25 Teams in 25 Days: Pass Christian Pirates

Of the 25 Teams in 25 days, only two of them have the distinct pleasure of setting the tone for the 2018 high school football season for the entire Gulf Coast. For the second year in a row, Pass Christian will square off with Long Beach in a battle of Thursday night lights also known as the Oyster Bowl.

Head Coach Casey Wittman said, “Oyster Bowl, Oyster Bowl. A lot of people don’t realize back, I went to St. Paul’s Elementary School here in Pass Christian and we hosted the Oyster Bowl for 20 years. And so we’re excited to bring the Oyster Bowl back.”

What players jokingly referred to as the Battle for Walmart last season, the Oyster Bowl’s new name brings instant credibility to one of just 14 Thursday night season openers across all of Mississippi and the only one in the 228. “We’re excited to be the first team, that was kind of the idea last year when we started it and I think it’s going to add to the crowd and give everybody a little taste of what’s to come Friday night for the rest of the season.”

Strong safety/ Wide Receiver Terre’ Johnson said, “It’s very important, we’ve got to really like set the tone. This game is really like, we’ve got to make an initial statement to the season. So Long Beach is definitely the team to do it against.”

Right now, the neighboring Bearcats have the bragging rights in their corner and much like the Shrimp Bowl and Port City Bowl, the pre-game narrative to the Oyster Bowl seems to write itself. “Long Beach and Pass Christian, they compete on everything. You could throw some dice on the ground and they’re going to get after it, you know?”

Quarterback Dustin Allison said, “They’ve just been talking. There’s Long Beach players that are saying it’s not even going to be a close game, and then there’s Pass players that go back with them.”

“Well, me personally, I don’t really buy into all of the social media stuff like that, trash talking. But we look forward to it. It’s going to be a good game, y’all should be there.”

Win or lose, the Pirates are heading in the right direction under Casey Wittman who is going into his 10^th season with the program, finally a contender in the region 8 class 4A ranks. “I think it’s a challenge. Last year we had our best finish that we’ve had since 2001 and we hosted a playoff game for the first time since 2001, so these kids are determined to build off that and I think our community and our administration is wanting to build a program that can stand the test of time.”

The first test has less to do with time and more to do with replacing Tionne Frost who rushed for nearly 1,400 yards and 13 touchdowns a year ago before transferring to Gulfport.

The Pirates are heading into 2018 with new uniforms, a new artificial turf field, and a new collective approach to their post-season ambitions. “We expect to win now and it hasn’t always been like that.”

“We’ve got everybody out into the weight room and onto the track and all kinds of stuff instead of just like half the team showing up it was mostly everybody showed up because everybody wanted to be a part of this team.”

“Really, we just want to get after everybody that we play. We want to bring it, I know we came pretty close last year, but we want to take it all the way this year, so that’s all that really matters.”

In 2017, Pass Christian went 5-6 overall with a first-round home playoff exit to Florence. The Pirates and Bearcats will kick off the brand new campaign from Long Beach at 7 p.m. on Thursday.