#HSFT22 Stop #5 — Booneville Blue Devils

Seniors are important to Booneville football every year, but this season, the group of seniors are extra special to head coach Mike Mattox.

“My daughter is a senior, too,” Mattox said. “So I’ve grown up up with these kids since they were in kindergarten and every one of them. It’s a special senior class and a team is only as good as its seniors.”

The seniors have known each other for as long as they can remember.

“I grew up with almost all of them,” senior Joey Wheelington said. “As long as I’ve known them, they’ve always tried their best everything they do, and they won’t give up easily.”

In their final season together, they said the want to leave it all out there.

“I want to make it a year we won’t forget,” senior Peyton Harris said. “We put everything into it. And it’s our last year, our last chance to really put forth an effort into what we do. And to lead as strong as we can.”

They especially don’t want the season to end the same way the last one did. The Blue Devils made the playoffs but lost in their first game.

“I guess it was a successful year in a lot of people’s eyes. It was it was not ours,” Mattox said. “We finished third in our division. We competed in every game we played, but we had lost 18 seniors the year before.”

Booneville has three state championships to its name, so Mattox’s goal is always to play in that final game. But he knows for that to happen, they need more than just talent.

“I don’t care how good you are, you’ve got to have some luck,” Mattox said. “Maybe lady luck or shine on us this year and we make it further than the first round this year.”

This group is special to Mattox for countless reasons, but the effort they give every day is one of the main ones.

“This group’s character, they may not be the most talented, the most athletic but they’re gonna give you everything that they have,” Mattox said. “And as a coach, that’s all you can ever ask for.”