STARKVILLE — Chase Nicholson didn’t even have to ask.
The Starkville Academy football coach typically holds voluntary film sessions each Sunday, but this week, ahead of Friday’s season opener at Lamar School, he didn’t plan on having one.
So several Volunteers took it upon themselves to call and organize a Sunday film study. Besides two injured players, only one Vols player wasn’t able to make it — a participation rate of over 90 percent.
“That kind of tells you the leadership and the work ethic that they have,” Nicholson said.
Those qualities will be necessary for a team that graduated 17 seniors last year, including eight of its 11 defensive starters, and must replace a lot of talent to return to the MAIS Class 5A championship game.
“You see a lot of faces that are back on both sides of the ball, but you see a lot of new faces, too, which is pretty standard for us,” Nicholson said.
Many of the players Starkville Academy brings back played some last season but didn’t hold down starting roles all year. Outside linebacker Bo Carter, for example, spelled star Matt Miller late in the season when Miller missed snaps with a knee injury. Carter also filled in at the other outside linebacker position on occasion.
“Bo has seen a lot of action, especially in the last half of the season, so he’s almost a returning starter in that sense,” Nicholson said.
Carter said Miller — whom he called one of the great players in Starkville Academy history — taught him a lot in terms of aggressiveness and playing style.
“I’m trying to play like he is: 100 percent effort at all times, make big plays, make my fits right so everyone behind me can succeed, too,” Carter said.
Nicholson said that each time the Vols lose a player of Miller’s caliber — like Taylor Arnold, Houston Clark or Noah Methvin — someone inevitably leaps into that role sooner or later, and he can’t wait to see who this year’s “alpha male” will be.
“That’s part of the mentality of Starkville Academy football: The man’s going to rise up,” Nicholson said. “You just wonder sometimes who it’s going to be. Sometimes you already know, and sometimes you’re surprised, but there’s always another one who steps up.”
Nicholson said that player will almost surely come from a 10-player senior crop or from an even bigger group of juniors, but he offered no more specifics on who the Vols’ next star will be.
“I have my theories, but those theories stay with me,” he said. “They’re just that: theories.”
He got to test them for the first time this season in Friday’s two-quarter jamboree game at Winston Academy, which the Vols won 13-7. Carter said the team’s pass defense was already stout, only allowing a handful of completions. Starkville Academy’s run defense was lacking, but Carter said that will come in time.
On offense, the Vols return junior quarterback Randall Futral, who offers starting experience at a premium position, and three starting offensive linemen. Running back CJ Jackson, always capable of taking over a game on the ground, returns for his senior season.
“I’m feeling pretty good about the team and everything,” Jackson said.
Jackson said the Vols, who began preseason camp July 27, have started kind of slow out of COVID-19 precaution, but they’re ramping up ahead of Friday’s first game. They’ll face Lamar School in a rematch of a 2019 quarterfinal contest that Starkville Academy came back to win 24-22.
While the Vols hosted Lamar in Week 1 of 2019 — a 34-13 loss for the home team — they’ll be on the road for the second straight time against the Raiders.
“It’s away again, but we’ve just got to make big plays,” Jackson said.
Jackson, a transfer from Noxubee County, was still in Macon when Starkville Academy won the 2017 title, but the Vols’ other seniors have that championship experience under their belt, Nicholson said.
They’ve also lost in the second round of the playoffs (Adams County Christian in 2018) and lost in the state title (rival Heritage Academy last fall).
“They’ve experienced every one of those, and I believe I know which one they would want to taste again,” Nicholson said.
Jackson expressed confidence that the Vols don’t simply hope to do just that — they’re fully capable of it.
“We’re going to go back to the state championship and win it, too,” he said.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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