2025 HSFT Stop #25: Louisville

LOUISVILLE, MS (WCBI)- Louisville football couldn’t have come any closer to winning the state championship in 2024. It was the first title game loss for head coach Tyrone Shorter, who has channeled that feeling of frustration into this season’s motivation.

“It’s been a huge motivation to our guys. That’s all we talk about. We were just inches short,” Shorter said. “We’re doing everything the right way so we won’t fall inches short again. These young men have been working extremely hard from the spring all the way up to now. They remember that feeling that we lost by one point, but we always say by the inch.”

While the team feels like they let that game slip away from them, Shorter knows that the 2025 Wildcats have what it takes to put themselves in that position once again.

“It’s gonna take commitment. This team is no different from the last three years,” Shorter said. “The standard is still the same, the motivation is still the same, so these guys are ready to play.”

If you think Shorter is the only one upset with the loss, think again. The players still carry the weight of coming that close to taking the trophy home.

“To come up just a point short last year, it’s everything,” offensive lineman Cameron Skeen said. “To know that we were just that little much away from winning, it fuels us to be better.”

“Every day that we run, we come out here at practice and think about that one point; how close it was to winning that. We use that as a lot of motivation; we don’t want to lose by one anymore,” wide receiver Josh Ammons said.”

“That was a big loss for us. It really hurt us,” linebacker Zytavious Pledge said. “We were the first team to lose the state championship throughout our whole history. So we’re going back once again.”

Louisville will start to make the climb back to the state title game when they host West Point on August 29.