do if they want to have a shot to play the winner of the Kosciusko-Greenwood game next week.
“I am just trying to make sure they’re not going to think we beat this team 35-10 a couple of weeks ago and think they can just walk in there and do the same thing,” Shorter said. “It is my job as coach and the job of this coaching staff to let the kids know it is not going to be that way. I can see a little difference in practice this week. I got on to them hard during film session because they were laughing and joking. Last week, you could hear a mouse in the film session.
“People on the outside looking in think it is going to be a cake walk. It is not. I know coach (William Cook) is going to have them ready to play. We have to go in there and not make mistakes or turn the ball over.”
In the first meeting, Conner had three touchdowns passes. Noxubee County rushed for 92 yards on 28 attempts. It was the only one of five region games in which it failed to rush for at least 100 yards.
Last week, Noxubee County struggled to move the ball in the first half. Shorter hopes the second half, which saw the Tigers run the ball, especially on a 14-play touchdown drive, in the second half. After watching the film of the game against Lafayette County, Shorter felt Noxubee County was one block away on at least two drives in the first half. He hopes the Tigers have corrected those mistakes so their second trip to Houston will be a success.
“This team came out in the second half (against Lafayette County) and they refused to go home,” Shorter said. “They showed me that they’re a football team that if it plays like it did in the second half, it is going to be hard to beat us.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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