FAYETTE — While most Mississippi teams hit the gridiron last Friday night, the Jefferson County Tigers had an open week to rest up.

But that doesn’t mean the Tigers were taking it easy. And head coach James Herrington thinks that approach will help when they travel up the road to face Port Gibson at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

“One thing we wanted to do was try and make sure we kept everything along the lines of a game week,” Herrington said of last week’s practices. “We didn’t get too far off of what we normally do.”

The Tigers were in this exact situation last season, facing Port Gibson in the third week of the season coming off an open week, and the rust showed in a 24-12 loss to the Blue Waves.

“Last year after our open week, we came out flat against Port Gibson,” Herrington said. “We jumped out to an early lead and then put it in cruise control and couldn’t turn it back on. Last week we worked as if we were playing a game that Friday, and we’re coming back into this weekend concentrating on staying full throttle for four quarters.”

Jefferson County opened its season two weeks ago with a 41-14 loss to Natchez High, and Herrington saw several things his team needs to improve on.

“We’ve got to work on taking advantage of our opportunities once we get in the red zone,” Herrington said. “Against Natchez High, we had several opportunities in the red zone, but penalties put us in long yardage on third down and we couldn’t convert. We’ve got to work on maintaining drives and being able to convert when we get in scoring position.”

The open week did give the team an extra week to rest, which the Tigers took advantage of, Herrington said.

“It did give us an opportunity to rest any players who might have had dings or minor injuries,” Herrington said. “It also gave us an extra week to work on execution and personnel. So the open week can be a blessing.”

The Tigers need to take advantage of the extra time, as they will be facing a tough Port Gibson team that is 2-0 and received six votes in this week’s Associated Press Class 4A poll.

The Blue Waves defeated Raymond 14-0 in their season opener and routed Hinds County Agricultural 49-12 last week.

“Port Gibson is a team that wants to run the football,” Herrington said. “They work from several different sets using two different quarterbacks and offensive groupings. But they run mostly out of the power I, and are committed to running the ball. It’s going to come down to us stopping the run and playing physical Friday night.”