Not long after Kosciusko concluded its 2019 season, the Whippets and former head coach Kelly Causey announced they would part ways. Causey’s resignation marked the end of a three-year tenure in which he compiled a 9-25 record with the Whippets.
Kosciusko in 2019 went 3-8 and played in the first round of the MHSAA Class 4A postseason, and in 2018 the program also ended the year with a 3-8 record. Causey arrived at Kosciusko in 2017 and led the program to a 3-9 record during his inaugural season.
The program soon shifted to find Causey’s replacement, and the initial interview phase garnered more than 40 applicants.
“At this point, we’re just waiting,” Kosciusko athletic director Macy Wilbanks said at the time. “The deadline is Wednesday, so we haven’t done a whole lot with it — just giving people time to apply. We’ll sit down later this week and start sorting through that and try to determine who we want to bring in and interview, and set up a timetable for that.”
After a thorough search, Kosciusko in mid-January introduced Pearl offensive coordinator Justin Hunter as its new head coach. Hunter’s tenure as Kosciusko’s head football coach was short-lived.
Just a few weeks after Hunter’s hire, he announced he would return to Pearl to fill the Pirates’ head coaching vacancy.
In February, Kosciusko found its new head coach in former Noxapater top man Casey Orr, who rattled off a 50-26 record with the Tigers. In 2019, Noxapater compiled a 12-3 overall record and advance to face Nanih Waiya in the MHSAA Class 1A North state championship, where it lost 21-20 I a classic.
Orr’s previous coaching experience includes a two-year stint as Noxapater’s defensive coordinator, and he served as an assistant at Starkville Academy.
