Vicksburg didn’t waste any time getting back to work after being pounded by Warren Central in the 2014 River City Classic.  Just two days after the Gators committed three turnovers and managed only 139 yards of total offense in a 49-0 loss, coach Marcus Rogers had his team back on the practice field to work on cleaning up the miscues that haunted them Friday night.

“We just worked on getting back to our fundamentals,” Rogers said. “For the most part, the offensive line blocked well. Turnovers just clouded our judgment and made us, not get in panic mode, but just wonder why.”

The second-year head coach has tried to maintain a modicum of level-headedness when dealing with his players after the gut-wrenching defeat. The lessons learned from being shut out by an intra-city rival don’t always have to be hard.

“We built the kids up, told them about the positive things. We took the positives, and we also dealt with the negatives,” Rogers said. “As far as the turnovers, we punished the kids… to try to hold them accountable.”

Vicksburg’s aim this week is simply to wipe out the errors that gave the team big holes to climb out of in losses to McComb and Warren Central.

“We have to eliminate self inflicted mistakes and just execute,” Rogers said. “We put the D in bad situations offensively. That’s just execution on third down and center-quarterback exchanges.”

Rogers has never wavered in his belief that Vicksburg has a chance to make the playoffs in his first season at the helm, and he has seen flashes of great execution from his fairly young team. Still, he knows it will take a fresh memory that puts the Warren Central game in the rearview mirror if the Gators want to make it back to .500 with a win over Gentry this Friday before heading into district play.

“The effort was there. We have a veteran group of guys so they didn’t allow Warren Central to beat us twice,” Rogers said. “That just means don’t let Gentry beat us this weekend because of that game. Don’t get too low, don’t get too high, and let’s get the ‘W.’”