Kreager: Area rivalries kick off new year in style

MURFREESBORO – Welcome to another year of high school football.

Admit it, you missed it — at least a little.

High school football fans will get a dose of heated rivalries right away this season, as Smyrna hosts North Rutherford rival La Vergne today in what may best be coined rivalry week.

On Friday, Riverdale travels across town to play Siegel in a key contest for the two teams' playoff chances.

Playoffs? Yes, it's never too early to talk about the postseason.

Then on Sunday, Oakland travels to Blackman for the county's first-ever game televised on an ESPN network (ESPN2).

How's that for an opening week?

And it's just a prelude to what should be an interesting season for high school football fans.

Here are four storylines to watch in 2014.

Can anyone dethrone Maryville?

No disrespect for the rest of 7-AAA, but Blackman and Oakland enter as the preseason favorites.

But does that really matter?

No team from Rutherford County has managed to beat Maryville since the Rebels joined the state's largest classification in 2009.

Riverdale has tried twice and failed. Blackman, Siegel and Smyrna also have lost to the Rebels.

Perhaps 2014 will finally be the year for a Rutherford County team.

One last hurrah

This marks the final year of the current TSSAA classification system known as the Z-plan.

After this year, every Class 6A team will automatically qualify for the playoffs.

Can more than four teams from 7-AAA advance out of the regular season? It's happened before, in 2010, when five teams reached the postseason.

Since the Z-plan was approved for the 2009 season, it's taken six wins for a Class 6A team to reach the playoffs. And a few five-win teams have reached the postseason.

Spreading it out

Siegel introduced a fast-paced, spread offense in 2011 and went to the Class 6A state semifinals a year later.

In 2014, both Smyrna and Riverdale will welcome the spread offense.

Both will have the ability to go fast-paced, although Smyrna plans on using it more than the Warriors. Under new coach Fred Shambaugh, MTCS will also speed up the Cougars' spread and attempt to run their offense as fast as Oregon.

Recruiting class

Not since the 2008 signing class has Rutherford County seen this many prep football players with college scholarship offers from FBS programs.

Already, the county has four committed to SEC programs.

Tom Kreager is prep editor of The Daily News Journal. Contact him at 615-278-5168 or tkreager@dnj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Kreager.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FRIDAY NIGHT FOLLOW

Follow DNJ prep editor Tom Kreager on Twitter (@Kreager) each Friday night to find out how Rutherford County and Cannon County teams do on the gridiron.

Also, go to DNJ.com each Friday night for scores, game recaps, photo galleries and videos from the games.

Find full coverage in print every Saturday in The Daily News Journal.

ON THE COVER

In the front, Blackman senior Jauan Jennings, who has committed to Tennessee. In the back, from left, are Oakland's Kyle Oliver, Jack Jones and Josh Smith. Oliver and Jones have committed to Tennessee. Smith has committed to Vanderbilt.