Every week, Cliff Furr is Talking Ball, Y’all with a new weekly column that’s presented by our partners at Toyota of Brookhaven.

Here is my message to high school football players as the regular season has reached the halfway point in 2025.

Keep your heads up, boys.

That’s a message with two different meanings.

The first meaning is for everyone, and it is literal in regard to tackling.

Keep your heads up while tackling, fellas.

I was at a game recently and it was late in the night.

Football is such a physical sport, from the opening kick until the final whistle.

An obviously tired ball carrier ran around the end and faced a linebacker that was attempting to tackle him.

The ball carrier dipped his head low, ready to absorb the contact.

The linebacker went even lower, also leading with his head.

Staring at it through the lens of my camera, I cringed, as both players had bowed necks when they made contact with each other.

It was almost good that they collided with lowered heads, as the results might have been different had the impact not been dispersed by their mutually bad form.

One can imagine that players from small schools, the two-way starters that rarely come off the field, are beyond tired when they walk towards the dressing rooms late on a Friday night.

The key word is walk though, as they use their own two legs to get to where they are going.

I pray to the Lord that I never see a young man leave the field of play without his ability to walk, but that’s a danger in football that we all know about but never talk about.

So let me say it again, KEEP YOUR HEADS UP, BOYS.

I was at Southwest Mississippi Community College last week and a player for the Bears had to be stretchered off the field after a hard hit on a punt return against Copiah-Lincoln Community College.

I wasn’t there, but I understand that the West Lincoln at Enterprise game the next night ended a few minutes early after a player for the Bears needed medical attention.

It’s a sickening feeling to see a player down for an extended time and even when things look bad, it gives the folks in the bleachers great relief to see the arms and legs of the injured moving.

High school football is a game for kids, played by kids.

I don’t know if I could love it any more than I already do, but man I hate when I see kids get hurt while competing in the sport.

Player safety should always be the first thing on the minds of every adult involved, including the referees, coaches, and school administrators.

I think of the places in Southwest Mississippi where tragedies have occurred and believe that those schools don’t need to be reminded of this message.

The second meaning of this message is for those players and coaches of teams that are currently struggling.

If you are on a team that’s 1-4 or 0-5 right now, also heed the message and keep your figurative heads up too.

The pre-region/pre-district portion of everyone’s schedule is ending and that means that some schools that have been taking whippings against tougher competition will now face teams they’ll stack up better against.

Sometimes it just takes one win to soothe the burn of nine losses.

I can think of one team specifically from the past that reminds me of that.

This team had lost nine straight games going into the season finale as I’d seen them play their first game of the year and then went to watch their last.

Looking back, if you hadn’t seen it yourself, you couldn’t believe that they went 1-9. They had a future SEC running back, a future SEC signee on the line along with a future Division I linebacker. Their head coach was a former state champion winner.

The ball just never bounced their way that season and not having an upperclassman at quarterback meant the running back had to play that position too.

They won that final game in easy fashion, 52-14. You could see the players were relieved to finally taste victory and to not wear the yolk of a winless season.

I looked back recently at the game story I wrote from that night, which was almost four years ago.

It was senior night and the game I’m speaking of was between the 5A Brookhaven High Panthers and the visiting South Jones Braves.

The senior class for BHS that year, which included current Stephen F. Austin linebacker Malachi Wililams, numbered 13 players.

Current Mississippi State running back Xavier Gayten went for 259 yards that night, running behind a line that included former Mississippi State and current Northwest Mississippi Community College lineman Amari Smith.

The freshmen on that team are the seniors this season for BHS. They made the 5A semifinals last season as juniors and I don’t expect anything less this season for the Panthers, despite the recent setbacks to McComb and Northwest Rankin.

Current senior linebacker DJ Washington scored on a fumble recovery that night in the win over South Jones. Another senior this season, Dreamus Harron Jr., scored a touchdown in that game.

If your team is down right now, keep your head up.

One of my favorite aphorisms is “storms don’t last.”

Your football team can be down right now, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be down forever.

Just look at Salem Attendance Center if you need proof of that concept.

The thing I remember most about that BHS game was how every returnee that I talked to that night couldn’t wait to get to work to make sure the next year turned out better.

And it did, as BHS went 4-1 in region a year later and hosted a 5A playoff game before bowing out with a close loss in the quarterfinals against Laurel High.

So, keep your head up, young men. You’re always one week away from your next win and one season away from your best year yet.

Most importantly, keep your head up while going in for a tackle, because being safe is always more important than who wins and who loses at a kids’ game.