MACON – When the final seconds ticked down to zero, Noxubee County raced onto the field to begin its cheerful celebration of its last-minute 34-33 victory over Choctaw County on Friday in the third round of the Class 3A playoffs.
The Tigers’ joy was only aided by the fact that at certain points throughout the game it seemed as if the Chargers were destined to be the team to once again close the book on the Tigers’ state championship dreams, but when plays needed to be made or when things weren’t going their way, Noxubee County was able to weather the storm when Choctaw took command – which happened early and often.
Staring down the barrel of a 14-0 deficit in the first quarter with absolutely no momentum to cling to, Noxubee still managed to advance to its fourth straight North Half championship game. Here’s a look at what was needed to pull it off.
Big-play Clay
Choctaw County running back Jeremiah Miller gashed the Tigers early with a touchdown run of 80 yards, and Jykeim Goodwin took the first snap at quarterback for Noxubee and was intercepted on his first pass of the team’s first drive, which left the Chargers needing only 41 yards to score. A long run by quarterback KJ Kork set up a 3-yard touchdown run from Miller, and Choctaw was up two scores just five minutes into the game.
It looked like it was already over and the script was already written: “Noxubee loses to Choctaw once again, this time behind the superb rushing from Miller.” To make matters worse, the Tigers’ offense took to the field and was forced to punt back to the red-hot Chargers after three plays when a holding penalty pushed them back further.
A heavy cloud of anxiety hung over Noxubee’s defense as it trotted back onto the field, and even fans in the stands were somewhat silent. Something needed to happen soon for Noxubee to find footing in the game if it wanted to win and advance, and linebacker Ethan Clay provided the play on the first snap. He broke free unblocked and hammered Kork, who had his back turned to the defense, with a bruising tackle that knocked the ball free and his team jumped on it for the fumble recovery.
“I just wanted to go out there and try to get the offense the ball back,” Clay said. “When I was going, all the linemen had went down (the opposite direction) and I just went to the quarterback.”
The sidelines and the stands burst in excitement, and suddenly the Tigers had life again. They just needed to capitalize on the new-found energy, and with Jaiden Taylor at the helm of the offense, the Tigers started to move down the field.
Head coach Teddy Young said Clay’s play was “big.”
“We’ve been leaning on our defense all year. They didn’t play the best game (Friday), but they kept fighting,” Young said. “They gave us that spark to make us get going offensively.”
Taylor makes plays to counter Chargers’ offense
The juice provided by Clay translated immediately into points for Noxubee County by way of Taylor’s dual-threat abilities at quarterback. The senior athlete and MSU commit finished the game with four total touchdowns and 283 all-purpose yards. Only needing to pick up 48 yards, and aided by a penalty on Choctaw County, Taylor carved up 36 of them on the first play of the drive with a run. He then punched in the first of his two rushing scores to get the Tigers on the board and fired a 56-yard pass to Glenn on the team’s next drive to set up Taylor for his second rushing score from 1-yard out to tie the game at 14-14 with 11 minutes left in the first half.
But before all of that, Taylor had to battle some nerves of being down in such a big game, but his brother Kamario, former Tiger quarterback and current Mississippi State freshman signal caller, was there with some words of encouragement.
“(Kamario) said, ‘We play four quarters a game,’” Taylor said. “He said, ‘There’s four quarters in a football game.’ So I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.”
After the teams traded punts, Choctaw went back ahead 21-14 by way of a short touchdown run from Miller, leaving only 2:49 left for the Tigers to respond. Aided by a pass interference call on the Chargers, Taylor drove the Tigers down the field into the red zone in five plays, but soon hit a wall. With time running out in the second quarter the Chargers hunkered down and left the Tigers facing a 4th-and-15 with time running out in the second quarter.
Young kept his offense on the field and dialed up a long shot into the end zone for Taylor, who lobbed a ball deep into the back of the end zone that somehow slipped through the hands of outstretched Chargers and into the gloves of Glenn. With 17 seconds left, Noxubee was a PAT away from trying the contest once more, and Young sent out the special teams unit to try and kick it. The snap to Taylor, who is also the team’s holder, was not clean and he quickly got up and changed course and ran in a 2-point conversion for the sudden 22-21 lead. It was the second time this season he changed plans on PAT try and captured two points for the Tigers against Choctaw – the first time gave his team an 8-7 win over the Chargers in the regular season.
But Choctaw wasn’t going away. In the third quarter, the Chargers recovered a fumble on their own 9-yard line to kill Noxubee’s try at another score and drove down the field for Miller’s fourth touchdown run, this time from only one yard out to open the fourth quarter, but he was stopped short by the Tigers on a 2-point conversion attempt to keep it a one-score game. Goodwin ran in a 1-yard score to retake the lead but the Tigers couldn’t convert the 2-point try and led 28-27.
After trading punts, Choctaw County had the ball back with two minutes to go and went down the field 80 yards to score. Runs by Miller and Kork and a flag for a late hit by the Tigers helped the Chargers keep the chains moving, and Miller provided his fifth and final touchdown run from two yards out, but was stopped short again on the 2-point try. The Chargers’ fans didn’t mind that they only led 33-28 with 1:39 left to play. They cheered mightily because they thought there wasn’t enough time for Noxubee to score.
It turns out there was – but at first it didn’t look that way at first.
Penalties and Glenn’s heroics
Taylor was sacked on the Tigers’ first play, but a pass interference call on the Chargers on the next play negated the loss of yards and gave Noxubee a fresh start. Taylor picked up another first down with his legs and Choctaw was issued another pass interference call, which moved the Tigers to the Chargers’ 14-yard-line. Young then drew up a play that targeted Glenn, who hadn’t seen many targets in the waning minutes of the game. Young had tried to go to Glenn earlier but wasn’t happy with how he fought against the defense during the route and failed to make a play on the ball, which forced the Tigers to punt back to Choctaw, who went down and scored. But despite that, Young wanted to go back to him.
“I just told him that he didn’t give me the effort that I wanted. I feel like he is one of the best receivers in the state and we go to you with the game on the line, you need to give me that effort, but he stepped up to the challenge,” Young said. “I called his number again and he made the play.”
Taylor executed the play to perfection and lobbed a 27-yard pass to Glenn, who leaped up and snagged the ball for what turned out to be the game-winner with 25.9 left to play.
“We do that at practice every day,” Taylor said. “That’s my tweaker, they can’t tweak with us.”
The Tigers’ defense made a stand at midfield and kept the Chargers out of field goal range to hold on for a victory that was embedded with the feeling of revenge against the team that defeated them in last year’s state championship game.
“It gives us life, it gives us confidence,” Taylor said of the win. “They sent us home crying last year so getting this’ W’ gives us confidence.”
“It motivates us,” Genn said. “It keeps pushing our season. We are going to have practice Monday; I’m glad to have practice Monday. I am not letting none of my seniors go home. We are going to be in Hail State (on) December 6.”
Up next for the Tigers is a rematch at Winona on Friday in the North Half championship for the right to play at Mississippi State’s Davis Wade Stadium in the 3A state championship game. Winona, the Region 3-3A champion, captured a 31-26 win over Noxubee on Oct. 10.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
