DII and DII players want one more shot

On the heels of the DII announcement canceling its championships, the Gulf Shore Conference postponed the 2020 football season.

Local players react to have their seasons taken away

Players.

When high school seniors or junior college transfers chooses a division two or three program, they know the chances of making it to the nfl is unlikely.

Just to illustrate, out of 254 players taken in this year's nfl draft, only three were from d-two or d-three schools.

But that doesn't matter because they just love to play the game of football.

And now because of the coronavirus, the game is gone.

Best of it ."

(matt toles) we all were very heartbroken, we were all very looking forward to playing this semester (track) matt toles is a senior offensive lineman for division two's mississippi college choctaws in jackson.

Toles is a oxford native.

He won a state championship in high school at lafayette, won two national championships at east mississippi community college.

He wanted to keep that streak of championships going at m-c.

But he got hurt his junior year.

This was his year to make a run at another ring.

(toles) the ultimate goal each year is to win the big ring, the national championship, like i said i was heartbroken that we won't be able to compete for that this semester, i know that just staying faithful that we will get that opportunity and that it will come (track) toles wants to play in the nfl.

He hopes that the gulf south conference will allow them to play in the spring or gain an extra year of eligibility to try and make that happen.

If not, he plans on focusing on his academics, graduating, and finding a job.

Across the city at division iii millsaps, the majors are in the same boat.

Delayed season.

No national championship opportunity.

Oxford high school graduate and senior millsaps lineman kolbe leary knows his destiny isn't in the nfl and that's what makes this season hurt that much more.

(leary) i've loved it, you know like you said, you're not playing for a scholarship, you're there to play football.

There's a lot of guys i'm with who are in my grade and in my class who i came up with, who were looking forarrd to their senior year and now its kind of almost being pulled away with em.

(track) leary is one of twenty-one seniors on the majors football team this season.

He's planning on pursuing an mba at millsaps and could have the opportunity to use his 5th year to play ball.

Most of his teammates, aren't so lucky.

He just wants the chance to take the field with them one more time, even if it's an abbreviated spring season.

(leary) you know we haven't won a conference here in a while, we thought we were going to have good run this year, so that would be something great to any kind of games in to work towards that, definitely not how i wanted to spend my senior year but just gotta try to make the best of it.

Both leary and toles said that they are just showing up to practice and workouts to stay prepared just in case they get the call that football is back on.