By Stan Caldwell
stanmansportsfan.com
Two coaches. Two football teams. Two agonizing defeats in a championship game. A full year of what-ifs and might-have-beens. Two communities seeking redemption.
For Drew Causey and Zach Jones, for Oak Grove and Lumberton, Friday offers a chance to wipe away the disappointment of coming close to winning it all and coming up short.
Both teams will take the field at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jackson Friday for the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Gridiron Classic, each trying to bring a state championship back to Lamar County.
Lumberton battles Biggersville in the Class 1A state championship game at 3 p.m., then Oak Grove squares off against Oxford at 7 p.m. in a rematch of last season’s Class 6A title game at Southern Miss.
For the Warriors, it was a bitter pill to watch the Chargers celebrate after Oak Grove took a 21-3 lead into halftime, and were inches away from going up by 12 points early in the fourth quarter, only to see Oxford rally for a 31-21 victory.
“We’ve had (the halftime score and the final score) written on the board in our locker room and in the coaches’ office since the day we got back in school in January,” said Causey, who has Oak Grove back in the 6A championship for the third consecutive season.
“It’s been a reminder to us to try to finish everything that we do.”
The Panthers are back in the Class 1A finals for the third time in Jones’ six seasons at his alma mater. Lumberton’s loss wasn’t quite as dramatic as Oak Grove’s, a 28-13 defeat to Nanih Waiya, but it was keenly felt, nonetheless.
“I don’t have to remind our kids of it,” said Jones, now in his sixth season as the head coach at Lumberton. “Even when we won Friday night (over Simmons), they were happy, and we danced around in the locker room a little bit. But they know the mission isn’t finished.”
There are a lot of similarities between the two coaches besides their employment with the Lamar County School District.
Both are 39, both played high school football in the late 1990s – Jones graduated from Lumberton in 1999 and Causey from Petal in 2000 – then went to Pearl River Community College and both took over as head coach at their respective schools in 2015.
Jones was undersized and did not play after high school, but Causey was good enough to earn a scholarship to PRCC, where he played for the late Keith Daniels in 2000 and Scott Maxfield in 2001, then went on to play two seasons at North Alabama.
The quarterback Causey helped block for was Will Hall, the newly named head coach at Southern Miss, who won the Harlon Hill Trophy as the best player in NCAA Division II in 2003. And it was at UNA that season where Causey got a first taste of postseason disappointment.
“We got beat in the semifinals that year at North Dakota,” said Causey. “It was negative-10 degrees outside that day. That’s an awfully big home-field advantage to have a team from Alabama to go up there and play in conditions like that.
“We were supposed to play that game at home. We were the No. 1 team in (Division II), and we were undefeated. Then the NCAA changed it the Monday or Tuesday before the semifinal, I guess, because the national championship was supposed to be played on our field.”
Although Jones knew he wasn’t going to play after high school, he knew he wanted to stay in the game as a coach.
“Our coach, Greg Amacker, was a good coach, and he had Lance Mancuso on his staff as offensive coordinator,” said Jones. “Lance is probably the best coach in the state right now, and I tried to soak up as much as I could during that time.”
Causey followed in the steps of his high school coach, Nevil Barr, who was then the coach at Petal.
“He is a great coach, probably the best I’ve ever been around,” said Causey of Barr. “He’s a motivator, a mentor; he’s everything you want in a coach.”
After five seasons at PRCC under Tim Hatten, Causey rejoined Barr at Oak Grove in 2013, where he got a chance to experience ultimate victory, as the Warriors won what is so far their only state title, in a 14-7 victory over Tupelo.
That was the season that Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre worked with the Warriors as offensive coordinator, which earned the program some national attention.
“I was going to go to Crestview (Florida) with (Hatten) until Coach Barr called me to come here,” said Causey.
“Brett was great. If you didn’t already know, you’d never realize that he was in the NFL, a Hall of Famer and one of the best quarterbacks to ever do it. He was extremely good in the passing game, and I handled a lot of the running game that year. We had a really talented group that year.”
Jones also got a taste of winning a championship as an assistant at Lumberton under Teddy Dyess, who led the Panthers to back-to-back Class 2A state championships in 2004 and 2005. He later followed Dyess to Philadelphia before coming back to Lumberton in 2015.
Having grown up in Lumberton, he knew he was getting into the kind of football culture that sets the town apart.
“When you think of Lumberton, the first thing that comes to mind is football,” said Jones. “I tell people, you either run from it or you embrace it. The kids here embrace it. They know the expectations; they know what we’re playing for every year.
“There are places that like football and there are places that love it. If you’re at a place that loves it, you’d better have a thick skin and you’d better know what the expectations are. I’d much rather be at a place that loves it than a place that likes it.”
Lumberton advanced to the Class 1A championship game in 2016, losing to Simmons in the final that year.
Oak Grove, on the other hand, had a couple of off years in 2016 and 2017, and there were some in the community who had doubts as to whether Causey could get the Warriors back to the championship level they’d enjoyed under Barr.
Causey answered those questions and then some, guiding Oak Grove to the 2018 6A finals, where the Warriors dropped a heartbreaker to Horn Lake 31-27.
“In high school, sometimes you play with what you’ve got,” said Causey. “There was a lot of learning we went through those two years when we didn’t make the playoffs, and I think it’s helped us out a lot since then.”
Last season’s championships followed different patterns for Lumberton and Oak Grove.
Nanih Waiya had a big, physical team that simply wore the smaller Panthers down as the game progressed.
