Vicksburg’s offense can be summed up in one figure: 2.9 seconds. In the same time it takes a supercar to go from 0 to 60 mph, Vicksburg coach Tavares Johnson Sr. has signaled in a play with a series of gestures. His son — quarterback Tavares Johnson Jr. — watches for the call, and by the time the referee marks the ball ready for play his linemen are already on it, awaiting the snap. Everything with Vicksburg these days is about speed. Practice is a controlled evolution without rest, as units are shuffled off the field with rifle-bolt precision. Everything is hurried and, if you ask the coaching staff, it can always be done faster. Tonight at 6, the offense gets its first test against Pearl in the season-opening Red Carpet Bowl at Warren Central’s Viking Stadium. “That’s the number one word he (Coach Johnson) puts in our head: tempo,” Vicksburg H-back Garrett Watson said. “We’ve got to keep in shape, because it’s survival of the fittest.” Schematically, the key to Johnson’s offense is rooted in the Delaware Wing-T, which was perfected by legendary University of Delaware coach Harold “Tubby” Raymond. The blocking schemes, which create big running lanes by attacking a defense’s vulnerabilities, don’t require huge, hulking linemen. The scheme doesn’t require big running backs who can go between the tackles and absorb punishment, something that Vicksburg doesn’t have. All Johnson has done is put a more modern stamp on the Wing-T, pairing it with a no-huddle tempo and a shotgun formation that spreads the field, forcing the defense to not only defend more space vertically, but sideline to sideline as well. The standard buck sweep, counter and belly plays from the Wing-T are all in Johnson’s playbook, along with the option and plenty of passes. It’s all about putting the Gators’ small, quick players in open space, via a handoff or a pass. “Part of coaching is adapting to your personnel,” Johnson said. “Once I figured that out, it made my life a whole lot easier. Coaching is all about finding out what your players can do, maximizing their abilities and helping them become successful. I know it’s been an adjustment and we’ve seen some fatigue at practice. But I’d rather them get fatigued in practice rather than fatigued on Friday night. You don’t want to be involved in a battle in the trenches when you’re outweighed by 30 or 40 pounds per man. By the fourth quarter, that’s a lot.” Johnson is also a big believer in testing a defense deep, especially with man coverage and no safety help over the top. He likes to put a man in motion on plays to make the defense expose its hand pre-snap and create imbalances and mismatches on the opposite side of the field. Tavares Johnson Jr. played in the offense for two years at Cleveland East Side, where his father coached before coming to Vicksburg. It’s made for an easy transition for the Gators in the spring and over the summer to a pace best described as frantic. “I’ve been in this offense two years and I know the playbook from the back of my head,” Johnson Jr. said. “I can tell everyone on the field exactly what to do. It gives me a chance to look at the whole field and use all of my wide receivers. I get to the ball, run a play, get back and the third time we do that, the defense is all off-balance and tired. We like to run a lot of motion and that gets them even more tired.” The result is an offense that not only changes the pace of the game, but makes it fun. “It’s very crazy, but you’ve got to come out and execute,” Vicksburg wide receiver Malcolm Maxey said. “It’s real fast, so you’ve got to be in shape. It’s about speed and tempo. There’s a lot of trick plays. I feel it’s going to help us score a lot of points and not keep our defense on the field so much.”

On the air

6 p.m. 1490 AM – Vicksburg vs. Pearl

7 p.m. 104.5 FM – PCA at Union Christian

7:30 p.m. 101.3 FM – St. Al at Madison-St. Joe

8:30 p.m. 105.5 FM – Warren Central vs. Brandon