Touchdown Toby crosses goal line as championship coach
Dec. 5—HATTIESBURG — Toby Collums crossed the goal line Friday night.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Collums once gashed defenses for the Smithville Seminoles during their heyday. He was Touchdown Toby then.
Now he's a championship coach, the elusive goal finally reached with Madison Central's 24-17 win over Brandon in the Class 6A title game on the Southern Miss campus Friday night.
It was the same school — not the same team — that Madison Central defeated 42-19 in Week 2.
Teams don't stay the same, at least not the ones that compete on championship weekend.
Collums' team completed a season in which it was rarely challenged, its lone blemish a 35-28 loss at Starkville on Sept. 24.
That loss was avenged with a three-touchdown win in the semifinals last week.
"I'm super happy for the community. It's been a long time coming, but most of all I'm proud of these kids for finding a way to win a state championship especially against a group as good as Brandon and as well-coached as they are," said Collums as he completed his first season in Madison.
It was the first state championship Collums has been part of since he helped lead Smithville to a 35-22 win over Natchez Cathedral in 1993.
"Twenty-eight years ago on this day I won it as a player. It feels pretty special to win it as a coach on the same day," he said.
Madison Central hadn't won a state championship since 1999, six years after Collums the player.
This one wasn't always pretty.
The Jaguars failed to score on half of six red zone trips.
Brandon had over 400 yards of offense with big plays from running back Jarvis Durr and receiver Lester Miller, but Madison Central had big stops late.
The Jaguars forced a fumble with 7 minutes, 34 seconds left then drove down to score the game-winner with 3:41 left on quarterback Jake Norris' 2-yard run off the left side.
Then on Brandon's last chance quarterback Landon Varnes was sacked for an 8-yard loss on third down by Braxton Barney before the Bulldogs turned it over on downs.
Collums competed in Class 1A with Smithville. He played junior college football at Itawamba and helped Mississippi College win an American Southwest Conference championship at the Division III collegiate level.
Now he's making his name in Mississippi's largest high schools classification.
His rise didn't begin Friday.
He was 33-14 from 2011-2014 at Itawamba AHS where his teams won region titles twice and made the playoffs each season.
He moved to the Jackson Metro area in 2015 and compiled a 36-28 record at Northwest Rankin. The Cougars reached the quarterfinals in 2018, the semifinals last year.
"It's tough anywhere your first year or 27th year it doesn't matter. You've got to have some breaks, and you've got to have a group of kids just like this that are resilient and willing to do whatever it takes to win the ballgame."
PARRISH ALFORD is the college sports editor and columnist for the Daily Journal. Contact him at parrish.alford@journalinc.com.
