Last season for Caledonia was a struggle – on the field and off.
After opening the season with a 33-13 win over Nettleton, injuries plagued the team in the following games. The Cavaliers lost their starting quarterback Cohen Clark to an ACL tear – his second in two years – and a starter in both the linebacking unit and the defensive front each went down with ACL tears. Then, more quarterbacks got hurt. Clark’s backup suffered a fractured hand, and his replacement fractured a hip.
The injury bug didn’t just bite Caledonia, its chomp left a sizable, gaping hole in the roster and team chemistry.
“By the end of the season, we were on quarterback No. 7,” said head coach Michael Kelly. “Then you surround that with a lot of things that happen in our sport: AC sprains, labrum tears, concussions. I think we missed a total of 23-24 kids last year over the stretch of the season. … And that kind of puts a damper on the locker room.”
The setbacks were too much to overcome and the Cavs slogged through a 2-7 finish to the year, losing in every Region 3-4A game.
Seeing the toll the season had taken on his team, Kelly sat down with his assistant coaches and formulated a plan designed to squash their turmoil. The solution?
Hanging out.
Kelly put on pool parties and other get-togethers to help get the team back in order and back on good terms with football and each other.
“After 22 years of doing this, I think the best way to create a team is to get your team together and create opportunities where they can get together – and it’s intentional and they have to talk, they have to fellowship,” said Kelly, a veteran coach entering his eighth year at Caledonia. “We did a lot of swimming parties. Anytime you get food, these teenagers love that. We’ve done a lot of small group activities just where our kids have a chance to share their thoughts. Share their mentality with their peers. When you have 75 kids in a locker room, that fear of speaking sometimes comes over them. … We went through a lot of culture things, and just really invited our kids to talk about what’s going on in the locker room.”
Kelly said his initiative seems to have worked. Some of the fractures, in both bones and chemistry, have shown signs of mending.
“I thought we had a really good summer as a team,” he said. “Not only in the weight room and conditioning, and obviously on the field, but we did a lot of things off the field; some team chemistry and team bonding. A lot of fellowships, which I think are very important. Hopefully those things will pay dividends as we step on the field of competition.
“We do the best we can do, and our kids respond pretty well to it. I think they’re getting to a point where they just want to go play somebody else instead of doing the same old, same old.”
The Cavs have a chance to see how they’ve grown tomorrow when they take on Noxubee County at 4:30 p.m. in a scrimmage in Louisville. It will be their first taste of football action before kicking off the season on Aug. 29, when they host Itawamba Agricultural at 7 p.m.
Senior leadership
Caledonia is fielding a large senior class of 18 veterans and is pairing them with nine juniors, 15 sophomores and 18 freshmen. The 18 seniors are the most Kelly has ever had in one class.
“We have a really good group of seniors. I think that large freshman (class) maybe overshadows them at times because we spend so much time trying to grow those freshman, but this senior class is going to be a very vital and important role for this team because many of them are playing such contributing factors, not only between the lines of play but in the locker room,” he said. “They’ve seen a lot of the good and the bad. They’ve seen a North state championship being played out here on this field as they transitioned from junior high to high school.
“There’s 14 or 15 of them that may not come off the field,” he said.
Under center will be Clark, who is making his triumphant return at quarterback after another offseason of rehab.
Nine of the seniors are returning as starters on the field, and around “14” others will see significant playing time. The offensive line will be anchored by four seniors who will be banding together to protect Clark.
“He embodies everything our football program is about,” Kelly said of Clark. “He’s a great human being; he’s physically tough and gritty, but he loves his teammates. And I think that’s why he’s endured what he’s done the last two years of rehab, therapy, mental setbacks of, ‘Do I really want to do this?’ There he is leading our football team with the brace on his knee and he’s ready to go.”
Clark will be the main man running Kelly’s flexbone triple-option offense, but will likely see snaps at receiver and at other positions. Tyler Long is sophomore quarterback who played four games for the Cavs last season. He is growing and learning the offense under Kelly’s watch, and a quick jump in his play could net him the position, which would allow Kelly to move Clark around the offense more freely.
“(Long) is a really good football player. He’s going to be a great football player for us. If that good football player can be a great football player quickly, it allows Cohen to do a lot of things for our football team. We’re still in that battle right now ”
He’s also training and making sure the backup QBs have backups. A lesson of being battle ready he learned last season.
“Last year, I had to play seven quarterbacks,” he said. “You better have all four of them ready to go.”
One group he expects great play from is his offensive line, a unit that returns mostly seniors.
“Anytime you put three or four seniors in a group, you expect a high success rate for the group and that entire side of the ball,” Kelly said. “But we’re going to go against some good football teams and some good defensive lineman. Those young men have their work cut out for them, but I’m excited to see them go play and get off the ball.”
Another unit Kelly is high on is the linebackers. He’s seen them grow all the way through fall camp.
“That group is exciting, and I don’t think there is one dude you can put your finger on and say, ‘Hey, that one linebacker is going to be great,’” he explained. “There are four or five in that group that through fall camp – they run, they fly around to the football, they communicate well.”
After the opener with Itawamba, the Cavs take on Amory, Lamar, New Albany and East Webster in a run against some tough opponents. Caledonia last played New Albany in 2022, a 21-18 win in the first round of the playoffs. Lamar is a first-time opponent for Caledonia, and East Webster is back on the schedule for the first time since 2014, a 33-23 loss.
“They are a 2A football team, but when you watch them, they’re a really good football team.
“That nondivision schedule is no slouch for us, and I did it that way on purpose, because when you look at that division schedule, it ain’t no slouch either.”
New home, familiar foes
The nonconference tuneup is designed to get the Cavs ready for their jump to the new Region 1-5A, a gauntlet of hungry teams. Columbus hosts Caledonia for its first region contest on Oct. 10. It’s a game that Kelly thinks could turn into another rivalry.
“I think it will be a good game,” he said. “We’re only seven miles away from them. I’m excited for it.”
After a tilt with the Falcons, the Cavs host Pontotoc and West Point, the reigning 5A champs, then play at Lafayette.
Playing in a conference with the reigning champions isn’t new to Caledonia; they just left Region 3-4A that boasted back-to-back 4A champion Louisville (2022-2023).
“From our standpoint, you kind of treat West Point as Louisville. They’re the standard of not only our conference, our division, but Mississippi 5A football,” he said. “We know we have to beat them to obviously win our division, and of course if you are going for the ultimate goal, you are going to have to beat them again.”
The regular season concludes with a showdown in Caledonia against old rival New Hope, who are playing in the same region for the first time.
“I think it’s unique for both schools, both teams, both fan bases because you can kind of see it like a college football standpoint,” Kelly said. … “A lot of football to be played before we get there for both teams but I do know it’s circled by a lot of households, businesses, a lot of people in the community, and it should be. It’s a rivalry game.”
The Cavs aren’t looking ahead. They are staying put, focusing on each day and each game as they roll around. When the lights finally come on for real on Friday, Kelly just hopes they play together as a team, win or lose.
“I just want to see our kids play and I want to see our kids get after it with a humble spirit and just fly around to the football and do things the way we try to teach them to do it,” he said.
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