“We played hard and we had some chances,” said Jones. “If a couple of breaks go our way, then we could have won. We just didn’t catch any breaks.
“They had two big backs and they were really good at the line of scrimmage. You’re over there watching, and your kids are where they’re supposed to be, but they’re still getting six, seven yards. I think it helped our kids realize that they needed to step their game in the weight room and put on some size, which they did.”
Oak Grove played about as perfect a second quarter as a team could play, scoring touchdowns on three splendid drives in the period. And even though Oxford rallied in the third quarter, the Warriors still led 21-16 going into the fourth quarter.
But the Chargers stopped Oak Grove twice on fourth down in the fourth quarter, the first time at the 25-yard-line and the second time inside the 1. Both times, Causey passed up field-goal attempts to keep his offense on the field and try for touchdowns.
“After any loss, you’re going to question yourselves,” said Causey. “But going back, I don’t think there’s anything I’d have done differently.
“You get the ball fourth-and-goal at the half-yard line with seven minutes to go; you score there and the game’s probably going to be over. If we had that play over, I think we’d do the same thing. Well, maybe call a different play.”
Both teams’ paths to the Gridiron Classic were detoured – as it was for every team in the country – by the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced schools to close in March and cut off any organized offseason workout program.
“I don’t wish this on anybody,” said Jones. “But, you know, I spent a lot of time with my wife. I was off, she was off. March, April, May, we spent 2½ weeks together.
“We went to the mountains. There wasn’t anybody up there and you couldn’t do anything, but I didn’t care. That’s what I wanted. I hate that we went through it, but two of my coaches have young kids and they got to spend a lot more time with their kids than they normally do.”
Despite the lockdown, both coaches were able to get workout schedules to their players, and they responded by doing as much as they could within the limitations of the pandemic.
“We would have some Zoom meetings with them, give them some workouts at home without weights, things like that,” said Causey. “A lot of them took advantage of that.”
Jones said Lumberton was having one of its most productive offseason programs until the mid-March lockdown.
“We sent each of our kids a body workout every day,” said Jones. “We did have some kids who were fortunate enough to have a weight set at home. If they did, we kept them on the schedule they were on. But we sent them a workout every day.
“I’m not saying every kid did every workout every day, but when we came back in June, we were in pretty good shape for not having been in the weight room for 2½ months.”
For Oak Grove, Friday’s game gives the Warriors a chance to fully avenge last season’s defeat against the team that inflicted it.
After last week’s South State championship win over Northwest Rankin, the Oak Grove sideline was happy to hear that Oxford would be the opponent in the final.
“Any time you get to play for a state championship, it’s going to be fun,” said Causey. “For our seniors, our juniors who played in that game last year, it probably means a little more.
“But it’s a new season. We’re a different team; they’re a different team. We’ve just got to execute better than them.”
Undefeated Biggersville, Lumberton’s opponent, is in the state finals for the first time in school history. The Lions have become a Cinderella story, as head coach Stan Platt resurrected a program that was nearly extinct when he got there five years ago.
“They’ve gotten better every year that he’s been there,” said Jones. “They’ve got really good players. They’ve got a good back in Goldman Butler, who’s a tough runner, and they’ve some guys around him who can play.”
Lumberton’s only loss came in the first game of the season, and it was rude slap in the face, a 32-0 shellacking at home by Bay Springs.
“We needed it – players, coaches, everybody,” said Jones. “The rankings had come out and we were No. 1 in the state (in Class 1A). That’s all I heard the whole week before, ‘we’re the No. 1 team in the state.’
“Bay Springs came in here, unloaded on us early and let us know pretty quick that teams weren’t going to roll over for us. It was a blessing, because when we left the field that night, we knew what things we had to fix, and it laid the groundwork for where we are now.”
Oak Grove’s wake-up call came in mid-October, when the Warriors had to come from behind and then hang on to defeat Brandon 24-22. Otherwise, however, Oak Grove has hummed along, taking over the top spot in the Overall and 6A rankings in mid-season.
“I knew we’d be able to compete,” said Causey. “But you’ve got a whole new senior class, and you wonder what kind of leaders they’re going to be; how are your underclassmen who didn’t play a lot last year, how are they going to develop.
“But I think everyone knew when we came back June 1. I don’t think we had a single kid miss a day all summer. They were here every day and were excited to be back.”
No matter what happens Friday, both Oak Grove and Lumberton will have enough left on hand to contend for championships next year. But that’s not on anyone’s mind right now.
“When we walked out from The Rock last year, all of these guys were saying, ‘we’re coming back; we’re going to come back,’” said Jones. “We’ve got four state championships sitting up there (in the school’s trophy case). It’s time to add another one.”
Blue Cross/Blue Shield Gridiron Classic
MHSAA State Championships
At Veterans Memorial Stadium, Jackson
Friday
CLASS 3A
11 a.m. – Magee (11-0) vs. Noxubee County (10-1)
CLASS 1A
3 p.m. – Lumberton (11-1) vs. Biggersville (13-0)
CLASS 6A
7 p.m. – Oak Grove (12-0) vs. Oxford (12-0)
Saturday
CLASS 4A
11 a.m. – Poplarville (10-3) vs. Louisville (12-1)
CLASS 2A
3 p.m. – Taylorsville (13-1) vs. Calhoun City (10-2)
CLASS 5A
7 p.m. – West Jones (12-2) vs. West Point (11-3)
