#HSFT16: Stop No. 60 – Columbus Falcons

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) — Energy and enthusiasm is abound in Columbus.

There is a renewed hype and excitement surrounding the Columbus Falcons football program that the community hasn’t seen since the turn of the Millenium.

The BirdGang made history a season ago, winning more than 7 games for the first time since 2000. But this year is a different team, and head coach Randal Montgomery’s Falcons will have to rely on their defense early to bring along their offense.

“Especially early on, we’ll have to rely on our defense,” coach Montgomery said. “We’re inexperienced up front. We don’t have the game experience and there’s no experience like game experience.

“You can’t tell with those guys and what they can do until they get into the heat of the battle. We’ll have to hang our hat on our defense until our offense starts to gel and roll along.”

But there’s plenty of weapons on the offense for quarterback CJ Gholar, including one of the best to come through the football program in running back Kylin Hill and bruising athletes Kendre Conner and Pat Jackson.

What you see from the offense and the Falcons coming up Friday night at Kemper County will be entirely different than when you see them come division play. Coach Mont agrees, his team will take time to develop.

“I think so. I think a lot of what happened to us at the jamboree, we started playing well once we got a rhythm going offensively and defensively.  The main part for us is we have to play good, solid defense and give our offense a chance to get going. Once we generate yardage and big plays, everyone will settle in and our offense and the offensive line will start to gel.”

But even with the concerns on the offensive line, the expectations are through the roof at Columbus High as the Falcons have the talent and ability to make a deep push in the playoffs this season.

Just two Falcon teams have ever won a playoff game since the school opened its doors in 1992. The BirdGang of 2016 hope they’re the next team to do that and accomplish even more.

“We’ve put a lot of expectations on them and our coaching staff,” Montgomery said. “Our kids are riding the wave of last year. They understand we went 8-4 last year but we can easily turn around and go 4-8 this year. I think the kids are understanding what our expectations are and they’ve taken them and run with them”