ITTA BENA &045; The season hasn’t gone like they anticipated. What was supposed to be brighter days at Mississippi Valley State went dark faster than Jerry Rice could ever run during his playing days there.

Staring a losing season in the face with two games remaining on the season, the Delta Devils are building for the future after being plagued by injuries early on. At least it’s working against recent competition &045; wins over Paul Quinn College and Prairie View A&M &045; to give the Devils some confidence heading into Saturday’s game at Alcorn State.

&uot;Our guys are getting some confidence,&uot; Valley head coach Willie Totten said. &uot;We’ve got a lot of young guys playing right now. When you’ve got young guys playing, they’ve got to get confident where they can play with people. We’re at the point where we’re not going to have a winning season, but we’re trying to build confidence in this team.&uot;

It’s not by choice with the number of injuries the Devils have had this season, but their club this season bears a resemblance to that Alcorn State squad from 2000 &045; a bunch consisting of mostly freshmen that went 0-11 and nearly got head coach Johnny Thomas run off The Reservation.

Now it’s Valley at 2-7 heading into the stretch run hoping to shake up the race for the Eastern Division title of the SWAC and build some momentum heading into next season.

&uot;We’re playing 13 freshmen &045; seven on defense and six on offense,&uot; Totten said. &uot;Once we started playing the game, the guys started playing pretty well. We’re trying to build a program, and the only way you can build is build it with young people. But we can’t quit. We’ve got to keep working these guys. We see some bright things out of these guys and see them maturing every game.&uot;

The offense has struggled for the most part this season as the Delta Devils rank second-to-last in the SWAC just above Prairie View with 15.9 points scored per game and total offense at 244.2 yards per game.

The offense includes Natchez native Brad Lyles, a 6-3, 270-pound senior who has split time between right tackle and tight end.

At the start of the season the Delta Devils were shut out in three of their first four games, leaving Totten to start rotating quarterbacks between last year’s starter Carey Weaver and Curtis Kemp after Weaver hurt an ankle.

While these days in Delta Devil football are dark, folks on either side Saturday can’t forget how similar the surroundings are to last year’s meeting. The Braves were riding high after a win at Southern and were looking to make a push for the Eastern Division title when they went up to Itta Bena to face Valley, just 3-6 at the time.

That day the Delta Devils out-played Alcorn in just about every facet, took a 23-6 upset and finished the season with a win over Alabama State. The loss sent the Braves tumbling to a three-game losing skid to end the season.

&uot;I think we match up extremely well,&uot; Totten said. &uot;They’ve got a pretty much senior ball club. Looking at them on film, they’re very, very quick on offense. Defensively they’re very aggressive. But overall talent, I think we match up with them pretty well. Even though we’re playing freshmen, we’ve got some pretty good freshmen. They’re just making freshman mistakes.&uot;