From all reports it appears that big crowds turned out for last weekend’s high school football games in Mississippi. Even though Gulf Coast and Jackson public schools did not play, most state schools did play.

At least two schools, scheduled to play teams from areas hardest-hit by Katrina, decided to play each other rather than spend another week without competition.

Friday night’s game matching St. Aloysius against St. Andrews was played as scheduled in front of a large, standing-room-only crowd. St. Aloysius fans seem to follow their Flashes much like Cathedral fans follow the Green Wave and overflowed the visiting stands to stand along the sideline fence.

Even though St. Al came out on the short end 56-21, they had to come away from the game with some satisfaction. St. Andrews is a 2A school while St. Aloysius is 1A.

Also, St. Al has a couple or three fellows who have transferred from New Orleans-area schools, and whoever plays the Flashes before those guys learn the offense should consider themselves lucky. St. Andrews has some new students but no good football players.

I don’t know how many of the 1,000-plus new students taken into Natchez-area schools are athletes, but those who are good players will help an ordinary team be better and can make a good team great.

There don’t seem to be many rumors floating around Mississippi about illegal recruiting of these transfer students, but it has been said the recruiting in Louisiana has been rampant. Most likely most of the Gulf Coast high schools in Mississippi will be able to salvage at least part of the football season so any kids from those schools are probably going to stay put, but many of the New Orleans-area schools might not be back in action for a while.

That alone would make student athletes from those schools attractive additions to many programs.

I do not know where the three athletes at St. Aloysius transferred from, but I did understand that Mississippi Catholic schools could accept only students who had been enrolled in Catholic schools and they were required to accept those transfers. If this is not true, somebody let me know.

It looked for a while Saturday night that Southern Miss was going to make me eat a little Alabama crow. I did pick Alabama to win the SEC West, and the Tide didn’t look good early in the game.

Both Southern and Mississippi State proved a point. Teams like Alabama and Auburn, who have been good for a long time, are used to winning.

Over the years I have often heard that certain college football teams always seem to get the calls from officials. I would be naive to think that has never happened because I have seen it with my own eyes.

Most of the time, however, good well-coached teams just don’t make the mistakes that draw silly penalties, while getting your fanny whipped on every play will lead to your holding or jumping early.

And that’s official.

Al Graning is a former SEC official and former Natchez resident. Reach him at

AlanWard39157@aol.com

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