Residents ‘may skip church’ to watch Saints, Jags game

JACKSONVILLE — The New Orleans Saints and Jacksonville Jaguars are big in Brandon, Miss., these days.

And not just because Saints linebacker Demario Davis and Jaguars quarterback Gardner Minshew have banners flying outside the high school football stadium there.

Davis and Minshew will share the field Sunday when the Jaguars (2-3) host the Saints (4-1), and the matchup might draw as much interest as the Super Bowl in the 24,000-person town just east of Jackson, Miss.

“There will be people all over town watching,” said Randy West, a longtime assistant football coach and assistant athletic director at Brandon High School. ”Everybody will be hurrying home from church. Some of them may even skip church to make sure they don’t miss kickoff.”

West said a slew of locals are making the 600-mile trip to Jacksonville for the game, and he expects the football staff to break from film study to catch at least part of the action on TV.

All of them are clamoring to see Davis and Minshew in the first regular-season game involving two NFL players from Brandon.

“When people talk about the top states in the country, they’re not going to mention Mississippi,” Davis said. “We always have that blue-collar mentality.”

Davis gushed about Minshew while sitting at his locker, which had a Minshew T-shirt hanging inside.

“For him to be out there doing what he’s doing now, it’s just unbelievable at arguably the most important position on the field at the highest level,” Davis said. ”He’s doing an incredible job to be a rookie thrown in the fire, and to be able to get his team to rally around him and lead them and put them in position to win games has been incredible, and ain’t nobody more happy for him than me.”

Davis, Minshew, former Atlanta/Seattle running back Jerious Norwood (2006-11) and former New England defensive back Brian Hutson (1990) are the only players from Brandon to play meaningful games in the NFL.