FERRIDAY — Ferriday High has had a tough season, and they won’t get any slack going into the playoffs.

The Trojans will face the No. 7 team in the state, John Curtis High of River Ridge, in the first round of the LHSAA 2A playoffs.

Curtis (9-1, 4-0 District 10) dropped their first game of the season 28-12 to 2007 Texas 5A state champion Trinity-Euless in Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas.

Since then, the Patriots have won nine straight, including wins over a team in Miami and one in Alabama.

“They’re one of the toughest teams in the state, if not the toughest,” said Ferriday coach Freddie Harrison. “They’re exactly what they advertise, they’re a good team. They’ve won a lot of football games. They have a lot of tradition and a lot of respect across the state.”

The Patriots also won their 22nd state title last year.

Ferriday, which squeaked into the playoffs with a 5-5 record and one District 2 win, is at the bottom of the power rankings, which is why the Trojans drew such a good football team.

“We kind of knew we were going to be at the bottom of the bracket, and I knew we were going to pull one of the big four — Calvary, Evangel, John Curtis or St. James,” Harrison said.

But this test will be just another lesson for what Harrison has repeatedly called a young team on the rise.

“This whole season has been a good lesson,” he said. “First off, you learn if you don’t take care of your business you get a tough task. We didn’t take care of business, so now whatever comes your way you have to deal with.

“This team has learned more lessons this year than I think they will learn in four years of playing football.”

That one loss for Curtis, Harrison said, is made even more impressive by the fact that Texas 5A schools are often triple the size of a Louisiana 5A school — “Texas 5A is almost 7,000 kids,” he said — and 2A Curtis hung with them.

But regardless of whether the Trojans are facing the best team in 2A or the worst team in 1A, their mindset, he said, is the same.

“I don’t care who we play — we could be playing the Dallas Cowboys or the Minnesota Vikings — we’re going in expecting to win a football game,” he said.

And just because Curtis has a strong reputation and the second-winningest coach in prep football history in J.T. Curtis, it does not mean Ferriday will be pushed around.

“I’ve told them, and I’m going to keep telling them, you don’t play tradition, you don’t play reputation,” Harrison said. “You don’t play on past tense. You play man-on-man, and you only play this Friday night. You go out there and do what you’re supposed to do, play assignment football.”

Curtis lost two players to Division-I programs last season, but they return a strong running back in Kenny Cain and two good tackles in Matt Stansbury and Jonathan Pippen.

Harrison said he expects the Patriots to run a veer right at them all night, and the Trojans will try to keep the ball out of their hands.

And regardless of the outcome, Harrison said valuable knowledge will come from the game and the season.

“One thing about it, they’re going to leave high school knowing what to expect with life, with anything that comes in front of them,” he said. “They will face adversity in life, in school, on the football field. There are tough challenges in life, and we drew a tough challenge. You can’t run from it. You have to face it and do what you’re supposed to do.”