By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

MOSS POINT — For the sixth straight season, the Moss Point football team had an open date in the last regular season playing date on the schedule.

And now, after an historically dismal season, the once mighty Tigers are looking for their fourth head coach in four seasons for the first time ever.

The job opening for a head football coach to replace Julius Bridges at the helm of the Tigers was posted on the Mississippi High School Association web site Friday afternoon. In his lone season, the former Tiger standout baseball and football player led MPHS to its first win-less season in 72 years, and the 0-9 record is the worst overall since that 1952 squad went 0-11.

The Tigers were eliminated from the state playoff chase on Oct. 18th, the earliest in the history of the program.

The Tigers ended the regular season with a 54-19 loss to home-standing Greene County on the road in Leakesville at Johnny Ainsworth Stadium. But Moss Point’s playoff hopes ended a week earlier with a 41-0 loss at home to Pass Christian.

The Tigers only managed to lead in a game twice this season. Twice.

To even imagine that a prep football team could be eliminated from playoff contention as early as the 18th of October during regular season play is almost on the verge of ridiculous, especially that it could happen to at one time what was one of the most feared and successful gridiron programs in the state.

But that’s exactly what happened to Moss Point this season. And now the Tigers are looking for their fourth head coach in just over two years.

It marked the first time that MPHS missed the state playoffs in back-to-back seasons in 42 years, and it’s just the second time ever since the implementation of a state-wide football playoff system in the state of Mississippi in 1981 that that has happened as well.