Ocean Springs hires one of Coast’s young coaching stars to lead football program
Ocean Springs High School has hired one of the Coast’s up and coming football coaches to take over its program.
Pass Christian head coach Blake Pennock was approved on Tuesday night by the school board to become the Greyhounds’ new head coach.
“It’s one of those things where I’ve coached Class 6A football for most of my career,” he said. “It was an opportunity to get back to that point. It’s an opportunity to lead a program like Ocean Springs that has all the qualities you’d need to be really successful at the highest level. You couple that with a great place to live and the school district, it was the right move at the right time.”
In his lone season as the Pirates’ head coach, Pennock turned the team into a winner with a record of 8-4 and led the program to its first playoff win — a 35-20 victory over Purvis on Nov. 8.
Pennock also helped senior quarterback Dustin Allison become state’s top passer in Class 4A. He completed 58.6 percent of his passes for 3,123 yards, 35 touchdowns and eight interceptions. The Pirates had two players clear the 1,000-yard receiving mark — senior Andrew Moffett (1,085, 10 TDs) and sophomore Kameron White (1,009, 11 TDs).
Pass Christian averaged 33.8 points and 489.8 yards a game with Pennock making the play calls.
Pennock plans to install his fast-paced spread offense at Ocean Springs.
“That offense is what I cut my teeth on and it’s what I’ve used every stop I’ve made,” he said. “I believe in that stuff. We can tailor it to the strengths of the players. We’ll be an up tempo spread offense that runs the ball. We’ll use our RPO system to our advantage. I think it’ll be a good match for the type of players we have.”
The decision to leave Pass Christian after one season was a difficult one for Pennock.
“It’s truly a bittersweet moment,” he said. “My wife and I did a lot of prayer and took our time thinking about it. It wasn’t a snap decision. I put my heart and soul into Pass Christian. It was difficult talking to the team and letting them know I was leaving them. All I can do is look forward. I’ll be their biggest fan moving forward.”
Prior to his arrival at Pass Christian, Pennock served as the offensive coordinator at Clinton High School and was part of a Class 6A state championship staff there in 2016. Along with a stint as a graduate assistant under Larry Fedora at Southern Miss, he also worked on the high school staffs at Madison Central, Terry and Oak Grove.
Pennock replaces Ryan Ross, who stepped down at Ocean Springs in November after going 61-45 in nine seasons.
This story was originally published December 17, 2019 at 6:07 PM.
