Veteran sportswriter and high school football expert Robert Wilson is doing the Priority One Bank/Mississippi Scoreboard predictions column each week during the high school football season on teams from Hinds, Madison, and Rankin County. Wilson had a 20-1 record (95.2 percent) last week and has an 252-56 record (81.8 percent) this season. 

Jackson Academy (9-3) at Jackson Prep (11-0), Friday 7 p.m.
(watch and listen at raidernetwork.org and jacksonprep.live)

       Prep won its 15th game against JA in its last 16 meetings with an offensive show in the first half from senior quarterback Billy Puckett and his teammates to the tune of 334 total yards and a 21-0 lead on its way to a 35-10 victory Sept. 13 at Prep.

       Puckett – who is having a terrific senior season – had his way with his father’s alma mater (Hastings is considered one of the best basketball players in school history and won two Overall Tournament championships in the mid-1990s) by completing 16 of 20 passes for 243 yards and three touchdowns.

Prep’s senior offensive line – left tackle and Duke commitment Cole Allen (6-6, 260 pounds), left guard Reid Vineyard (6-foot, 210 pounds), center Thomas Coco (6-2, 275 pounds and son of head of school Lawrence Coco), right guard Laquarrious Finley (6-2, 280), right tackles Matthew Parker (6-8, 310 pounds and a Baylor commitment) and Robert Watson (6-5, 225) – opened holes and protected Puckett all night as the Patriots produced 442 total yards (243 passing and 199 rushing). Parker is rated No. 20 and Allen No. 21 in the Class of 2025 in Mississippi by 247 Sports.

JA’s only win during the 16-game span was in 2020 when JA scored 21 points in the fourth quarter to defeat Prep 28-21 in the Class 6A state semifinals in former National Coach of the Year and Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame member Ricky Black’s last game at Prep.

First-year JA coach David Duggan’s team has probably made more improvement than any team in MAIS Class 6A over the season, especially since losing to Prep, and would love to end Prep’s season and its undefeated record. 

He also would like to get his 10th win – JA hasn’t won 10 games since 2020, the only time since 2013 – and reach the state championship game for only the second time since 2013 (JA lost to MRA in 2020). JA hasn’t won a state title since the three-peat by Coach David Sykes from 2009-2011. 

JA has improved since Prep game on the strength of some players coming back from injuries, especially sophomore offensive lineman Caden Moss (6-4, 260 pounds), rated the No. 9 player in the country and the No. 1 offensive tackle in the country in the Class of 2027 by 247 Sports and has Division I offers from Ole Miss, MSU, Tennessee, Akron and New Mexico State. Moss has made a huge difference on JA’s offensive line.

Also, JA has made a change at quarterback and sophomore Pruett James have given the Raiders more of a running and passing threat. Carter Mathison, who started the season at quarterback, has moved to wide receiver and had a solid season. 

Senior defensive back and Wesson High transfer O’Mari Johnson – rated the No. 11 player in Mississippi in the Class of 2026 by 247 Sports and has nine Division I offers, including seven from the SEC – is expected to make his debut this season against Prep after being out all season recovering from an ACL injury.

It will be interesting to see what kind of difference Johnson makes in this game and how much Duggan uses Johnson both on offense and defense.

Prep’s offensive front has to contend with one of the top players in the South in JA’s 6-3, 295-pound junior defensive lineman Dereon Albert – who has 12 Division I offers, including SEC offers from Auburn, LSU, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas A&M. Albert is rated as the No. 12 best player (third best defensive lineman) in Mississippi in the Class of 2026.

Prep has a solid defense, led by senior linebacker Tre Bryant, who signed with Arizona State in baseball and is the son of former Atlanta Falcons kicker Matt Bryant. 

       Prep is looking to finish with an undefeated season for the first time since Black led the Patriots to a 13-0 season and the state title in 2017.

Billy and Christy Quin are an example of families over the years with children at both schools. 

For the second straight year, their son, Major, and their daughter, Caroline, will on opposite sides when two rival high schools play. Major, who has verbally committed the Air Force Academy, is a senior on the Prep football team and the only player who starts on both offense (slot receiver) and defense (cornerback). He also an outfielder on Prep’s baseball. Caroline is a junior and a featured tumbler on the JA cheerleading squad and the starting goalkeeper on JA’s soccer team.

This has been going on since the schools started playing each other in the 1980s when JA became a large enough school to compete with Prep. Prep leads the series 44-16 and it’s a unique rivalry where players, coaches, fans, and alumni are from the same family, go to church together and live in the same neighborhood. Some Prep players’ parents graduated from JA and some JA players’ parents graduated from Prep.

Both teams have experienced coaches.

Prep coach Doug Goodwin has won 267 games in his 30-year head coaching career, including a 33-5 record in his third season at Prep. He led Prep to a 12-1 record and the MAIS Class 6A state title in his first season at Prep two years ago. Goodwin brought the Patriots back from the most losses since the first year of the school in 1970 (an 8-5 record in 2022). He won 234 games in 27 seasons in Alabama, is a member of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and was the first football coach in Alabama to take three different schools to state championship games. Goodwin led Demopolis to an undefeated season and a state title and set a state record with 761 points in 2008. He also had four state runner-up finishes.

Duggan, a 60-year-old Massachusetts native and University New Hampshire graduate, was defensive coordinator at JA two years ago with head coach Aubrey Blackwell. After a year as defensive coordinator at Kent State, Duggan had had enough of the 24-7 college scene these days and was hired after Blackwell, an Alabama native, left to take the head coaching job at Saint James School in Montgomery, Ala. He was at JA for two seasons and had a 17-9 record. Blackwell, who had coached in Alabama all his life before coming to JA, previously had coached at St. James.

Southern Miss football fans are familiar with Duggan.

       He coached under Larry Fedora at Southern Miss from 2008 to 2011, then followed Fedora to North Carolina, then came back to Southern Miss and coached under Todd Monken from 2013-2016. Duggan was linebackers every year while at Southern Miss and also served as special teams coordinator (2009-11), co-defensive coordinator (2011) and defensive coordinator (2013-2016).

       JA also stumbled against Presbyterian Christian – the Raiders rallied in the fourth quarter for a 24-20 victory – last week in the first round of the 6A playoffs, but the Raiders should be focused for this game against Prep.

       Prep, with 36 seniors, has showed it could focus for every game when it had back-to-back wins over defending 6A state champion Hartfield (52-45) and MRA (42-17).

       Getting ready for JA shouldn’t a problem for Patriots.

       The addition of Johnson gives JA another SEC level talent for Prep to be concerned about.

       Prep should survive this scare and advance to next week’s championship game.

       Jackson Prep 28, JA 21.

In other games (winners in bold):

Germantown (6-4) at Oxford (6-4)

d’Iberville (5-5) at Brandon (9-1)

Northwest Rankin (5-5) at Ocean Springs (6-4)

Callaway (4-7) at Grenada (10-1)

Ridgeland (6-4) at South Panola (8-2)

Terry (7-3) at Pascagoula (8-2)

Canton (7-3) at New Hope (8-2)

Florence (6-4) at Stone County (5-5)

Lanier (8-2) at Forest (10-1)

Pisgah (10-1) at Bay Springs (8-3)

West Tallahatchie (8-2) at Velma Jackson (9-1)

Hartfield Academy (10-2) at MRA (9-2)

Columbia Academy (7-6) at Tri-County Academy (11-0)