By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

(Editor’s Note: This is the fourth part of a five part series featuring the upcoming schedules facing the five new prep football head coaches in the “Southern Six” coming into a new season.

Up next; New Biloxi head coach Eric Collier)

BILOXI — The Biloxi High football team will face the exact same opponents during the 2026 season as it did last year.

The Indians will just be doing it under the direction of a new head coach.

After serving two seasons as the Indians’ defensive coordinator, Eric Collier was promoted to head coach in January after the sudden departure of Jamey Dubose.

Collier came across the Alabama state line for his first job in Mississippi at the beginning of the 2024 season, after a long coaching career in the Alabama prep circles.

Collier accompanied Dubose in his trip from Lower Alabama to South Mississippi when Dubose took over as head coach at Biloxi. Prior to that, Collier spent one season on then head coach Kane Wommack’s staff at the University of South Alabama as Director of Football Development.

Before that, Collier was a successful head coach at Theodore High where he went 71-41 as the Bobcats head coach over a 10-year span. The Bobcats were especially successful in his last three seasons, winning 33 of the last 38 games under Collier. The 2022 team went 13-1 and reached the Class 6A state semifinals before losing a rematch to eventual state champion Saraland. Theodore won three region titles in his last six years.

He also spent five years with the program as an assistant coach, and was also the head coach at Alma Bryant for four seasons well going 10-30.

He spent the past two seasons calling the defensive signals for Biloxi as the Indians qualified for a berth in the Class 7A South State playoffs each year.

As he begins the “Eric Collier era” at BHS, he’ll be somewhat familiar with the opposition, as the Indians will face the same exact schedule as they did last season and in the same order.

The season begins on the road against Holmes County Central and Pascagoula, before closing out pre-region play by hosting perennial Class 6A powers Picayune and Hattiesburg.

Then, after opening Region 4-7A play with Ocean Springs and St. Martin, and open date comes before BHS closes out the regular season with games against Harrison Central, Gulfport, West Harrison and D’Iberville.