The ‘Come to Jesus’ moment that made Gulfport’s football team unstoppable
The Port City gave rise to an unexpected juggernaut this fall. One that has become the lone South Mississippi high school football program standing as the final weekend approaches.
The Gulfport Admirals were 1-2 and winners of just two of their last six when they traveled down I-10 to face Pascagoula in Week 5. Two of those four losses came at home to Petal, with the most recent on Sept. 19 by just one point.
Gulfport was turnover-prone. It had a hard time getting through a play without being flagged for one penalty or another. It looked like a team destined to struggle in a strong Region 4-7A, not one that would bend the district to its will.
In the days between the deflating Petal defeat and their trip to War Memorial Stadium, the Admirals had a sit-down. A heart-to-heart team meeting they now refer to as their “Come to Jesus” moment.
This was poor timing for Pascagoula, which was on a three-game losing streak and trying to right its own listing ship at the time of Gulfport’s visit.
In what may have been the longest game to ever finish with a running clock (about 168 minutes) the Admirals dropped Pascagoula to 1-4 with a 53-13 demolishing.
The 40-point destruction of a deeply talented roster may have been the wake-up call for everyone else, but for Gulfport that moment came in the laid-bare meeting just a few days prior.
Each player was asked a simple question: Why? Why do you play football?
The answers were written on cards and filed. Each week they were read from in team meetings. Call it a grounding, rebalancing or centering.
Ocean Springs called it a head-spinning loss.
It wasn’t nearly as close as the 41-27 score might suggest. Star running back Cooper Crosby scored a season-high five times and the Admirals sent a 25-game region win streak to a crashing halt.
Third-year coach Blake Pennock had finally slain the monster of his own creation. His prize transfer quarterback Parker Nettles was catching fire.
From Week 5 against Pascagoula through Week 9 versus Biloxi, Nettles completed 71.7% of his passes for 1,037 yards and 10 touchdowns against zero interceptions.
The defense pitched shutouts against St. Martin and Biloxi. A late fourth-quarter surge by D’Iberville during a 38-35 Halloween nail-biter is the closest anyone has gotten to the Admirals in over two months.
And since that game, the Admirals have won their last four by an average of 34.5 points.
“The stresses of 7A sometimes, you get so result oriented and so results driven, and you forget sometimes why you do this,” Pennock said after locking up the Admirals’ first region title in six years against D’Iberville. “We talked a lot to our guys about what brings them joy.”
The answers vary from player to player. One commonality, though, is the joy of leaving opponents battered in the wake of the Admirals’ journey to Starkville.
Gulfport needed 41 plays to drop 45 points on Northwest Rankin in the program’s first playoff win since 2019.
That set up a second-round meeting with Petal. The same team that ended the Admirals’ season in 2024 and the same team that was the impetus for Gulfport’s then eight-game tear.
Nettles made a rare mistake in the first quarter when the Panthers returned an interception back for a touchdown. It sliced Gulfport’s lead to 14-10. But it would be the only time Petal saw the end zone that night.
Javious Hales recorded his fourth interception of the month. Cordarious Payton returned a punt for a score. Crosby totaled 169 all-purpose yards. Gulfport scored 31 unanswered points and successfully exorcized a number of demons in the process.
The Admirals were South State bound for the first time since 1999.
Surely, now, this is where Gulfport would be pushed? Brandon had just upset Oak Grove and that followed an upset of Ocean Springs. The Bulldogs boasted one of the state’s top defensive units and were in the midst of a surprise run of their own following the mid-season resignation of coach Lance Pogue.
The running clock started early in the third quarter.
Pennock did his best to stay bashful about his offense producing six touchdowns in six possessions with relative ease and credited his staff for piecing together the plan that buried Brandon, 40-7.
His offensive coordinator, Patrick Mooneyham, was Katlan French’s first OC at Biloxi in 2018. He worked at Germantown, Northwest Rankin and spent a season working offensive quality control at Eastern Kentucky.
The Admirals have their most prolific offense in school history, scoring at a 37.9-points per game clip. Crosby is second in the state in total touchdowns only to Poplarville’s Mr. 3,000, Ty Keys.
Defensive coordinator Zach Green is the rising star of the room. He’s triple-degreed and working on a fourth. He followed Pennock from Ocean Springs and has since been the architect of a defense that has allowed 16.7 points per game in his 35 games on the Admirals’ staff.
Both coaches, along with Pennock and what is arguably the greatest football team Gulfport has ever produced, will have their hands full with Tupelo on Saturday.
The Golden Wave will enter as favorites. Their roster is steeped in SEC-bound talent. The Admirals have been at their best when doubted, but few are doubting them now.
