West TN football

I was in no way trying to diminish what coach Counce accomplished, I was simply defending a comment that Counce was better than Gaddis. Was there a lot less students at Henry County High school when Counce was here? One thing that made Gaddis successful was his ability to get the players out and want to play for him. Over 90 players on the roster this past season. It is very difficult to compare coaches but Gaddis did experience more success than any coach in Henry county football history, and that is undisputable. If I am no mistaken, didnt Counce coach John Hudson, who played for Auburn which is in the SEC, and was Donnie Webb not on that team who went to MTSU who was in the OVC at the time? I get a lot of the years confused but I am pretty sure that is a D-1 and a 1AA at the same time.

James was a good coach but Gaddis has been better, not that any of that matters cause they are both gone, It will be interesting to see this unfold, new director taking over who is good friends with James, and was with him in Dyersburg. Senior may be at the helm once again at Henry County. Will the powers to be wait until April for the new director to be a part of this or not? There are many unknowns but spring practice is just around the corner.

What is next for the Henry County football team. They graduated over 30 seniors, and from my memory, I would say they lost 18-19 starters. Is it going to be a rebuilding year for the Patriots. If experience is as important as believed, I would have a hard time thinking that Henry County will not take some lumps in 2010. The learning curve will need to be accelerated for the young Patriots. I have heard they have very capable players but little game time experience. Thoughts?

wildcat fan, are you kidding me, the stats they piled up against West Creek.LOL Springfield is 2-6 against teams with a .500 or better record,

No I am not a west tn football fan coach, I am a Henry County Football fan and a Springfield HATER hahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahah

Coach Sutherland, came straight fromt he horse's mouth, you may think the Patriots are superior although I read your sarcasm, The Patriot fans may think so and that matters not. Myers on the other hand, doesnt know his asssss from Adam, if he thinks the Patriots are soft and that the only reason the Patriots are atop the district is because every body else is afraid of them. Motivational stuff for a team is one thing in front of the team, however, to speak this way in public, not knowing who is in earshot at a meeting where there are other coaches is just flat out showing ignorance since his team already lost on a dry field 37-14. I guess what is cool about this match up is, He will get a chance to show his team and all of Paris how soft the Patriots are and how powerful his Springfield squad is. I am just curious, does he think he should have won the first meeting, I mean after all, they got a first down on a blocked punt recovered by the punting team. Without that blown call, it is 31-0 at the half easy. Good luck Springfield, I think you are going to need more than your share of it to pull out a victory. I am picking t he Patriots in a 39-14 victory with another mop up touchdown for their second score just like the first game. That last one was not my first one, just the first one in a while.

I am going with Lawrence county in a close one, Melrose in a thumping, Mitchell in a clsoe game, and Ridgeway in a get healthy and happy game against a Hardin County team that can not match up with Ridgeway, Hardin County, may not get a first down, they are soft and slow. Ridgeway is way to fast for them, the only thing Hardin County has inits favor is a long bus ride for Ridgeway. With that being said, Good luck to all involved for a dry Friday night.

Word on the street is that Myers and the rest of the Springfield staff have been heard making comments about the Patriots being soft and very beatable. THe beatable part is true of all high school teams. The soft part is the interesting thing. Myers has won 4 games this year at Springfield, Henry County has won 9, make that 22 over the past two seasons. Henry County may me soft but that makes his Springfield team much softer. The Springfield team ran for like 3 yards in the last meeting with the Patriots. They have given up 254 points in 10 games, to Henry County's 112. 37-14 on the first trip to Paris, it may not be that close this time. Springfield played 8 teams with a .500 or better record, they won 2 of them. That is right, they won 25% of their games against teams with a winning record, and hey, everybody beat West Creek and Kenwood. Patriots, Springfield does not respect you, they think that you are over rated, they think you are soft, they believe that they have this upset in the bag. Send their assssses to the hardwood.

why should some get to choose and others not, but still get moved. Are there the same number of teams in every classification, if so, then what happens when new schools emerge, should we realign everytime, if there are 57 teams in a class or 53 teams in a class there are still just 32 teams going to the playoffs. Now if 40 wanted to bump up the TSSAA has created a huge problem due to allowing anyone to play up. What if 40 teams in 5a wanted to bump up to 6a, now there are 97 teams in 6a and 17 in 5a. I am not sure ho the rules state but if 5a schools move to 6a, how does that effect schools.

