Heritage Academy football coach Sean Harrison expects his team to excel this year — after a while, anyway.
After all, the Patriots graduated 13 players from a 14-0 squad that rolled to the MAIS Class 5A title last year. Nearly all of those players — guys like Eli Acker, KJ Smith, Jared Long and Carter Putt — had previous starting experience; most of the players who will be taking their spots this fall can’t say the same.
So it might take the Pats a few games to get on a roll, Harrison said, but they’ll get there.
“I think once they get in a groove and the bright lights aren’t so bright anymore, I think you’re going to see a really good team,” he said.
Unfortunately for Heritage Academy, the lights they’ll be playing under in Friday night’s season opener might just be the brightest in the state.
The Pats start their 2020 season on the road at Jackson Prep in Flowood, a rematch of a game Heritage Academy won 24-15 in Columbus last August.
But this is a significantly different Heritage Academy team than last year, while Jackson Prep is always a constant in MAIS football. The opposing Patriots won seven straight state championships from 2012 to 2018 to increase their total to 25 all time. The next closest MAIS team to that mark, Centreville Academy, has won nine.
“I think the biggest thing is they’re just so fundamentally sound,” Harrison said. “They don’t make mistakes.”
Hardly ever missing blocks and tackles and always excelling on special teams, coach Ricky Black’s team is happy to punish opponents who can’t say the same.
“You make a mistake, they’ll make you pay for it,” Harrison said.
But Heritage Academy kept the mistakes to a minimum in last year’s victory, which gave the Patriots a lot of confidence that they were among the state’s elite teams. They won the following 12 games and romped to the Class 5A title to prove it.
Senior wide receiver Sam Hannon said if Heritage Academy can pull off the upset again, it would have the same effect on his team going forward. Hannon said that won’t be easy but that he’s optimistic.
“We’re going in with all we’ve got,” he said.
Hannon said Heritage Academy is strongest at its skill positions, as he, junior Wesley Miller, Columbus High School transfer Jaylan Stewart and New Hope transfer Jay Henry are set to anchor the secondary.
Hannon, Miller and sophomore Trey Naugher will be the team’s primary receiving threats with junior Braden Davidson set to start at running back. All four players saw time last year, but not all of them started full time.
“It’s a lot of returning players,” Harrison said. “It’s just that a lot of these guys haven’t been cast in that starting role.”
That includes sophomore quarterback Mack Howard, who played often in garbage time — the Patriots produced plenty of it — last year in relief of Putt. Howard improved considerably in confidence and consistency from the Pats’ first week of two-a-day practices to the second, and Harrison liked what he saw in the team’s recent scrimmage against Leake Academy.
“I have all the confidence in the world in him, and I’m excited to see him play Friday,” Harrison said.
Howard tweeted Friday that he’s already received a scholarship offer from Big 12 Conference member Kansas, and his coach credited that to the quarterback’s hard work over the summer.
“He knows that he needs to continue to move forward to get more offers,” Harrison said.
Howard will be playing behind an offensive line that was one of the best in the state last year (according to Putt, at least) and now has a mostly new look apart from left tackle Reed Brewer, who returns for his senior year.
Junior Colton Merchant will man right tackle with classmate Ayden Mitchell at right guard. A third junior, Stephen Matocha — who played on the defensive line some as a sophomore — will start at left guard. Sophomore Carson Hollis, who played some snaps at center in the Patriots’ game against Jackson Prep as a freshman last season, will hold down the position full time as Harrison hopes to keep standout senior nose guard John Jackson on the defensive line rather than playing both ways.
“I think those guys have a chance to be pretty good,” Harrison said. “I think you’ll see them just continue to improve over the year.”
Hannon, one of nine seniors on the roster, said the team’s seniors and younger players alike have been stepping up already and hopes to see that continue into the regular season.
Friday’s game will be the first test of that improvement, and while it’ll be a tough assignment, the Patriots are looking forward to it.
And their mentality is simple: “just go out and have some fun and do what we’re meant to do,” Jackson said.
Should Heritage Academy perform well — or even snag a win — its 2020 season could be a lot like 2019.
Harrison hopes so, at least.
“I think we have the chance to have a really talented team,” he said.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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