In the classic science fiction movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” the world was introduced to the pod people — alien invaders that were replicas of human beings.

On Friday night, Viking Stadium seemed like ground zero for an invasion.

The Warren Central football team that took the field had the same names as the players who had dominated opponents for six weeks. They wore the same uniforms, used the same signals. And yet, something was not quite right.

The usually crisp Vikings made a number of uncharacteristic mistakes and deviated from the formula of a strong running game and defense that had carried them to six consecutive victories. The end result was a 28-25 loss to Madison Central, the team’s first defeat of the season.

“We started off slow. They’re a good team. I think we just took too long to get going. I feel like we weren’t there, all through the game,” Warren Central safety Walt Hopson said.

The Vikings’ off night covered all three phases of the game:

• The defense allowed 263 yards and three touchdowns in the first half as Madison Central built a 21-6 lead. The Jaguars had two long scoring drives and added a 78-yard touchdown pass from Jack Walker to Myles Hopson after Warren Central had finally gotten on the board early in the second quarter.

It was the first time in more than a month — since late in the second quarter against Vicksburg on Sept. 2 — that Warren Central trailed on the scoreboard.

The Vikings did stiffen in the second half, forcing two turnovers and two three-and-outs on Madison Central’s first four possessions. Walker hit Hopson for a 59-yard gain on a third-and-7 midway through the fourth quarter, however, and the Jaguars punched in another touchdown to take a 28-19 lead with just over five minutes left.

“In the first half we got a little panicky and out of character, and were trying to do too much,” Warren Central coach Josh Morgan said. “Once we settled in in the second half, I thought we did a lot better executing. We definitely could have handled situations a lot better.”

• The offense never felt in sync. A long kickoff return by Joe Shorter led to an early missed field goal, and a 66-yard punt return by Walt Hopson set up a 9-yard touchdown run by quarterback Jesse Wilson, but the Vikings failed to get a first down either time. Hopson’s return set the team up with a first-and-goal.

On its first five possessions, Warren Central held the ball for a total of 4 minutes and 21 seconds, turned it over once, and didn’t get a first down. Its final drive of the first half was a 13-play march that lasted 4 minutes and 32 seconds but didn’t result in any points. An apparent long touchdown pass was ruled incomplete when Shaun Walton couldn’t control the ball before going out of the back of the end zone, and another TD pass was negated by a penalty.

The Vikings only had 71 yards of total offense in the first half.

• The running game also never got going. The Vikings had 185 yards on the ground — a respectable total, but a season low for them. Wilson threw the ball a season-high 23 times. It was only the third time this season that Warren Central has not had a 100-yard rusher.

“Their defense was basically spying on our run,” Wilson said. “We’ve just got to go to practice and work on our pass. The guys were open. I just was too carried away with overexcitement.”

• Warren Central struggled with its kicking game and clock management. Sean Dixon, who had been 26-of-28 on PATs coming into the game, missed one and a field goal on Friday. Backup John William Madison missed a 40-yard field goal that could have given the Vikings the lead midway through the fourth quarter. A PAT try with a minute left was nixed because of a bad snap.

After Madison Central went ahead 28-19, the Vikings got the ball back with five minutes left and used four of them to get a touchdown. In a situation that called for urgency, the offense needed a large chunk of the play clock to get a snap off on several occasions.

“We were having to scrap just to get a first down. We would love to go tempo and speed it up, but we weren’t coming off the ball, we were lining up in the wrong places, so we couldn’t go fast,” Morgan said.

All in all, it was simply a bad night all around for the Vikings (6-1, 2-1 Region 2-6A). They fell into a four-way tie for second place in Region 2-6A with Madison Central, Starkville and Northwest Rankin. All of those teams are chasing top-ranked Clinton (7-0, 3-0), which comes to Viking Stadium in two weeks.

WC will play at Murrah this Friday.

Morgan seemed confident that the Vikings would bounce back, and play more like the team that started 6-0 than the one that struggled and lost Friday.

“We’ll respond fine. What it comes down to is we didn’t make the plays we had been doing. They had something to do with that. A lot of it was us,” Morgan said. “We’ve got some things we definitely can learn from and get better from. This was a game we could have won, and that makes it hard.”