25 Teams in 25 Days: Biloxi Indians

If there’s any school on the Gulf Coast that thinks it can take its division by storm this season, it is stop number three on News 25’s ‘25 Teams in 25 Days.’

The Biloxi Indians are oozing with confidence heading into 2019, despite failing to live up to the hype in recent years.

Outside linebacker Chase Nadolski said, “We’ve looked at this year, looked at our senior year since we were younger and we knew if there was ever going to be a year it was going to be this year for us to be the best team that’s ever come out of Biloxi.”

Those might sound like some pretty big shoes to fill, but for Biloxi, it’s been a hot minute. The Indians haven’t won the Region 4 Class 6A title since 2011 back when this year’s group of 20-plus seniors was in the fourth grade. “We’ve just been together for so long. We’ve all grown up together. Playing football at recess and stuff. And so that really just brings us together and makes us a lot stronger as a unit.”

Head Coach Katlan French said, “They know that they potentially have something special in that locker room. They know that we potentially have the makings for a great season, a historical season.”

At a first glance, it’s hard to look beyond Biloxi’s 2-5 district record from a year ago, but a deep dive into the win-loss column reveals a much improved point differential of minus six up from minus 49 in 2017.

Right tackle Ryan Spiers said,”I feel like – cause a lot of our games last year were very, very close. It was like we were one play away from winning the game here or there. There were like four games we could have easily one by one more touchdown, one more big play, which I think this year we’re really, really going to bring to the table. People are going to be scared of Biloxi.”

“We don’t want just a winning season, we want to win them all. We want to win our district, we want to get to the playoffs, we want to make a lot of noise in the playoffs and we want to get to where the top programs in the state are. And we have everything we need to make that happen, we just have to make it happen.”

Biloxi’s counterweight to that unwavering shock the world mentality is being ready for its conviction to initially be met with skepticism. “I feed off of it. We all use it as fuel.”

“Oh yeah, there’s no doubt that people are going to doubt us in the beginning, and I don’t blame them. I’d probably doubt us, too. But it lights a fire beneath us, and we’re really pumped up and amped up for this year.”

If the Indians are to punch their first ticket back to the post-season since 2016 and produce their first winning season since 2012, it’s all gonna start with the word on the red wristband that reads ‘brotherhood,’ the mantra heading into year two of the Coach French era. Running back Anthony Crouse said, “So brotherhood means to me basically, we’re all pulling for each other. Whoever the weakest link in the football chain is, we’re bringing him up. It’s our brother, we can’t let him down.”

“It doesn’t matter what grade you are, how big you are, how strong you are. Everybody is getting on each other to work as hard as you can, and I think it’s going to be something serious this year with Biloxi football.”

Overall, Biloxi was 2-4 in games decided by seven points or less in 2018. The Indians open up the new campaign at home against Greene County on August 23^rd.