J.J. Plummer has North Pontotoc High’s football team off to a 5-0 start in his first season at the helm.

Plummer credits offensive coordinator Joe Waller, a holdover from Cliff Dew’s staff, with the recent success of North Pontotoc’s spread offense.

“I evaluated all the film last year and he does a good job of running the spread offense,” Plummer said.

In addition to giving props to Waller and the other coaches on his staff, Plummer gave high praise to Itawamba AHS, the team North Pontotoc opens Division 1-4A play against a week from Friday.

He said they could play with some of the heavyweights in Mississippi. Perhaps a more accurate comparison would be to last year’s Northwest Rankin team which beat Tupelo in the playoffs.

Plummer, who watched Northwest Rankin play last year as an assistant at Hinds Community College, said he thinks Itawamba may be better than that Northwest Rankin team that went on to play South Panola tough in the playoffs.

“My hat’s off to coach (Jamie) Mitchell and the Itawamba team,” Plummer said. “They can really make a run in 4A. They’re doing a fabolous job over there.”

Plummer is also aware of the other teams in Division 1-4A: New Albany, Pontotoc, Shannon and Tishomingo County.

“It’s going to be a tough road,” he said. “We got some momentum going and hopefully we can catch a few more wins down the road.”

More on North Pontotoc’s fast start, as well as Belmont’s, in Wednesday’s prep notebook.