The gate, thanks to blessedly good weather this year, likely will be huge.

Plenty of fans will fill Memorial Stadium to watch the Warren County’s best rivalry as Vicksburg and Warren Central do battle. There will be cookouts, old friends seeing one another for the first time in years and very little in the way of parking.

The standard pageantry of school colors, cheers and bands will create an atmosphere of excitement.

But in the grand scheme of high school football in the state, things aren’t what they used to be.

The Vikings and Gators enter this game with few positives to draw from this season. Warren Central has admirably soldiered on, despite facing a talent gap with the powerhouses on its schedule that seem like a bottomless chasm. The Vikings have battled and hung tough, yet in the end, the talent of the depth chart wears them down like the grist at the bottom of a millstone. When Shon Jackson tore his ACL, the one explosive threat the Vikings possessed disappeared with the torn ligament. The Viking backfield was already cursed when backup running back Alex Sorrells tore his ACL in an opening loss to Ocean Springs and Jackson’s injury was just another body blow.

Things aren’t much better across town.

Vicksburg, despite having one of the best offenses in the state, is cursed with one of the state’s worst defenses. Any defense that gives up 70-plus points to Northwest Rankin, 54 to Grenada and yields 24 points and no stops in a fourth quarter that will live in infamy against Murrah is a sea anchor around Vicksburg’s hopes.

The Gators needed to take only four out of their last five games to earn a playoff spot despite a 0-6 start. They put together an awesome effort against Greenville-Weston in all phases and even though the momentum wilted against Madison Central, all the signs pointed up against winless Murrah.

Then the Gators’ ship ran aground on the rocks of a fourth quarter most fans would rather forget.

Considering all that, both teams still have a mathematical chance of making the playoffs if the planets align, certain team buses refuse to start or a horrific chicken pox epidemic strikes. If that isn’t a shocking indictment of how weak Region 2-6A is, there isn’t one.

The bottom line is that there isn’t enough football talent in this county to support two adequate Class 6A programs, especially when the limited talent pool is also drained by Porters Chapel and St. Aloysius. Enrollment numbers aside, the powers of Class 6A are head and shoulders above both schools, as evidenced by the scoreboards. Biloxi, which in the last census has nearly the same population as Warren County, has only one high school.

Until an improved economy allows the school district to combine the two high schools and build a new one with better academic and athletic facilities, the struggles will continue unabated.

No matter who wears a headset on the sideline.

•

Steve Wilson is sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. You can follow him on Twitter at vpsportseditor. He can be reached at 601-636-4545, ext. 142 or at swilson@vicksburgpost.com.</strong>

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