Eagles’ first region game is 1st against small private school

Jackson Christian football is 4-0 as the Eagles prepare this week to open play in Division II-A West region play.

But if the Eagles’ non-region games could be divided up, they would be a perfect 3-0 in Division II-AA.

Head coach Darby Palmer wanted to put together a tough schedule out of region for his team, and a big part of that was putting Northpoint Christian, Goodpasture and University School of Jackson on the schedule.

So now, the Eagles know they can compete in a bigger classification, does that give them any more confidence heading into games against other smaller private schools?

“I guess it does,” said quarterback Austin Kelley after last week’s win over USJ. “Once you get on the field, it doesn’t matter how big your school is because it’s 11 against 11, but we know the teams we’ve played are good teams, so we know we can play with good teams.”

Receiver Jay’Len Mosley has caught a lot of passes in those three games – 29 receptions for 509 yards and four touchdowns.

“I don’t remember hearing a lot of talk about how big the schools were that we were playing these last few weeks,” Mosley said. “It was just about how good they were and what we needed to do to win.”

Linebacker Kai Wyatt said the main thing that’s helped in the previous four weeks is going against different offenses and having the Eagles’ defense tested in different ways.

“We’ve gone against teams that run at you, teams that spread it out, teams that throw it,” Wyatt said. “I know we haven’t seen everything we can see, but we’ve seen a lot.

“And this group has answered the challenge every week and I love playing with this group because we bring it as much as we can every week.”

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news