Jackets focused on improvement going into matchup with

Chris Jones sat at his desk a couple of days following the Starkville loss to West Point and he bluntly stated that he was shocked at preseason predictions that had the Yellow Jackets ranked No. 1 in the state of Mississippi.

Starkville was sitting at 1-2 at that point of the year with losses to Brandon and the Green Wave from West Point and the future of the team was called into question. Six weeks later, the Jackets are back at No. 1 in the state according to the latest Associated Press state high school rankings following a win over previous No. 1 Madison Central.

It was the sixth-straight win for a Starkville team that's coming together now at 7-2 overall and 4-0 in Region 2 with three more games to go.

Jones still doesn't agree with the No. 1 ranking. For him, there's so much more capable from this current team and it hasn't reached the top yet.

“I still believe we have a long ways to go,” Jones said. “Our goal was to never be number one, our goal is to be state champs. When we hold up that gold ball at the end, ok then I can say we're the number one team. (Against Madison Central) we missed big time opportunities to score more points and we want to be hitting on those if we're going to be a championship team. We're getting there.”

A road trip to Murrah is the next step for the Jackets tonight as they travel to Jackson looking for a seventh-straight win and inch closer to another district championship in the trophy case.

It's been a short week for Starkville. After beating Madison Central last Friday, the team had practice on Sunday but they were restricted from after-school practices on Monday due to the threat of severe weather.

In a week where the Jackets were already on a short schedule with the Thursday game, it's been more about them working on making themselves better than just a straight game plan for the Mustangs.

“We're going to keep it simple on Thursday and allowing our kids to play fast and at a high level,” Jones said. “We've tried to get better at what we do, stay healthy and take it one week at a time.”

Jones was frustrated with some missed opportunities against Madison Central that could have put that game out of reach earlier, but he was proud with the win. In the game, SHS quarterback Luke Altmyer and his receivers put on a strong performance and the junior signal