2020 Taylorville Tartars Football
2020 2A STATE CHAMPIONS
The Taylorsville Tartars captured the 2020 2A Football State Championship, defeating Calhoun City by a score of 42-0. It was the Tartars' eight football state title, second consecutive title, and third title in four years. The Tartars now have won 2A State Championships in 1991, 1994, 1995, 1998, 2002, 2017, 2019, 2020.
This year's "champions" logo features a black silhouette of the State of Mississippi, with "Taylorsville Tartars" across the top, the Tartar logo in the center, and "2020 2A State Champions across the bottom. In the Gulf Coast region, the logo features a list of the Tartars' championship seasons flanked by a gold-green-gold stripe.
For the post-game Facebook post on Tartar Snaps and Twitter post on @HailStateUnis, the graphic was shown on top of a background image featuring Mississippi's new state flag. This highlighted how cool it was to see Taylorsville win a state championship in what was an important year of progress for Mississippi.
THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES
Taylorsville's opponent for the 2020 2A State Championship was the Calhoun City Wildcats. It was Calhoun City's 12th North Half title; the Wildcats previously won State Championships in 1989 and 2016.
This graphic, posted the week of the game, features the State of Mississippi split into two halves, with the north half featuring the Calhoun City logo + colors while the south half features the Taylorsville logo + colors.
For the post on Tartar Snaps, I placed the graphic on top of a photo of a full Veterans Memorial Stadium from the 1984 "Game of the Century" between Alcorn State and Mississippi Valley State (who was led by future NFL Hall of Fame WR Jerry Rice).
Taylorsville vs Calhoun City was one of the six State Championship games played in 2020; the full results of the 2020 State Championships were as follows:
6A: Oak Grove over Oxford
5A: West Jones over West Point
4A: Louisville over Poplarville
3A: Magee over Noxubee County
2A: Taylorsville over Calhoun City
1A: Lumberton over Biggersville
Teams from the South won 5 of the 6 games, marking the first time since 2014 that the South had won more championships than the North.
I created two graphics for the entire slate of games. The first featured the helmet matchups for each game along with the team names, mascots, and time/day of each game; this graphic was posted during the week of the championships (and amended after the games were over and helmet matchups were confirmed.
The second featured "champions" logos for each of the six victorious teams; this compilation graphic was posted after all games had been played. After each game, the individual "champions" graphic for each team was posted along with congratulatory message.
THE ROAD TO THE TITLE
For this year's playoffs, in lieu of a full bracket graphic, I kept things simple and posted a graphic for the next week's game as soon as it was confirmed. These graphics featured the helmet matchup for the game, with the away team's helmet appearing on the left and home team's helmet appearing on the right. Below each helmet was the school's name and region # / seed. The top center of the graphic included information such as round, location, date, and time of the game.
The goal of these graphics was to minimize confusion and clearly present information that could easily be shared. This goal was very much achieved; the graphics received a great response each week and greatly reduced questions/confusion about who and where the Tartars were set to play next.
THE 2020 SEASON
For each game of the 2020 Season, the corresponding version of the following graphic was posted on Tartar Snaps, detailing the game number (or playoff round), opponent, date, helmet matchup, and uniform combination.
Just as in 2019, the Tartars did not repeat a uniform combination in 2020, wearing a different look every single game. Due to COVID-19, the Tartars had a few games canceled and thus were not able to wear as many different looks as they would have in a normal season. However, with their new black helmets, the Tartars were able to wear four brand new combinations in 2020: black-green-black, black-green-green, black-white-black, and black-white-white.
This past summer, I completed and launched a personal project- the Hail State Unis Database. The Database contains an auxiliary page for Taylorsville football, containing a record of the uniforms that the Tatars have worn in every single game since 2011 and in every State Championship appearance since 1991.
As noted above, Taylorsville did not repeat a single combination in 2020. With 11 on-field games played, the Tartars wore 11 different combinations this season. A breakdown:
Helmets:
Gold- 7 Games
Black- 4 Games
Jerseys:
White- 4 Games
Green- 3 Games
Gold- 2 Games
Gray- 2 Games
Pants:
Gold- 4 Games
Black- 3 Games
Green- 2 Games
White- 1 Game
Gray- 1 Game
Taylorsville has now won three State Championships in white jerseys; this was the Tartars' first championship victory in both white pants and black helmets.
THE HISTORY
This year’s senior class had an extremely impressive and unprecedented run. On their way to three 2A State Championship in four seasons, the Tartars claimed 55 on-field victories and suffered only four losses (exactly one per season).
As starting quarterback of the Tartars, Ty Keyes finished with an on-field record of 55-3. Just insanely impressive.
The class of 2021 seniors wore 27 different uniform combinations, by far the most by any class in Taylorsville history. Though obviously not near as impressive of a record as the 55 wins, this year’s seniors truly embraced what it means to wear the green + gold (and gray + black).
Dating back to 1990, Taylorsville has made 31 consecutive football playoff appearances, holding the longest active streak in Mississippi. During that span, the Tartars have made 11 State Championship appearances and won 8 State Championships. Taylorsville has finished with a winning record in 29 of the last 31 seasons and has suffered only three first round losses in their 31-year playoff appearance streak.
Over the last 11 academic years, Taylorsville has had an impressive run of championships across multiple sports. The Tartars have made at least once state championship appearance per year, winning 15 South State titles (across 5 sports) and 8 State titles (across 4 sports).
