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Just my observations from watching the Cleveland Duals: 1. Cleveland: While they may not be loaded with D1 talent they are a very strong TEAM up and down the lineup that will be difficult for anyone in Tennessee to beat. 2. Bradley: They have some solid kids but they do have some holes and will have problems with teams like Cleveland and Baylor 3. Summitt: a very good team from top to bottom with a couple of very talented wrestlers. 4. Father Ryan: They did beat Bradley at the Knoxville Catholic individual tournament but who knows at this point in the season. They are capable of beating the average teams soundly but unless they get several kids back in the lineup it’s going to be a long season. It’s difficult to compete for championships when you are forfeiting multiple weight classes. It appears as if they have zero depth or they left kids at home.

What about the baseball players that want to play in the Ivy League or another academic school such at Boston College, Stanford, Rice, Northwestern, etc… do you have contacts with those coaches to get the kids signed. Like it or not everyone has a roll in the recruiting process and it really takes a village. Not all kids or their parents want them to play at the local JC or even the local four year college.

I totally agree that the Army vs Navy game is a very pure form of football. However, each and ever midshipman and cadet have been and are currently being paid a salary along with receiving a world class education. With that being said everyone knows that very few kids have a combination of excellent academics, discipline and perseverance to graduate from one of the military academies. Now the real question is will the military allow the athletes to accept NIL contracts?

The TSSAA Board of Control voted down the legislation that member schools overwhelmingly passed. For the time being it will be business as usual. I have no problem with kids being granted one free transfer. What I have issues with are kids that are recruited from all over the USA (actually world) to attend a boarding school in Tennessee and they immediately become eligible. This rule will immediately change when a power 5 QB and WR are recruited away to a boarding school to a school that has someone on the Board of Control. Just like the rules were changed and private school were placed into D2 after Riverdale and Gary Rankin were beat by Carolton Flatt and Brentwood Academy.

Do the high school coaches not get paid? Look, you and others may not like the higher level summer league coaches but 95% of the time they are the ones that get the kids seen and recruited by the larger d1 college programs. The days of the college coaches attending high school games during the week and summer league double headers are long gone. The college recruiters are looking at a recruiting profile list and going to a few “BIG TIME” tournaments which are in the summer. Recruiting is one of the most in exact sciences on the planet. If a kid fails to fit into size profile of the recruiter they are passed over most of the time. Everyone has their place during the recruitment process.

Let’s answer the questions in three parts: 1. Yes, there are a few high school coaches that do not pass along letters or inquiring phone calls from college coaches. This does not happen often and in most instances it’s due to a bad relationship between the high school coach and family of the player. 2. I have found that very few high school coaches feel comfortable reaching out to college coaches on a players behalf. IMO, the really successful high school coaches have a good relationship with several college coaches and have no problem promoting their players. On the other hand many high school coaches are either lazy or totally intimidated by the thought of picking up the phone and calling a college baseball coach. 3. A majority of the time players are discovered by playing on their summer league teams and the recruiting process completely bypasses the high school coach.

No larger than the attendance is for most of the state championship games, they should be played in a high school stadium. Until the paid attendance for most of the games is over 7500 play the games in a good high school stadium. Did any of the games have a paid attendance crowd of 7500. With 9 state champions being crowned in Tennessee high school football most people could care less. Reduce the number of state champions to 5 and have the games at Vanderbilt and the crowds will return. The product on the field is so watered down that a Manhattan advertising agency couldn’t market the games

If done properly there is no way legally that a public school or private day school should ever be able to compete with a boarding school in team sports.

With the results that both Bruce Lassier and now Brian Rector have had at Father Ryan why would any D2AAA school hire a Tennessee public school coach? Both of those guys were very successful as a public school coach in Tennessee but failed miserably coaching in D2AAA. It’s a completely different animal when everyone is spending money and recruiting.

Not counting Tennessee it’s actually 20 states that allow high school athletes to receive NIL money

I am currently in Texas and rest assured that the public schools in my area (Lake Travis and Westlake) are doing everything and more than the D2 schools in Tennessee. If the public schools in Tennessee want to see how you win in football they should go to Texas, Georgia or Florida and take a few lessons. Tennessee public schools are light years behind in not only athletics but also in academics.

Maybe the Purple Irish football team should hire Pat Simpson and his wrestling coaching staff to coach the football team. One thing is for sure and that’s Pat Simpson hates to lose and the players would have a completely different attitude or they would be on the sidelines.

