Whoever tripped over the extension cord that turned off the lights early on a prep football season in the Miss-Lou didn&8217;t do anyone a favor.

Unlike Johnny from the first &8220;Airplane,&8221; no one was laughing.

Every team in the Miss-Lou who was still able to keep playing &8212; be it a playoff or regular season game &8212; came up short on the scoreboard to put an end to the season before anyone could reach their ultimate goal or dream of playing late into November.

For the first time in at least 10 years &8212; it may be even longer than that &8212; not a team in the Miss-Lou won a playoff game this season. You could usually count on some of the mainstays at least to get one win in the playoffs before matching up against a stronger club, but none of that happened this fall.

Five teams entered the postseason. Five teams came up empty.

But there were plenty of positives from a season of almost disarray with two hurricanes, plenty of injuries and bad breaks and enough ups and downs to line an entire theme park. Trinity Episcopal and Natchez High showed they can compete on their respective levels, and the Saints got into the playoffs as the dark horse candidate while the Bulldogs lost Friday night to get squeezed out.

Adams Christian welcomed back Miss-Lou veteran head coach Bobby Marks, who brought his old style of power football to a team that could provide plenty of it.

Even as the season wore on with injuries and Marks&8217; wife struggling in her bout with renal cell cancer, everyone with the program and the school drew a little closer together. By season&8217;s end, Neet Marks found herself with about 35 adopted grandchildren. The Marks family also grew by the dozens.

And give credit to Ferriday, who ended a postseason dry spell and got back into the playoffs for the first time since the 2002 season. The Trojans also knocked Vidalia for the first time in four tries to claim their first district title since 2001.

But Friday&8217;s 16-7 loss at home to Jewel Sumner &8212; just like the losses handed to Trinity Episcopal, Jefferson County, Franklin County and WCCA &8212; were tough to take in the first round of the playoffs.

&8220;Despite everything we had been through as a coaching staff and a football team, I think we did well,&8221; FHS head coach James McFarland said. &8220;I&8217;m not conceding to losing &8212; nobody wants to lose. Despite all the obstacles we faced, I think we did well. They (Sumner) had nine coaches over there. I think the team and our little staff did a good job.&8221;

The loss put a damper on the season, but the Trojans turned their program around back to what it used to be this season. And it couldn&8217;t have come at a better time after fans were after McFarland after last season and went to the school board with their wishes of having someone else coach the Trojans.

McFarland took a different approach to scheduling, built his team up early before getting tested midway through against Sterlington &8212; don&8217;t forget the game against John Curtis he scheduled that was scrapped due to Hurricane Rita &8212; prior to the district race.

But unlike that last Ferriday playoff team that went three rounds deep in 2002, this year&8217;s Trojans ended their season earlier than anticipated.

&8220;It was a big accomplishment to make it to the playoffs, but we wanted to win and we wanted to win state,&8221; senior Montago Tennessee said. &8220;We wanted to win one game at a time. We accomplished a lot of things &8212; a district championship &8212; and I was proud of that. But we weren&8217;t focused, and that&8217;s how it was.&8221;

Natchez High didn&8217;t get into the playoffs, but the future is bright at a program long recognized across the state as a sleeping giant. You&8217;d be hard-pressed to find a coach or scribe from around the state who asked how things were going at the River City&8217;s largest high school and what chances the Bulldogs had at putting it together.

There&8217;s talent in Natchez, they&8217;d say, and it just takes the right coaching staff to put it together.

The Bulldogs finished 5-5, and several players return for 2006.

SPEAKING OF NEXT YEAR &8212; Can schools please get back to the business of providing programs with rosters of both teams prior to the games? It may be turning into a lost art &8212; a program on sale at the gate for $1 that can tell you the name of any player on the field.

Vidalia and Adams Christian are two of the few in the Miss-Lou that still do it. And it&8217;s not just for reporters &8212; fans buy them up, and it helps raise money for anything that needs funding in the school&8217;s athletic department.

Besides, you never know who&8217;ll show up at the gate.

On the night 25 or so years ago when coaches from the University of Pittsburgh showed up in Pascagoula to scout a prospect, it may have been a program that lined up coaches with a Natchez High standout defensive lineman named Hugh Green who they had no idea even existed.

And that would have been a real shame.