2026 Defenders Who Making Big Impacts This Season

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Mississippi has been known to have a lot of good plays playing defense. This year, nothing has changed. Here are some players on defense who you need to know.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Peyton Trigg</strong></h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Trigg is a 2026 edge player from Hartfield Academy who is making his presence known on the football field. We know that he is a player division one coaches are going to be interested in. He is a 6-foot-4, 250-pound player who really brings the pain on the football field. We think that he is going to be able to see his stock rise the more as the season goes on through the playoffs.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Gregory Keaton</strong></h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Keaton is a dominant player who is a grown man in the trenches. He is one of those guys with a lot of strength and will down low. He is always going to make it hard for offensive linemen to have a good day. When he makes contact with ball carriers, he knows how to get them immediately to the ground. He is one of the players on his team who makes a lot of plays every game. This is a guy to know.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>[player_tooltip player_id='1136446' first='Xavier' last='Thomas']</strong></h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Thomas is a player who loves to come up and get active with running backs. Thomas is a player from Northside who started catching our attention as a sophomore. We do feel like he is a player who deserves an opportunity to play on the college level. Thomas knows how to read his keys and coming up to make tackles. He is playing on the inside in high school, but he may see himself playing outside linebacker in college.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>[player_tooltip player_id='837820' first='Jayce' last='Taylor']</strong></h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Taylor is one of the players from Biggersville who we have been keeping up with since he was an underclassman. Taylor knows how to make a big impact on his team. He is always a kid his coaches can count on to make things happen on offense and defense. When he is on defense, you are going to see him making a lot of stops for his team. This kid is a guy to know.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->