Kemper County linebacker Ishmael Naylor said a combination of good coaches and good athletes performing up to their capabilities has helped Kemper County to a 3-0 start.

Quarterback Aaron Steele was in middle school during the 2016 season, when Kemper County won its first football state championship in school history. 

The next three seasons were rough for the Wildcats: 3-9 in 2017, 1-11 in 2018, 3-8 in 2019. Steele, now a junior, has seen his team win just four games in his first two years, a far cry from what he observed watching Kemper County on TV as a middle schooler.

Things have been different for Steele his junior season, as Kemper County entered its Friday game against Cleveland Central with a 3-0 record. The Wildcats opened the fall with a 33-14 victory against West Lowndes followed by a 46-20 win at Raymond and a 42-20 win at Eupora.

“It’s been fun,” Steele said, and he added that it’s even more satisfying given the lack of wins his freshman and sophomore seasons.

When first-year head coach Ray Westerfield was hired in early March, his goal was simple: Get his alma mater back to where it was under Chris Jones, who was head coach when Kemper County won a championship in 2016. Westerfield was an assistant at Kemper County back then, and now the Wildcats are poised to win more games than they have in any one season since that 2016 title run.

“I feel really good about our progress,” Westerfield said. “I think we’re on target to where I would like us to be, which is playing our best football going into divisional play, and we start divisional play next week at home against Morton.”

Senior linebacker Ishmael Naylor said this biggest difference this year is the players and coaches jelling under a common goal.

“We’re surrounded by some good coaches, and we have some great athletes, and we’ve just put that all together and work as a team,” Naylor said.

Forming relationships with his players was a focal point for Westerfield shortly after he was hired, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced the players to stay home for several months and robbed them of spring practices. Despite that, Westerfield was still able to forge those relationships, and being a 2006 graduate of Kemper County went a long way in helping him do that.

“I think the thing that played to my benefit was being from here,” Westerfield said. “I coached here for years, so I know a lot of the families and the kids, so I kind of knew where to find them and talk about my plans and my vision and the things I see coming for them. Kids will recruit kids, so it wasn’t hard for those kids to go out there and relay the message to generate more interest in this program.”

And Westerfield was quick to credit the people around him for the team’s early success in his first year as head coach.

“I think it’s all a testament to the hard work the kids have put in, buying into what our coaches are teaching and all of the hard work the assistants are putting in with those players,” Westerfield said.

He also said the offensive and defensive systems the Wildcats are running are exciting for the players. The offense is a 50-50 mix between run and pass, Westerfield said, while the defense has been simplified to allow the team’s often superior athleticism and speed to run to the football and make plays.

“I would say in the summer it was hard to get them to buy in at first because they were used to doing a certain thing, but now they’re starting to reap the benefits and see the rewards,” Westerfield said. “I think we can throw equally as well as we can run it, and I think that makes it difficult for a team to prepare (for us) because now they have to pick their poison as far as what do they want to try and take away. Defensively, we play an attacking style. We’re not blessed with a whole bunch of size, but we’re fast, so we get a lot of speed to the football on defense.”

Naylor said a simplified defense helps take the pressure off him and his teammates.

“It makes it easy because you don’t have to think too much, and you can just go out there and play ball,” Naylor explained. “We have simple plays that we run, so pretty much everybody knows what to do.”

It also helps that the players realize that this Friday might not be their night stat-wise, but next Friday very well could be.

“I tell them sometimes we run stuff to get you open, and sometimes we run stuff to get your brother open,” Westerfield said. “There’s no selfishness with these kids. We keep our team balanced between run and pass so other teams don’t know how we’re going to attack them.”

While he’s more focused on the process and getting his team ready for the division, Westerfield said that starting the season strong does have its benefits in terms of momentum.

“It makes people pay attention to what’s going on in Kemper County,” Westerfield said. “The last few years this really hasn’t been the norm, so you’re starting to see more interest, and you’re starting to get more texts and phone calls and people wanting to find out exactly what you’re doing for this turnaround — and the answer is no secret. It’s just hard work. We practice hard, and we practice until we get it right, and the kids have bought into that.”