Millsaps football is coming off its best season in more than a decade, but stagnancy is the last thing third-year head coach Brandon Lechtenberg wants to see when his team kicks off a new year Thursday night against archrival Belhaven.
“The reality is we’re in the championship rounds now,” Lechtenberg said Monday afternoon, using a boxing reference while looking over Harper Davis Field in Jackson from a skybox.
The former assistant has Mississippi’s oldest Division III program in a much better place than the 1-9 team he inherited when he was hired in 2024. In his first season, the Majors jumped to 5-5 before building on that mark with a 6-4 record in 2025. The latter was Millsaps’ first winning season since 2013, when it went 9-1 and Lechtenberg was the team’s defensive coordinator before leaving in 2016 to become a secondary coach at Division I FCS UT Martin.
But turning a one-win team into a team one game above .500 was the easy part, he said. The true challenge is taking the next step and competing with the upper echelon of one of the more historically top-heavy Division III football conferences in the country.
“Our conference has four teams that have been in the playoffs the last two years, and for us to win our conference or for us to go to the playoffs, we have to beat those four teams,” Lechtenberg said. “So, getting to four or five or six wins, that was the easy part. Getting to seven, eight, nine, or 10, that’s the real work that’s in front of us now.”
Going through the upper echelon of the Southern Athletic Association that includes recent playoff teams Trinity, Berry, Centre, and Maryville will be tough but not impossible, Lechtenberg said.
And his fellow coaches in the SAA tend to agree.
In a preseason vote amongst the league’s eight head coaches, Trinity and Berry were tabbed at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, after the two met in the round of 16 a season ago. Berry got the last laugh, but coaches have a little more faith in what Trinity is returning. Centre, which made the playoffs in 2024, came in at No. 3.
Then came Millsaps and Maryville, tied at No. 4 in the preseason poll. While Maryville has cracked the playoff bracket as recently as 2024, Millsaps hasn’t been to the playoffs since 2008.
So, what do the raised expectations say about Lechtenberg and the work he, his staff, and the players have put in?
“It’s really all-encompassing,” Lechtenberg said. “It’s how well we recruit as a staff, it’s how well we develop the players from year one to year two and year two to year three, it’s how well we build toughness and grit and discipline in the football team. Really, it’s how the players play on the field.”
Even with it being Millsaps’ highest preseason polling in some time, Lechtenberg said there’s no reason to try to taper expectations. Excellence is expected. But for those expectations to be met – and perhaps exceeded – it all starts with trying to get a win Thursday night against Belhaven at home.
“I know Belhaven is going to be a good football team again. They always are. Coach (CJ) Nightingale has done a great job over there,” he said. “But from a football standpoint, it can really be a springboard to a great season. … If you win this game, it really builds a ton of momentum going into week two, week three, and into conference play.”
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He has a lot of confidence in the 2026 group, too, calling it “deeper, more experienced, and more talented” than any team he’s had since returning to Millsaps.
It includes a two-deep offensive line anchored by four-year starter and All-SAA center Erik Contreras and a quarterback behind him named Grant Bizjack, who was the conference’s Newcomer of the Year as a freshman in 2025. Weapons with All-SAA accolades include running back Tam Patterson, wide receiver Derrick Tasby Jr., and wide receiver Sean Johnson, who transferred from Sewanee during the offseason.
Defensively, three All-SAA players – Myles Johnson, Nate Johnson, and Zabian Boutan – will hold down the line, while fellow All-SAA returners include defensive backs Brewer Bailey and W.H. Carver.
While Lechtenberg didn’t want to name too many players he expects to make a difference this season, wanting to maintain a team-first mentality, he did say what he wants the 2026 Millsaps football team to be remembered for.
“When people talk about the 2026 Millsaps football team, I hope they talk about a team that was selfless, sacrificed for each other, was tough, never quit regardless of circumstances, and kept finding a way to fight forward,” he said.