By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

GAUTIER — For the second time in three seasons, Gautier possesses a highly-decorated senior quarterback with the last name of Irving as the Gators enter the Class 5A South State playoffs.
Head coach Marc High and his current crew just hope that the current standout can take the team at least one step further than his older cousin did.
Gautier hosts Natchez Friday night to open the postseason for the second straight season. When the Gators go to work offensively, they’ll be doing so for the first time in program history with a Class 5A “Mr. Football” in the state of Mississippi directing the game plan.

Gautier senior standout signal-caller Trey Irving, the younger cousin of former Gator stalwart Kaden Irving, was honored with that award late last week as GHS was wrapping up its regular season at 9-1 with a 42-6 thumping of visiting Gautier.
Trey Irving has terrorized GHS opponents all season long with both his arm and his legs as he has completed 164 out of 250 passes for 2,013 yards and 15 touchdowns while at the same time carrying the ball 119 times for 788 yards and 18 scores.
“He’s a true dual-threat quarterback,” High said. “He can give defenses problems with his throwing ability and has great vision as a runner. He’s a team guy who loves seeing his teammates be successful as well.”

The 6-foot-160 pound Irving went 21-of-29 passing for 258 yards with three touchdowns and added a 50-yard touchdown run in the Gators 42-6 win over Laurel to secure Gautier’s first region championship in 16 years.
The Gators have made it to the Class 5A South State championship title round the past two years but have yet to reach their first ever state title appearance in the history of he program.
Irving has been a part of Gautier’s back-to-back marches to the Class 5A South State championship game over the past two seasons and despite missing about half the season last year he began to come into his own as the season progressed and finished his junior year with over 1,200 yards passing and 11 touchdowns through the air with five more scores on the ground. The Gators fell to home-standing Laurel 31-10 in the South State championship game. The loss was the second of the season to the Golden Tornadoes last season, both on the road.

Two years ago, Kaden Irving lit up scoreboards all season with over 4,000 yards of total offense and topping 50 combined touchdowns for the season. The Ole Miss baseball signee had 3,953 passing yards and another 400 yards rushing. He twice threw for six touchdowns in a game, against Vancleave and East Central, and finished with over 10,000 yards of offense combined his junior and senior seasons
The last football game of his prep career was a 49-14 loss also on the road and again to eventual state champion Picayune in the 2022 South State championship game. That defeat also marked the second of the season to the Maroon Tide on the road.
Kaden Irving was selected Class 5A All-State First Team and was picked to play in the prestigious U.S. Army Bowl. He was also named the Mississippi Gridiron 2022 Offensive Player of the Year.
Does the GHS head coach see any similarities in the two?

“That’s hard, because when Trey took over the regins we told him ‘we’ve already coached Kaden and we don’t expect you to be him in any way’,” High added. “We want Trey to be Trey. He brought his own spice to the offense. We just tried to utilize both of their strengths. And I wouldn’t trade coaching either one of them for anybody else.”
The Gators lost talented junior running back Solomon Baggett in the first game of the year this season with an injury, seemingly leaving a hard to fill gap on the Gator offense. After all, as a sophomore, Baggett ran for right at 1,500 yards and accounted for 16 touchdowns. His rushing total marked the most by a Gautier player in at least 15 years and was the most by any returning player in the “Southern Six”.

But not only did Trey Irving step up and enjoyed his award-winning season to pick up the slack but running backs Kasin Thomas and Latrell Pogue along with wide out Kanien Rush have enjoyed the best seasons of their prep careers so far as well.
“We pretty much took the same approach after Bagget went down,” High said. “The play of freshman Latrell Pogue and junior Kasin Thomas is what really helped. Along with good offensive line play.”
While Irving has accounted for over 2,800 yards of total offense and 33 touchdowns Thomas and Pogue have combined to run for almost 1,000 yards and have added six scoring runs apiece while Thomas also has over 200 yards receiving and two scores.
Rush had 148 total yards with two touchdowns in the Gators 42-6 win over Laurel.

All of these efforts combined with those of Kaden Irving has allowed Gautier to win 17 straight home games dating back to a regular season finale loss to Region 4-5A foe and eventual state champion Picayune in 2021, which was Kaden Irving’s junior season.

That streak also includes a 50-18 shellacking of Natchez last year in the first round of the Class 5A South State playoffs. Which takes us back to this week as the Gators still aim for their first trip to play for a Gold Ball.
(All 2024 Mr. Football award winners will be honored at a special awards luncheon, which will also be live streamed on the NFHS Network, in the MHSAA Conference Center on Wednesday, November 20. Additionally, award recipients will be recognized during the Blue Cross Blue Shield Gridiron Classic MHSAA Football State Championships in Hattiesburg at USM on December 5-7. The winner for each classification will be recognized pregame at each championship game.)