Football Game Preview: Pine Belt Spartans vs. Magnolia Wildcats

The Pine Belt Spartans will head out on the road to face off against the Magnolia Wildcats at 5:00 p.m. on Saturday. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (Pine Belt has six straight victories, Magnolia has eight straight defeats), but none of that matters once you're on the field.

Pine Belt is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of Mississippi's top teams: Meridian HomeSchool, who was ranked 22nd at the time (Pine Belt was ranked 15th). The Spartans simply couldn't be stopped last Saturday as they easily beat the FLYERS 44-14. The Spartans pushed the score to 36-14 by the end of the third, a deficit the FLYERS had little chance of recovering from.

Samuel Smith

Passer Rating (Career)

10/04/25 vs Meridian HomeSchool	109.7
08/30/25 vs Magnolia	97.9
09/13/25 vs Varsity Opponent	89.7
09/06/25 @ SAHE	70.8
09/20/25 @ Meridian HomeSchool	56.3

Samuel Smith continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, rushing for 230 yards and four scores while picking up 11.5 yards per carry. The dominant performance also gave him a new career-high in passer rating (109.7). Another big playmaker for Pine Belt was Gabriel Radix, who returned a punt for a touchdown.

Pine Belt's run defense was locked in: Meridian HomeSchool could only muster 2.1 yards per carry. The team can thank Joseph McCardle for the heroic effort on defense: he. Pine Belt didn't have any issues in that department, having averaged 9.4.

Meanwhile, it's never fun to lose, and it's even less fun to lose 60-20, which was the final score in Magnolia's tilt against SAHE on Saturday.

Magnolia's loss dropped their record down to 0-8. As for Pine Belt, their win bumped their record up to 6-2.

Pine Belt strolled past Magnolia in their previous meeting back in August by a score of 40-24. The rematch might be a little tougher for the Spartans since the team won't have the home-field advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.