It took a pair of ill-timed cancelations for the matchup to materialize, but Pillow Academy’s football team will face off Friday night against a public school for the first time in the program’s 52 years on the gridiron.
Pillow reached out to nearby J.Z. George -— the only public school in Leflore or Carroll County playing football this fall — after both teams lost their scheduled opponents due to COVID-19. The rest was history.
“I talked to Coach (Rusty) Smith and we’re just really, really glad it all worked out,” Pillow coach Tripp McCarty said. “We didn’t want to have an off week, they didn’t want to have one, we’re right down the road. Both teams are going to get the chance to play a football game, which is good especially this year with all the craziness going on.”
With the Mustangs’ homecoming game threatened by both COVID-19 and the incoming Hurricane Delta, it’s clear the Mustangs are just happy to hold their festivities under the lights — no matter rain or shine, public school or private.
“I’m really happy to just have another week of football,” defensive end Britt Reichle said. “You never know if a game’s going to be canceled and when.”
McCarty is keeping an eye on the weather, but he doesn’t seem too worried about how the elements might affect his run-heavy offense.
“It’s just football, man,” McCarty said. “It’s an outside sport that can be played in the mud. We can do it. We have washing machines.”
Whatever the conditions might be at Bill Davis Field, best believe McCarty has experienced worse.
“I remember one down in Oak Forest years ago that our managers couldn’t keep their shoes on,” McCarty recalled. “The mud was higher than their ankles, and they were running out of their shoes and picking them up on the way back. That was a good one.”
For the first time since Week 1, Pillow should be at full strength on Friday. Key contributors Frazier Rose, Britt Reichle and Christian Belk have each been out one game this season along with McCarty, who returns to the sidelines after missing last week’s 42-7 loss to Starkville Academy.
“It’ll be nice to get the whole gang back together,” McCarty said. “Hopefully we got a lot more football left in us.”
The Mustangs will need all hands on deck to reestablish the same running game that fueled their early four-game winning streak. During that stretch, they averaged an impressive 6 yards per carry while surpassing 300 yards rushing three times. Since then, Pillow has averaged 4 yards per tote over its last two games — not bad, but not enough for an offense that averages less than 40 yards per game through the air.
There have been flashes of passing potential, including last week’s 62-yard toss from junior quarterback Nelson Hodges to senior wideout Matthew Jefcoat. But unfortunately for the Mustangs, they added a pair of interceptions for the second game in a row.
Senior signal caller Christian Belk will look to build on a strong outing last week, when he rushed for 114 yards on 13 carries against Starkville.
The potentially inclement weather and homecoming celebration might overshadow the historical significance of Friday night’s matchup.
Pillow Academy was among dozens of Mississippi private schools that were founded in resistance to court-ordered desegregation in the 1960s and 1970s. Pillow has since integrated, however, with a non-discriminatory policy since at least 1989 and black students for at least a decade. The Mustangs have played public schools in other sports such as baseball and basketball, but never football — until now.
“It might become this area’s rivalry, who knows,” Reichle said.
• Contact Riley Overend at 581-7237 or roverend@gwcommonwealth.com. Follow @OverendOut on Twitter.
