West Point head football coach Brett Morgan believes there are three qualities to a championship football team that separates it from the rest of the pack.

The first part is faith.

“Do you really believe you can do whatever you’re asking someone to do,” he said.

The second part is perseverance.

“You have to keep getting up and going to work everyday when stuff gets hard,” he said. “When you lose a ball game, when you don’t play good, when stuff doesn’t go right, you have to persevere through the hard times. Heart defines you as a man.”

The last quality is loyalty.

“We have to be our brother’s keeper and have each other’s backs,” Morgan explained. “Don’t let the hard separate us but bring us together, and protect our brand, protect our team and have each other’s backs.”

Those three tenets, infused with the Green Wave’s ground-and-pound rushing style and ferocious defense, are what have the reigning back-to-back 5A state champions poised for their second-ever three-peat. For the 13th time in school history, West Point ended last season at the mountaintop after beating Gautier 28-21 in the title game. West Point outscored opponents by an average of 25-14 last year as it posted an 11-3 record – and after a brief moment of celebrating another title, it was right back to work to kick off the offseason.

“(The offseason has) been good,” said Morgan, who is entering his second season as head coach of the Green Wave. “I feel like we’ve gotten done what we needed to do. All the way going back to last year after the state championship game, we came right back to work.”

Part of getting ready for the upcoming year is flushing out all the highs and lows experienced from the year prior. Each year brings different challenges, and thinking about what has happened only makes a team unprepared to run the gauntlet again.

“It only gets harder,” he said. “The more you win, the harder it gets. Everybody is aiming at the top, and I’ve heard (former Alabama head coach) Nick Saban talk about it, ‘It’s a constant grind to try and stay there while everybody else is coming after you,’ so it takes a lot of perseverance day-in and day-out, head down going to work. Last year was…a very, very great team accomplishment, but we’re not trying to think about last year. I tell people all the time, ‘The only state championship that matters at West Point is the next one.’”

The Green Wave are bringing back five starters on offense and defense to lead a team that boasts a total of 35 seniors, 37 juniors and 30 sophomores. On defense, Jamichael Forest is back at free safety, Jorden Rush returns at defensive end, Shamarrion McKinney is still at middle linebacker and cornerback MJ Hall and safety Kasavion Shelton are also returning to their roles.

“Those guys are kind of the anchor of our defense,” Morgan said. “Those are guys who either started or played a whole lot of football last year, so that’s the group of our defense that we’re leaning on to lead us – and they’re doing a good job of it.”

On offense, Colt Whitacre is back for his third season under center. He is a “a traditional quarterback that is more of a passing threat, but he can also run it and do other things.

(He’s) a good hard-nosed tough kid, a phenomenal leader,” Morgan said.

Junior Jaylen Hall is another quarterback who will see some action under center. He brings more speed as an “electric runner” from the backfield. 

Hall and Whitacre will be handing the ball off to Quintin Thompson, Michael Williams and Kingston Branham – three backs who will also see some rushing action after taking the snap themselves.

“We’re pretty deep at running back and pretty deep at quarterback,” he said. “We’re pretty fortunate; we were fortunate last year and fortunate this year,” Morgan said, who has been on West Point’s coaching staff for 17 years. “The ability to rotate those guys and not let one person have to do all the work is really critical to our success, (It) keeps our fullbacks fresh in an unselfish approach.”

Thompson, who is listed on the team’s roster as an athlete, also “plays a little bit” of defensive back and wide receiver for the Green Wave. Helping block and catching a few passes this season is Aiden Brooks at tight end. Protecting Hall and Whitacre from up front are Issac Warren at right tackle, Tyran Cox at center, Brayden Wofford at right guard and Justin White at primary receiver – a group of mostly seniors.

“Everybody knows we run the ball,” Morgan said. “We try to run the ball and try to play good defense and be sound in the kicking game. That’s our M-O and our philosophy, and we want to be a physical football team.”

West Point opens the season on Friday at Louisville, the beginning of a gauntlet of nonconference games against some of the best teams in the state. The Tigers are the reigning back-to-back champions in 4A and have had the Green Wave’s number in recent years, winning the last four contests. West Point then hosts 7A titan Starkville before tackling Noxubee County, the 3A runner ups, and Tupelo, the reigning 7A champs.

Play in the new and “extremely competitive” Region 1-5A begins on Oct. 10 at Pontotoc. But Morgan and the Green Wave aren’t worried about that right now. There’s too many tough teams to play before then.

“I can tell you that our region is very competitive in 5A and there are some very good teams. New Hope has done a phenomenal job; they’re clawing back and were a really good football team last year,” he said. “They’re going to be a really good football team this year. There are some other teams in the region also in the North 5A that are really quality football teams, but I can’t even begin to let my mind go to them right now.

“We get into the fire and it reveals what you have to work on and what you’re good at and what you can’t do. If you can survive it, you come out on the other end better for it. … “At the end of the day, we’re trying to get ourselves better going into district and going into the playoffs, and the only way you can find out about yourselves is to play top competition.”