East Central football: Undefeated and Unbroken

It’s hard to believe the East Central football team is still undefeated without the likes of Brown as well as Mississippi State tight end Brad Cumbest.

In other ways, it’s exactly where the Hornets expected to be leading up to Friday’s third-round home playoff game against West Lauderdale.

A deflating loss to Noxubee County in last year’s 4A state title game could have broken East Central, but it didn’t. “It’s just it’s a team effort. Defense plays great, offense gets the points on the board and just it is super fun.”

Instead, the Hornets ripped off their second consecutive undefeated regular season in 2018 and they’re still rolling at 11-0 right into the quarterfinals. Head Coach Seth Smith said, “Really, more rewarding than surprised. I thought all along that we had a chance to be in this position if we could gain some cohesion on offense cause we return so many guys defensively. But last year the headline every week was Tony Brown and Brad Cumbest and everybody sees those guys are graduating but what you didn’t realize was we had a lot coming back on defense.”

A big name in his own right, Avery White is fresh off Tuesday’s commitment to Southern Miss and spearheads an East Central brick wall, giving up less than nine points per game.  “It means a lot, really. Cause to have a tradition like that and me be able to be a part of it means a lot.”

“Any time you feel like hopefully you’ve had a part in watching a young man get the chance to fulfill his dream of playing Division I football, it’s exciting, it’s humbling, it’s rewarding. But they’re getting a kid who will come in and he’ll help early. I mean he’s special, he’s got freakish ability and kids like Avery make you a better coach.”

Coach Smith has been doing something right regardless, having led his Hornets to 24 wins in their last 25 games. More than anything that winning culture has become habitual, but now it’s mandatory. “We just expect to win every time to give it our 100 percent effort.”

Cornerback Trenton Baldock said, “Well, we have that expectation to exceed. So we were expecting it, but nobody else was.”

Quarterback Will Young said, “Really, I think what it boils down to is we have great coaches and they make sure we’re prepared every week. And we just don’t want to lose and now that we’re in playoffs, it’s like we can’t lose because if we do we’re done. And we just want to be back to where we were last year, and prove everybody wrong.”