25 Teams in 25 Days: Biloxi Indians

Last season, St. Martin’s return to the playoffs for the first time in 14 years came at the expense of our fifth school on News 25’s 25 Teams in 25 Days: the Biloxi Indians.

Big Red lost out on its second straight post-season appearance on a tie-breaker scenario and now it’s up to the new sheriff in town to restore order on Biloxi’s place in the region 4 class 6A ranks.

During Bobby Hall’s three-year tenure at Biloxi, first-year Head Coach Katlan French was waiting in the wings the whole time, ready to pick up right where the hall of famer left off. “Obviously, Coach Hall was a good coach. I’ve been with Coach Hall for a long time and there’s things that he did here that we’re going to continue to do and there’s some things that I’m going to put my own spin on, things like that. So I’ve been around a lot of good coaches, I think I said this in one of the first interviews I ever had ,I’ve been around a lot of good coaches, and I’ve learned something from each and every one of them. And that’s the thing about it, and now that I’m in the chair I’ll use the things that I’ve learned that I thought were the best and the things that I didn’t think were as good and I won’t do.”

If there’s one thing Coach French will do, or at least, desperately wants to do behind his 19 seniors, is win. “We do want to get over that hump. I mean we obviously want to make the playoffs, but I think every Coast team feels the same way. The Coast needs to get some W’s in the playoffs, and that’s one of the things we want to do. We want to go as far as we can go.”

Wide receiver/ cornerback Jordan Montgomery said, “Excited. I feel like we’re all going to be excited of the pressure. But I mean due to our lack of success in the past years, I feel like everybody is expecting us to not be as good as we know we’re going to be, so it’s going to be exciting to prove a lot of people wrong.”

Any outside doubt about the Indians would stem from their last winning season, coming in 2012. Not to mention, LSU commit Donte Starks is back in Louisiana. But there’s no disbelief inside the locker room that a familiar face can lead them back to the post-season for the second time in three years. “Yeah, the expectation is to win every game you play. That’s the expectation. You always want to get out there and win, so you’re always competing to win the game.”

“Good part about having someone on staff is he already knows all of us, we’re all comfortable with him. So any changes like we’re really open to them, but it’s not too different from last year.”

Defensive end/ Nose tackle Jonathan Golden said, “Well, like Jordan said he knows us so he knows how to push us to get us to that level.”

In case you’re wondering what that level is: “Look out for defense and offense. Offense making the comeback. Defense, big booms.”

This is the second high school head coaching job for French who took over back in March. The Indians open up the 2018 campaign at home with St. Stanislaus in the Shrimp Bowl on August 17^th.