Why should one team moving up push another team up? To make it fair on everyone, no one should have a choice to move up, it is not fair to punish one school becasue another school wants to play up. If we are to be so strict in lines and numbers then the first line should be the final line and no one plays up. IMHO

Thsi is a logical appeal. I thought from the beginning that if classifcations are set, and school A gets to pick where they play, it should have no impact on school B. In essence school A has say so in where they and school B get to play and school B has no say so.

What game are you watching, he has missed 3 PATs in the last two games, If you recall, there was a missed PAT in the Semifinal game last season that would have won the game. The Patriots can not afford to keep missing those.

I do not disagree with you, he does not seem like the back he use to be. I do not think this young man understands how hard he is to tackle if he just runs north and south, I have seen him in the past, hit the hole and watch absolutely 6-7 guys just slide off him as they attempt to tackle him with him never missing a stride. This year he does not make people tackle him. I would like to see him stay between the hashes and feed some tacklers a lot of knees and shoulders, they will not be back for seconds if he will run as he use to, with power. Will he still go to Tennessee with the Fulmer resigning?

As I am not a Henry County resident, I have not been around Coach Gaddis nor do I know him very well. I did meet him through a friend briefly one day for a matter of 10-15 minutes. In that short time it was clear to see why players play for this man. He has a magnetic force to him that pulls people toward him. I met him roughly 3 years ago and because of the impression I recieved from this man, I began to drive from west of Jackson to Paris regularly to watch his teams progress. I have been unable to see the Patriots this season except when they were at Liberty. I hope to have more time to travel during the playoffs as he has turned a dormant program into one that can compete with the best programs in the state and dominate the rest. I have noticed that Henry County has graduated over 20 players each of the last 2 seasons and are playing a high level of football following these strong senior teams, that is a strong program. Who are the assistant coaches, we never hear their names, are any of them Head Coaching material? Good Luck Patriots and I hope you win it all. I truely enjoy watching your team perform.

Hey guys, I have not been on in a while, It sounds like things are going great for Henry County. I have been out West for a couple of months. I am back and headed to Paris on Friday. I did hear that Brighton is a different ball club this season and the Patriots might be overlooking them. Good luck and I cant wait to see this game.

How about those Patriots, it does not seem like they have missed a step this year. Defense looks impoved, special teams look better, (still need to sure up that kick off team), and the offense, my goodness, I bett opponents dread Firday nights against the Patriot offense. Much has been said about the Patriots and their expectations and this week has got to be one that was marked on the schedule for the last year. ALthough this game is meaningless in the scheme of things, from hearing Coach Gaddis on the radio the other night, it sounds very meaningful to him. I am hearing mixed reports from Wv camp and, sounds like they are playing possum over there, lookout HC, they may be better than anticipated.

As a loyal Patriot fan, I was at the scrimmage and the biggest concern that I had was the centers inability to snap the ball to the QB. This was the one thing that looked bad to me. The defense looked adequate, not sure how good Humbolts offense is. The passing game that has been under the microscope on this forum seemed disrupted by the QB having to bend down and chase the snaps. If my memeory serves me correctly, the QB dropped back a couple of times and did not throw the ball, I do not know why, but that could be looked at as a good thing. I dont want a QB to force things. Like many others have said, we need improvments across the board.

