Not as bad as it seems by Joey Martin - posted Wednesday, October 17th, 2012 @ 3:10 pm  E-mail Story |  Print Story  So here we are two weeks from Halloween and Vidalia High and Ferriday High have a total of two wins combined. Scary. But it's not as bad as it seems. Start with Ferriday High. First of all you lose your starting quarterback, Shannon Morales, in the opening game against Natchez High with a dislocated shoulder and is just betting back to full strength. The Trojans lost their top player as far as offense and defense in Dontrell Domino to a knee injury in the second game of the year against Block. For a team with a limited roster, those injuries were devastating. But a further look shows how competitive this Trojan team has been, throwing out the 50-8 loss to Jennings. Natchez High has proven to be one of the top teams in Mississippi, upsetting the No. 1team and tops in 6A in Meridian. Ferriday only trailed Natchez 14-6 with seconds remaining in the first half before the Bulldogs used some trickery to go into halftime up by 15. The Trojans trailed Wilkinson County, one of the very top teams in Mississippi in 3A, 14-6 at halftime. Ferriday lost 21-6 to a good Block team and its only win was 20-14 over Vidalia, which despite having one win is much improved. Ferriday actually only trailed Homer 28-23 in the fourth quarter before losing 42-23. This is a team they lost to 51-26 last year. Cleothis Cummings has done a commendable job as a rookie coach. Sure, he will look back and see some rookie mistakes, but he's accepting a lot of input from a credible and veteran assistant coaching staff and still has his Trojans playing hard. As for Vidalia, the Vikings are very competitive, which is a word seldom used with this team last year. Vidalia fell to Delhi Charter 28-13 after falling to the Gators 49-7 last year. Quarterback Michael Whitley went down with a sprained knee in that contest, one of the few experienced hands returning for the Vikings. We mentioned the Vidalia-Ferriday game, and take away two fumbles and it's an entirely different game. Vidalia actually held Ferriday to 42 yards in the first half. Vidalia fell to a good Bolton team 28-14, the same team which beat the Vikings 28-0 last year. Vidalia's lone win came against Baker, and that was actually not one of the better games played by the Vikings this year. Vidalia lost to Jena 30-14. That game was close throughout with some extracurricular throughout as the officials did a horrible job of not keeping it under control. Jena actually scored its last touchdown from four yards out with 35 seconds remaining which didn't help out a volatile situation at the end of the game. Vidalia trailed Marksville 7-6 at halftime in Marksville before losing 21-12. The Tigers beat the Vikings 68-7 last year in Vidalia. So looking at the records it's easy to think Concordia Parish is at rock bottom as far as football as concerned. We've got two young coaches still learning, but also having to deal with having teams where a lot of the talent is freshmen and sophomores. Talent, not size. Parish fans are hoping the old saying about running in cycles is true. I can't help but think that looking at both teams this year. There are seven seniors, eight juniors, 13 sophomores and 11 freshmen on the Ferriday football team. The largest number of players on the Vidalia team are freshmen, with 15. The smallest - seven seniors. Those youngsters on both teams will get after you, as well. They played on junior high teams used to winning and you can see that on the field now. Better days are ahead for the parish. And years like this year will make us appreciate those days even more.