Indians relish playing for championships

For any local high school football fans who aren’t aware of the difference a year can make, they need to take a look at the North Side High School program.

After the first five weeks of the season, the Indians were 2-3 after having been pounded by eventual region champion Hardin County and had been upended earlier in the season by Crockett County and Obion County.

They needed a late comeback to get a win at Lexington to get a victory in their first region game, which would prove to be the game that got them into the playoffs.

Fast forward 52 weeks to now, and the Indians are riding a four-game win streak going into their Week 6 game at Dyersburg.

They pounded Hardin County last week, fought off a comeback attempted by Lexington the week before and left no doubt about who the better team was against Obion County the week before that.

In fact, if they convert a last-minute 2-point conversion in Week 1 against Crockett County, the Indians might’ve been 5-0 at this point. But that’s not anything head coach Woodrow Lowe Jr. is thinking very much about.

“Of course I would’ve liked for us to have won that game, but who knows?” Lowe said. “If we don’t lose that game, then maybe we don’t have the same fire or sense of urgency that our guys have been playing with.

“So if the trade off is our guys take that loss but play better the rest of the season, I’ll take that.”

Lowe said even more basic than that is he believes there’s a greater amount of buy-in to the coaching this year compared to last year, and that’s been the foundation for the team’s improved play.

“I think some of the younger guys have seen that we were more successful last year, which our goal last year was to simply compete better than they had the year before, which they did,” Lowe said. “This year, year two the goal is to be past the point of competing in games and instead competing for the playoffs and region championships.”

North Side is 2-0 in Region 6-4A play and steps out of region this week to travel to Dyersburg. The Indians came close to upsetting the Trojans last year when they were one of the best teams in rural West Tennessee.

The Trojans appear to have taken a step back as a program with their 3-2 record, which adds to the intrigue of the matchup.

The Indians’ attack is fairly balanced so far as they average 184.4 rushing yards per game as a team and 159.6 passing yards.

Transfer quarterback Henry Schiebout is averaging just over 100 yards passing per game. Miles Howard and Javonte Smith are his favorite targets, having caught 12 passes for 298 yards and four touchdowns for Howard and Smith with 190 yards and three scores on 14 receptions.

Quinn Jenkins is the leading rusher, having carried the ball 39 times for 267 yards and eight scores.

Georgie Starr is the star on the defensive side of the ball, averaging 10 tackles per game.

With the second half of the season ahead of them, and most of those games being in region play, Lowe said the goal is to keep playing hard and keep themselves in contention for the region championship.

Everyone in the region except North Side and South Gibson has suffered at least one region loss.

“We want to stay above that and know going into those last couple weeks that we’re hosting a first-round game and let everyone else be where we were last year, trying to get in and needing help to get in,” Lowe said. “Because I can tell you in the region we line up against in the playoffs, there’s a big difference between finishing No. 1 and No. 4.”

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news