In the first two games of the season, Warren Central’s offense seemed to have turned a corner. On Friday night, it found a brick wall lurking there.

The Vikings had only five first downs and less than 100 yards rushing as a team in a disappointing 29-7 loss to Hattiesburg. It was a step backward for a unit that had been making strides to shake its conservative reputation.

In its first three games, Warren Central (0-3) connected for three touchdowns of 40 yards or more.

The 35 points the Vikings scored in a double-overtime loss to Callaway two weeks ago marked the first time they surpassed the 30-point mark since scoring 34 against Lawrence County on Aug. 28, 2009. That streak covered 22 games.

Despite struggling in the loss to Hattiesburg, the Vikings have used a variety of formations, deep passes and big plays to shake things up.

“It’ll go from an I-formation, to empty backfield, to trips and then back to a power-I. I don’t want to be labeled as a spread team or an I (formation) team. I want to be able to move the football however I can,” said Rob Morgan, a former WC quarterback now in his first season as the school’s offensive coordinator.

“Back in the day, you could line up and say ‘here we come.’ As things evolve, you’ve just got to mix it up. Find different ways to do the things you want to do.”

For several seasons, Warren Central’s coaches tried everything they could think of and came up empty for a variety of reasons. The biggest was, simply, a lack of top-shelf talent and depth.

The cream of several talented eighth- and ninth-grade classes either ran into trouble off the field or didn’t pan out on it. With a watered down roster, WC’s coaches did what they could to stay in games by employing a conservative run-first approach, along with solid defense and special teams.

The idea was to gut out low-scoring slugfests. It worked, to a degree, when the Vikings went 6-6 and made the playoffs in 2009. It didn’t work as well when they finished 2-9 last year.

Finally, some of the young talent is starting to filter through to the varsity level and help turn things around. The starting tailback, Aaron Stamps, is a sophomore. Leading receiver Kourey Davis is a junior who sat out last season and Chase Ladd is in his first year as the starting quarterback.

Davis caught two long touchdown passes from Ladd in the win over Callaway, and Ladd has thrown for four TDs. Stamps and junior Greg King lead a running game that’s averaging more than 100 yards per game on the ground.

On the other side of the ball, freshman Curtis Ross is starting at linebacker and had 12 solo tackles in his first two games.

“It’s tough if you don’t have a game-breaker or game-changer. Then you’re playing it 10 yards at a time,” Morgan said. “You look at the long touchdown pass against Callaway. It was just a fly route. It was a vanilla play call, but Chase saw it and (Davis) was wide open. Having playmakers is the reason that happened.”

One of those playmakers, Ladd, gave some credit to the line as well. He said it’s given the skill players the protection they need to make things happen.

“The offensive line has done a great job blocking. It’s giving the running backs and the receivers time to make plays,” Ladd said.

Of course, part of the reason for WC’s early success in 2011 might stem from its struggles the past few years. Teams familiar with WC and studying old film simply are seeing a different scheme and plays than the Vikings are utilizing now. That will change as the season wears on.

Morgan is hoping that by then, the offense will be skilled enough that it won’t matter.

“They’ll get better every week. It’s a learning process and a growing process. If we continue to do that, we’ll get better and better,” Morgan said. “I think we’re heading in the right direction. We just have to keep pushing to get to where we want to get to.”