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Tallulah Academy defenders Cade Morgan (5), Mac Cagnolatti (11) and Denton Ray (12) tackle Tensas Academy running back James Griggs during Friday's season opener. Tallulah beat Tensas 66-20. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Tallulah Academy running back Brayson Morson breaks free for one of his four rushing touchdowns Friday against Tensas Academy. Morson finished with 232 yards on only six carries. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Tallulah Academy's football team runs onto the field before the season opener against Tensas Academy on Friday night. Tallulah won, 66-20. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Tallulah Academy's cheerleading squad performs during Friday's football game against Tensas Academy. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Tallulah Academy's Landon Wells (48) tackles Tensas Academy running back James Griggs in the first quarter of Friday's game. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Tallulah Academy's Cayden Allen flips the ball to the officials after scoring a touchdown Friday against Tensas Academy. Allen scored two TDs, on runs of 37 and 19 yards, as the Trojans won 66-20. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

TALLULAH — Sometimes it feels like a team might score every time it touches the ball.

Tallulah Academy almost did.

Brayson Morson rushed for 232 yards and four touchdowns on only six carries, and the Trojans scored eight touchdowns on 16 offensive snaps as they crushed Tensas Academy 66-20 in their season opener Friday night.

Tallulah Academy had six one-play touchdown drives. Luke Moberley also returned a kickoff for a touchdown, and Morson had a punt return TD called back because of a penalty.

“It feels really good to be in that zone, but if it wasn’t for the offensive line I would not be able to do it. If they weren’t doing their job I wouldn’t be doing mine,” Morson said. “It definitely felt like a lot of 100 (yard) gassers.”

Tensas Academy quarterback George Tucker rushed for 121 yards and three touchdowns on 16 carries, but the Chiefs went nowhere after scoring on their first two possessions.

Tensas had 107 yards on its first two drives and 54 yards on its last 11. Tucker’s 59-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter, long after the game was decided, accounted for most of the Chiefs’ yardage from the second quarter on.
Morson, Matt Malone and Logan Hallman each had a sack for Tallulah.

“They got tired. We had depth and they didn’t,” Tallulah coach Bart Wood said. “It’s hot as all get-out out here. I would hate to see if they had some depth tonight, the way we played on defense. Our depth helps us tremendously.”

Although it seemed like a dominant defensive effort, Wood said it was anything but. He noted a number of personnel mistakes, like when he had to use a timeout before the first play of the second half because the Trojans only had seven men on the field, as reason for concern.

“We just had mental mistake after mental mistake. I pride myself on not having mental mistakes, but over and over we were not having personnel on the field. That will be corrected,” Wood said. “I’m very disappointed. The thing about it is, we did the same thing in the scrimmage and that’s what’s disappointing. We didn’t improve. We’re just not paying attention.”

Fortunately, the offense was playing at such a high level that it didn’t seem to matter.

Morson took Tallulah’s first offensive snap of the season 54 yards for a touchdown, the second 60 yards for another TD, and the fourth 57 yards for a third score. Gage Palmer also scored on a 4-yard run following a blocked punt, and quarterback Hayes Hopkins broke a 59-yard TD to put the Trojans ahead 38-12 at halftime.

Tensas had taken a 12-8 lead after Tucker scored on runs of 67 and 6 yards in the first quarter.

Morson scored again on a 55-yard run on the first play of the third quarter, and then the Trojans’ backups got some work. Cayden Allen had TD runs of 37 and 19 yards, sandwiched between Moberley’s 75-yard kickoff return TD, to close out the scoring. Tallulah finished with 362 rushing yards on 13 attempts, an average of 27.8 yards per carry.

“A whole bunch of them did,” Wood said of the big plays. “It wasn’t just (Morson). It was a whole bunch of offensive players that did it.”

About Ernest Bowker

Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Post's sports editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post's sports staff since 1998, making him one of the longest-tenured reporters in the paper's 140-year history. The New Jersey native is a graduate of LSU. In his career, he has won more than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Association and Associated Press for his coverage of local sports in Vicksburg.

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