Football starts this weekend, but it’s not every day we have a world champion in Mississippi. That’s what 17-year-old Rachel McAlpin of Brandon is after the world junior swimming championships in Romania last week. Of course, there’s also a football discussion, including the big State-Southern Miss game in Hattiesburg and what T.C. Taylor has in mind for an encore at Jackson State.

 Lance Pogue has coached Mississippi high school football teams to 246 victories and 71 defeats, an incredible winning rate of 78 percent. He has won five state championships and one national championship. Now, he takes on another challenge at Brandon High School.

Hard to believe the Mississippi football season opens later this month. Not so hard to believe is that the Clevelands have looked ahead at the schedule and picked the five most interesting high school and college football games on the schedule. A hint: You don’t have to wait long for one some of the most intriguing games, both high school and college.

We are in that period of the sports calendar when baseball is winding down and football talk is heating up. The Clevelands discuss Saints pre-season camp, the college football preseason rankings, the lowly Atlanta Braves, and much more.

Rusty Hampton was the sports editor at the Clarion Ledger for 11 years and worked there for 25 years in two different stints. He talks about some of the highlights, including Mississippi State’s amazing run to the 1996 Final Four.

Also discussed: a salute to Ryne Sandberg, the SEC preseason football poll, and Konnor Griffin, the newly elevated top prospect in professional baseball.

Derrick Nix played much of his college football career, hindered by a life-threatening kidney problem that sapped his strength and ended his playing career prematurely. Dexter McCluster spent much of his career with coaches and talent evaluators telling him he was too small. Eventually, Nix became McCluster’s coach at Ole Miss. Saturday night, they go into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame together.

Randy Watkins returns to the Crooked Letter pod to discuss The Open, where the weather will be wet, windy and coolish at Royal Portrush. Scottie Scheffler will be the betting favorite, but the Europeans, including Rory McIlroy, definitely will have a home-course advantage. The recent Major League Draft also will be discussed.

The MSHOF will induct eight new members on Aug 2. Rick Cleveland has covered them all and he and son Tyler talk about what makes them all special.

Before he became a Hall of Fame football coach and won 297 games, Mike Justice played on Mississippi’s first integrated high school football team in Fulton. Justice talks about that and a lot more.

We begin a series of podcasts with Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025, which will be inducted the first weekend in August. First up is highly successful baseball coach Scott Berry, who won big first at Meridian Community College and then at Southern Miss.