By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

POPLARVILLE — When the Poplarville football team won its first state football championship ever over the weekend, it marked another notch in the annals of prep football history in Pearl River County.
But in addition to the historic milestone recorded by the Hornets as a team, there were a pair of PHS players that contributed to a long-standing football family tradition in the county also.
Hornet junior defensive lineman Titan Smith and his younger brother Trac Smith, just a freshman, both played key roles at times during Poplarviile’s march to its first-ever state championship on the gridiron.
The Smith boys are the children of current Pearl River Community College head coach Seth Smith and his wife Devin Lee Smith.
Devin is the daughter of legendary former Picayune head coach Dodd Lee, who helped lead the Maroon Tide to a pair of state football titles in 2011 and 2013 and yet another appearance in the title tilt in 2019 during his last season at Picayune.

Coach Lee was in the stands Saturday to celebrate the Class 4A state championship with his family and his two grandsons at M.M. Roberts Stadium on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi after Poplarville stunned perennial state power Louisville 29-28.
“Man, I was proud!” Coach Lee said, in an interview Monday night. “It was in the back of my mind going in that they could win a state title like we were fortunate enough to do at Picayune and I thought it was going to be a tough one. But the Poplarville program deserved one for sure, and I’m so proud of all of them.”

Saturday’s big win by Poplarville came 11 years to the day that Picayune won its final of two state titles under Lee.

Titan Smith had 30 total tackles including three sacks and three other tackles for loss on the season and he recovered a fumble. He also had a big defensive stop against the Wildcats late in the big win Saturday night.
Trac Smith pushed his way into the Poplarville line-up in just his first year of varsity competition and the move paid off for veteran head coach Jay Beech and his Hornets as the freshman registered 37 total tackles including 27 solo stops and he also picked off two interceptions and recovered a fumble.

The four Smith boys of Seth and Devin; Tucker, Tyke, Titan and Trac, grew up in Picayune for the most part around their grandfather’s program as Seth was an assistant coach under his father-in-law for some years before he moved to his alma mater Pearl River Central for a brief stint as the defensive coordinator.

Seth Smith then followed in Dodd Lee’s footsteps and took the head coaching job at East Central High in 2013. Dodd Lee was the head coach of those Hornets from 1990-1995.

During his tenure in Hurley, Seth Smith led his Hornets to the Class 4A state championship game in 2015. So he also has an appearance in a title tilt as a head coach just like his Father-in-law and two of his sons.
Smith then moved his family back to Pearl River County in 2020 and landed in Poplarville, at PRCC, and his sons joined the Hornet program slowly and steadily
Tucker and Tyke Smith both graduated from PHS and went on to play for their dad at The River. Also, Ethan Smith, the son of Dodd’s oldest daughter and Devin’s big sister Tabatha, is in the football video operations department of the PRCC football program as well. Tabatha died in an automobile accident in 2019. She served as an athletic trainer for her father’s Maroon Tide teams for several seasons.