By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

JACKSON COUNTY — Over the 43 years since a state-wide playoff system was implemented in Mississippi for prep football purposes, this year will mark 15 times that a team from Jackson County has hosted a South State championship game.
However, when Ocean Springs hosts Brandon and Brookhaven travels to Gautier Friday night, a new chapter in the annals of prep football history in the county will unfold.
For the first time in history, two teams from Jackson County are hosting South State championship games in the same season.

“For years, Jackson County football talent was pretty much consolidated at Moss Point and Pascagoula, which were always in the same classification,” veteran journalist and East Central High School graduate Creg Stephenson said, Thursday afternoon.
Stephenson is currently an award winning journalist for The Alabama Media Group based out of Mobile and he also covered prep sports in South Mississippi for two decades.
“Now, for a lot of reasons, the people — and the talent is much more spread out,” he added. “So it was probably only a matter of time before this happened. I also think a lot of the smaller schools have started to take football more seriously and put more resources into it.”
This is the third time that Ocean Springs has hosted a South State title tilt, but it is the first time ever for Gautier to host.

The once mighty Moss Point Tigers hosted seven various South State championships from 1994-2007. They also would have hosted in 1983, but then legendary head coach Billy Miller decided to move that contest with Warren Central to M.M. Roberts Stadium in Hattiesburg on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi.
Pascagoula has hosted just twice, in 1987 and again in 2020.
Resurrection, under then head coach turned current assistant coach Scott Sisson, hosted once in 2015.
“It’s kind of surprising that this is the first time ever that this has happened,” Sisson, still the only head football coach in Jackson County history to lead three different squads in the county to the state playoffs, said Thursday afternoon.
Sisson guided East Central, Pascagoula and RCS all to multiple state playoff appearances.
“I know there were times when two teams from Jackson County played in the South State championship on the same night, like in 2017 when RCS travled to Nanih Waiya and East Central hosted Poplarville, but not like the situation this year.”

Those aforementioned Hornets hosted the South State in that year and that’s the only time they have hosted a game this deep into the state playoffs as well.

Jackson County has enjoyed an impressive and productive past in prep football. But perhaps none has been as significant as far as the day after Thanksgiving as has the current campaign on the gridiron.
Since the implementation of a state wide playoff system in 1981, Moss Point has won five state titles and played for another, while Pascagoula has won one and played for a second. Ocean Springs has also made it to the state finals as has RCS.

So, get your popcorn ready prep football fans in Jackson County. History will be made by the Greyhounds and Gators on Black Friday.