It’s easy to come away impressed with Kemper County High School head football coach Chris Jones if you just talk to him.

I don’t remember when our first conversation was. I moved here February 2014, so it would have been in the fall of that year, as that’s when prep football season is in full swing. Having moved here from a completely different corner of the state, I had no real knowledge of Kemper County’s history, both long-term and recent.

A little bit of research on MaxPreps seemed to tell the story. Prior to the 2013 season, most of the Wildcats’ football season records were mediocre to bad. After learning the “9-4” that was listed for the 2013 season coincided with Jones’ first year on the job, my natural reaction was, “So this guy maybe hit the right note?”

Then me and former partner Reed DeSalvo began regularly interviewing Jones each week for football preview stories. There are plenty of good coaches out there who give little more than coach speak when talking to the paper. With Jones, you get a little more than the typical coach speak — but it’s not so much what he’s saying, it’s the confidence behind what he says. In short, when you talk to Jones, you get a sense that he knows football, knows his coaching style works and clearly has a grasp of how to run a program.

Anyone can talk a good game. I’ve known coaches who talked a great game, but their records never really reflected the salesman’s hype. Jones is someone who believes in what he’s doing, believes in his kids but at the same time won’t settle for them getting complacent and has an on-field record that actually backs up the hype you get from talking to him.

To be clear, Jones is not an arrogant person. There’s a difference between confidence and arrogance: When you think highly of yourself, you’re confident. When you think little of others, you’re arrogant. Whether it was the teams he faced in the latter rounds of this year’s postseason, or the teams you knew going in Kemper would beat by multiple touchdowns, Jones understood the importance of showing his opponents respect while simultaneously focusing most on his players and how they needed to improve.

In my first year on the job, Kemper County made it all the way to the state semifinals before getting put out by Charleston High School. Last fall, his team made it to round three before being eliminated. This fall, his team lost in Week 1 of the regular season and didn’t lose a game after that.

Am I surprised? No, not really. Kemper County was one of the favorites entering the season, a testament to the program Jones and his assistant coaches have helped build over these past four seasons. When you examine the Wildcats’ Class 3A state title it won a week ago in light of the program’s history is when you can begin to understand the significance of the accomplishment.

In Round 3 of the playoffs in 2014, we sent DeSalvo up to De Kalb to cover Kemper County’s game against Aberdeen High School. The Wildcats won the game 52-14, and what made that game special to the program was it being their first home playoff win in program history. 

In the rare occasion Kemper County might have actually made the playoffs before Jones’ arrival, it almost certainly wouldn’t have made it via a regional championship. That likely meant going on the road to play a playoff game. Keep in mind, Kemper County faced Aberdeen in Round 3 of the postseason that fall because it finished No. 3 in Region 4-3A, so the Wildcats had to win two playoff games just to be able to get the home playoff win.

Further, when I visited Kemper County late in the summer leading up to the 2014 season, I took photos of a summer practice. They weren’t practicing at the big field off to the right of the school’s gymnasium like they do now, they practiced on a much smaller field out behind the school that wasn’t ideal for the job. Jones told me the week leading up to this year’s championship game the school’s weight room contained maybe a quarter of the equipment it does now. 

To come from all of that to winning your first home playoff game in two years and capturing your first football state title in four years is a testament to Jones and his coaches’ abilities. Kemper County has always had the athletes to succeed, and it finally found the right coach to both get the most out of those athletes and get the school to buy in enough to provide things like a better practice field and more equipment for the weight room.

Now, the Wildcats are on top in 3A, and let’s not forget the boys basketball team is fresh off a state championship in the spring as well. Several of those players were on the football team, so can they make it three titles in a row?

I wouldn’t bet against them at this point.

Drew Kerekes is the sports editor at The Meridian Star. He can be reached at dkerekes@themeridianstar.com.