#HSFT18: Stop No. 31 – Nettleton Tigers
| CLASS 3A | REGION 4 |
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| HEAD COACH: Ken Topps |
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| Aug 17 | Mantachie | Away |
| Aug 24 | Hamilton | Home |
| Aug 31 | Booneville | Away |
| Sept 7 | Baldwyn | Away |
| Sept 14 | Amory | Home |
| Sept 21 | Open | Open |
| Sept 28 | Aberdeen* | Home |
| Oct 5 | South Pontotoc* | Away |
| Oct 12 | Choctaw County* | Away |
| Oct 19 | Hatley* | Home |
| Oct 26 | Houston* | Home |
| *District games | ||
NETTLETON, Miss. (WCBI) —For the Nettleton Tigers, football means more than just a game. It means family.
“Being committed to family that’s what I’ve been trying to teach these guys,” head coach Ken Topps said. “It’s all about family. It’s a brotherhood. So we’ve been focusing on that all summer. We’ve been trying to get a whole lot of chemistry. We’ve really been focused on building that team mindset with those guys.”
That chemistry is important since Nettleton hasn’t seen the playoffs since 2015. Although a few years of rough seasons may get some teams down, the Tigers hold a different mentality.
“No negative mindsets,” Topps said. “We haven’t had too much negativity so that’s always a great positive to have in the locker room. So once you get rid of all the negative stuff you can just continue to build on it.”
“Show these people that we’ve been actually working,” senior receiver Nygil Owens said. “Waking up at 6:30 in the morning so we want to show them all the work we’ve been putting in the weight room, at practice, catching balls you know and running these routes.”
“Win every single day,” junior quarterback Graham Gardner said. “Go 1-0 every single week and just have that mindset that you can do it.”
Regardless of losing nine starters on both sides of the ball and competing in a tough 3A division, the Tigers say their resiliency will payoff to a playoff.
“We went 4-6 last year but we didn’t have a 4-6 team we should have won more games,” Topps said. “Early on in the season we just weren’t finishing games like we needed to be. So hopefully this year we can start and come out the gate with the mindset that we ended with last year.
“It’s your mindset,” Owens said. “It’s not about how good you think you are or how tall you think you are it’s about how you play. It’s not about your stat line it’s all about what are you going to do on that field to make people know, okay, this is the Nettleton Tigers.”
Nettleton will take this season one game at a time starting at Mantachie on August 17th.
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