Now, now KWC, I have always respected your opinion and actually value it to some degree, I never said one thing about any of those programs being cream puffs. You say that you think Whitehave and White station could beat Henry county, and I agree they could, they are obviously good football teams, with that beign said, I think that Henry county could beat those teams too. I would not neccesarily say that any would be favorites in my mind as I have not seen Whitehaven or White station play this season, Those teams are for real, Melrose will come with everything they have if they play Henry county again, I have plentyof respect for all of those programs, I said nothing that showed them disrespect, I simply said that Henry county would be the best team that Fairley has played. It has been said that Fairley was the best team that Henry county has played, I am sure Dickson county would like to argue that. It is all a matter of opinion, and we may just see that I am the idiot of idiots as Henry county is probably not as good as Fairley, Melrose, white station, or Whitehaven, they probably are not as good as Kingsbury either.

you are quite insightful, but I will say this, I did not please many that week and apparently, I am not pleasing many this week, apparently I am not in the pleasing business. Again I will say this, I think that if Henry county plays their game and plays well, they will win the state championship, this is why I think that Henry county is the best team that Fairley has played or will play. If the Henry county players lose focus and begin reading their own press clippings after beating an Egypt the way they did, then they lose. I have watched enough to know that Joe Gaddis will not allow that to happen in the play offs.

I know that Henry county is not a shoe in for any game, at this point, even Maryville has to play every week or they lose. If my memory serves me well, then it is sage to say that I have not even mentioned the semi finals. Melrose is much better than Fairley, and Henry county will have to play mistake free football to beat them, but again they are very capable. Melrose on the other hand has revenge on their minds as the Patriots embaressed them at the mound last season. Don ot try an tell me that the traditionally great Melrose was not embarressed to lose to a unheard of Henry county program. I promise you that Melrose and their tradition will come with a little extra next week if the Patriots make it that far. I think that Melrose is on a mission right now and the quarterfinals if at Paris will be something to witness.

Actually, I watched their game with hardin county last week, Did not travel to Paris for the slaughter that was iminent. Although I did not see the Henry coutny Hardin county game, I saw a Fairley team that could have just as easily lost to Hardin county, I did not see a clearly better team on the field Friday night, as both teams tried to turn the ball over just to see if the other team wanted to win. Again in my (dont know what I am talking about manner) opinion, Fairley did not look sharp to me, especially not play off sharp, Hardin county just was a little worse, as it was not a mattter of who played the best, it was who did not play the worst. tooooo many turnovers to win against good teams.

you speak well, and many points are well taken, the second trip to the mound was revenge, I have to think that if Henry county lost onits second trip to the mound it would have a little different effect on the mentality. As I put in my previous post, I am sure that last year Fairley came to Paris with revienge on their mind, and well they went home to play round ball. I too feel that Fairley will be the best team that Henry county has faced. With that being said, I think that Henry county is the best team that Fairley will play this year. Henry county, is big, fast and as they proved me wrong against Munford, very physical. Fairley has good coaching, Henry county has great coaching even though the warrior is not on either staff, they are capable of getting lined up correctly. As I am not a Henry countian, but have been drawn to the Patriots style of football, I would say that I am less biased than even you, Realist.

With experts like you and the Warrior, why should anyone else share their opinion. You say it will be close and the Warrior says so, I know Fairley is probably the best team that Henry county has played this year, and is defiitely the most important, their are no more runts out there. I for one think Henry county can win the state championship, I do not think Fairley can, I think that Henry coutny would beat Fairley 4 out of 5 times, If this game is to be so close that either team could win in the 4th quarter, then I guess Fariley would beat Henry county 5-10 times in you alls opinion of such a close match up. With that being said, I do think that Henry county has to play good football to beat Fairley, if they show up and think that is enough to win, if they do not execute then Fairley beats them by 30, but that is not the Henry county that I have seen all year. My prediction, but I obviously do not know what I am talking about because I pick Henry county to win 37-16

You are so quick to throw out insults coach, It will be interesting if Henry county does beat Fairley soundly, will you eat your words or just say you were approaching on the side of caution which is just fine but to tell someone they do not know what they are talking about and calling them silly, is quite simply silly. Henry coutny is the better team and they are at home, and they have never lost to Fairley and I do not see them losing this year to Fairley. I predict a game in which there will be no doubt who the bettter team is at the end of the game as was the case the past two seasons. Revenge someone said, how about a little doubt on their part after losing two times to the Patriots. I am sure they were not wanting to have to come to Henry county in the second round,. maybe after the first loss it was that way but there has to be a little doubt in their players minds coach.