Notre Dame almost had a crack at powerful Alcoa in the 2013 TSSAA football playoff semifinal round.
But, in the quarterfinals, Alcoa beat Christian Academy of Knoxville, 42-14, but the Fighting Irish dropped a 19-10 decision to Upperman, which was crushed, 75-18, a week later by the Tornadoes. Alcoa clipped Christ Presbyterian Academy, 25-7, in the state championship game.
Move forward a year and the two once-beaten and No. 1-seeded teams – Alcoa was ranked No.
1 when the regular season ended – are indeed pitted in the Class 3A semifinals Friday night at Finley Stadium. Game time is 7 p.m.
“Some people would hope and pray they didn’t have to play those guys, hoping somebody else would beat them,” Notre Dame coach Charles Fant said Wednesday morning at the team’s practice session at Jim Eberle Field. “Well, no, the true competitor wants that challenge.”
To gauge the enormity of Notre Dame’s task, one needs only to peek at the Tornadoes’ rich football tradition.
Coach Gary Rankin was an established winner, having posted a 125-19 record with four state championships at Murfreesboro Riverdale. Except for a 4-6 mark in 1990, his first season Riverdale, Rankin never won fewer than 10 games in a season with the Warriors.
At Alcoa, coach John Reid had compiled a 38-6 record in three seasons with back-to-back state titles in 2004-05.
Rankin decided to leave Riverdale – where he was 28-1 with one state title in his final two seasons – and take the Alcoa job, knowing he would be going to a football program that expected excellence and state championships.
“It was a family decision,” Rankin said earlier this week. Riverdale had 4,200 students and I wanted my kids in a smaller school because I went to a small school. It just happened that the Alcoa job came open. Sometimes things don’t work out, but it turned out this turned out OK.”
And, how.
After Reid won two straight titles, Rankin came in and captured state championships in each of his first five seasons. Following a 38-37 quarterfinal loss to CAK two years ago, the Tornadoes won the 2013 championship and are within one game of returning to the title game at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville.
The team in Alcoa’s path: third-ranked Notre Dame, which has appeared in three previous semifinals (1978, 2004 and 2005) without a win, according to the Tennessee Prep Football Data Base web site.
“We’ve got a lot of respect for Alcoa,” wide receiver/defensive back Kareem Orr said as the morning sun popped over the trees on Missionary Ridge and began bathing the campus in warming sunlight. “They’ve got a good head coach and coaching staff and they always bring in good players. It’s very gratifying to have this opportunity to play them for a chance to play in the state championship game.
“Playing at home is a huge advantage. We have a good fan base and we’ve got the whole town behind us.”
As No. 1 seeds, Alcoa and Notre Dame have enjoyed home-field advantage until this week. Because of an alternating TSSAA plan in the semifinals, the lower bracket team is hosting this week’s game pitting the Tornadoes and Irish, the only Chattanooga team still standing in this postseason.
“The opportunity we have right now is unreal,” Orr said. “We’ve got a chance to be the best team in school history by just winning. We can be the first Notre Dame team in the state championship game.”
Alcoa has several goals achievable in Friday’s showdown as well.
First, Rankin can become the state’s all-time winningest coach with a victory over the Irish. In last week’s quarterfinal round, Rankin won his 368th – in his first year of coaching (1980 at Smith County), Rankin went 0-10 – game to tie Ken Netherland for first place on that distinguished list.
Netherland, who coached at Hillcrest, Germantown and St. George’s before starting the Lausanne Collegiate School varsity program from scratch in 2013, retired from Lausanne in January 2014 and passed away in July at the age of 75.
Netherland had a 368-131-3 record.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” said Rankin, who is 116-13 in nine years at Alcoa and has never squared off against Notre Dame. “The ballgame is the most important thing. It’s another game, another semifinal. It’s huge for both squads. The other stuff won’t be mentioned.”
Second, by beating Notre Dame the Tornadoes (both teams are 12-1 and riding 12- and 10-game win streaks, respectively) can move within one win of capturing their 14th state title in 15 championship appearances, and seventh under Rankin’s leadership.
At Alcoa last week, the game was stopped with a minute left to recognize Rankin’s accomplishment.
A few years ago, Dalton (Ga.) High School tried to lure Rankin away to take over the Catamounts’ program. That idea went nowhere. At Alcoa, Rankin has a plum job that Dalton could not come close to matching.
Since Rankin’s arrival in Blount County, the football program has continued to thrive and there have been numerous facility upgrades in recent years: a new field house, a turf field, the largest Jumbotron at a high school field in the country (it came from Purdue University and is the same size as one at Middle Tennessee State University) was installed and a new high school will be brought on line next school year.
Clearly, the Alcoa and Maryville football programs – the two schools are four miles apart – are the gold standard and envied by coaches from Kingsport to Memphis. They have combined for 27 state titles – Maryville 14, Alcoa 13 – and are always threats to add more.
Maryville is 13-0, ranked No. 1 in the state among Class 6A schools, and faces Oakland (12-1) in Murfreesboro on Friday. The Rebels are in the semifinals for the 15th consecutive year. Over the previous 17 seasons the Rebels have finished either as champions or runners-up 15 times.
“It seems like each one of us coaches, at some point in our career, has spent at least a day watching either Alcoa or Maryville practice,” Fant said. “Coach (George) Quarles at Maryville was the fastest coach to 200 wins in football history. Coach Rankin is one game from winning the most games by a coach in Tennessee.
“That really shows what that area produces in football. When you put together fantastic coaching staffs and have talent, usually a consistency of excellence happens and you succeed. Alcoa is one of those programs you aspire to become.”
While an assistant at Boyd-Buchanan, Fant visited Alcoa several years ago to see for himself how Rankin and his staff approached practices.
What stood out to him?
“Efficiency and organization,” Fant said. “I would bet that most of the coaches that were there when I visited practice are still there. I bet the practice I saw is very similar to what I see now. Technology is different, but how you go about your business is the same.
“Everybody knows what they’re doing. The coaching staff is enthusiastic about practice. It’s fun to watch. It’s a process we’ve used. It’s about being organized and more importantly you demand more of the kids than your average coach. When you demand more of the kids, they understand the expectations and they rise to it.”
In Rankin’s final two years (1988-89) at Smith County, and with the 0-10 campaign seven years behind him, he posted back-to-back 10-1 records with first-round playoff losses to Marion County and Sequatchie County.
As for 1982, Rankin said, “It was tough. I remember kids hungry to win and soaking up (coaching). I was pretty demanding of the players and didn’t have many left at the end. They hadn’t won in a long time, but the next year we went to a bowl game.
“I’ll never forget that first year; it was a year I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but I think it made me what I am today. It was a year that I learned more lessons than any other.”
Since the 4-6 mark at Riverdale 24 years ago, Rankin has 23 seasons with at least 10 wins, the 8-5 at Alcoa in 2011 being the lone exception.
That’s exceptional.
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)