Smithville High School Seminoles

SMITHVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) — Year number two for Chad Collums at Smithville is turning into a bright one.

The Seminoles haven’t missed the playoffs in the last seven seasons and they have no plans on having that streak snapped with what’s returning for 2015. The focus though is filling the hole that was left from those who played for the State Championship in 2013.

“The seniors that we lost last year were a part of that State Championship team and they were the leaders of our team,” coach Collums said. “We have a good group of guys coming back though and we’ve added some guys to our team so we have a chance to be pretty competitive this year.”

“We were worried about where we stand losing all the seniors we had,” senior Nate Ward said. “We’ve had some new people join the team though and they’ve shown promise so I think we’re going to be very good on both sides of the ball.”

A major area of emphasis for Smithville next season is in the passing attack. The Seminoles are dominant on the ground with what’s returning but head coach Chad Collums hopes his offense can be multi-faceted so they can keep their opponents off-balance.

“Other teams were putting a lot of people in the box and we tried to pass but we didn’t work on it enough in practice,” Collums said. “That’s an emphasis we’re putting on our team this summer is the passing game. We have two good running backs in the backfield and teams will have to put that extra guy in the box to stop them so we’re going to have to be able to throw the ball.”

As usual, Smithville will rely on their determination and drive as a team. It’s what got the Seminoles to the 1A State Championship in 2013 and it’s what drove their baseball team to have two consecutive State Title appearances in Pearl.

The foo0tball team hopes that mindset will lead to big things in 2015.

“We just want to hit our opponent in the mouth,” senior Joseph Freeman said. “Don’t let them score and try to play Smithville football.

“We’re a family and we want to work together to stop other teams and be a great team and unit.”

“It’s always been our will to carry on,” Ward said. “Even in the State Championship year we were down a pretty good amount of points in multiple games and it was our will to not give up and keep pushing.”

It all begins for the Seminoles at home with Belmont and Hatley in back to back weeks then on the road at Eupora before kicking off division play in week four.