While money is not the answer to everything it does play a significant roll in the overall education of Davidson County students. Metro Nashville Public Schools (Davidson County) in the 1970’s began to abandon the public school system. The end result is that the private schools and academic magnet schools have flourished. When the public school system was “online” during the pandemic the private schools were continuing with business as usual. Now the various school boards are wondering why the kids are 2+ years behind in reading and mathematics. It’s so bad in Nashville that no one is able to tell me the last Mayor of Davidson County that sent their children to Metro Nashville Public Schools. When “KING JOHN COOPER” elects to send his kids to private schools and not MNPS that should tell the residents of Davidson County everything that they need to know.

Curiosity has gotten the best of me; how much does Pearl-Cohn spend/fund raise each year on helmets, shoulder pads, uniforms, pre-game meals, etc…. I have been told by a very reliable source that even with “KING JOHN COOPERS” 34.5% property tax increase the high schools must pay for everything except game officials. There is a financial reason for PC playing MBA at MBA every season.

The divide between the most affluent schools and the inner city schools just got much wider. There was a vote within the TSSAA schools where it passed overwhelmingly that if a student athlete transfers into a boarding school they must sit out one season. Let’s see if the TSSAA Board of Control passes this legislation.

This will be nothing more than the rich boarding schools will be able to recruit at a higher level than they are presently doing.

Everyone in Tennessee should understand that our property/school taxes are extremely low. People are always asking why the schools in Texas have such great athletic facilities and public school systems. The answer is that the school boards actually set what individual homeowners pay in school taxes and you pay those monies directly to the school system. If the school board wants a new stadium or school to be built they raise your school taxes enough to pay for those improvements.

Let’s be completely honest and just say that MJ elects to play a weak non region schedule.

My main issue with some of these keyboard warriors is that they are throwing stones at LA and they don’t have a clue as to what is happening all over the country or even in their own backyard. Back in the early 70’s up until this very moment people have been using someone else’s address so that kids were able to attend a school in another county. There are some counties in Tennessee that now charge a nominal fee ($less than 1200.00) for kids to attend and participate in athletics if they live in another county. There are teams that are on the border of Tennessee that have kids attending that live in another state. There was one state that bordered Tennessee where girls basketball was a fall sport. The girls would play basketball in that state and then transfer to the Tennessee school after Christmas and play basketball in Tennessee. There are numerous kids that presently live in Nashville but attend schools in Wilson County, Sumner County or Rutherford County. You have all kinds of kids that live in Knox County and they attend school in Blount or Anderson Counties. The point is that when a specific school get’s really good at whatever sport people will do whatever they can to get their child into that school. This is not just a private school issue as many of the public schools are just as guilty. I personally know of a former member of the TSSAA Board of Control (he was married to my aunt) that was a great high school basketball player (he played in college) that was recruited to another school his senior season with the enticement of providing his father with a good job in that county. I personally know of grade fixing and grades being changed by principals at various schools to keep kids eligible. What about kids that get arrested one morning but they are miraculously let out of jail by the county sheriff in time to play in the state semi-final football games on a Friday evening. Many times those that are screaming the loudest with regards to recruiting are the ones that are doing the most illegal recruiting. When you have been around as long as I have you not only know the stories but often times you know the back stories and have enough information to prove them to be true. The real facts are that most ever school in Tennessee is doing something illegal. Often times the administrators don’t have a clue or they turn a blind eye to the situation and when they get caught, they will swear on a stack of King James Bibles that they don’t know anything about the situation. The TSSAA and its administration and Board of Control are clueless and lazy which is a bad combination. What is true about the TSSAA is that they don’t have the money to be chasing down every reported recruiting violation. It cost money to investigate violations and attorney fees are not free so once again they ignore most things unless they are so egregious that they are afraid the media will take the story and present it to the public. Let’s not forget that if the TSSAA staff or Board of Control members go after the wrong person with political ties in the State of Tennessee those individuals could make life very difficult for them so it’s much easier to try and ignore most everything.

Let's be honest and say that Lipscomb Academy "IS NOT" a boarding school like Webb, McCallie, Saint Andrews or Baylor so the kids must live with their family in the Nashville area. If kids from states other than Tennessee transferred into LA due to the head coach being Trent Dilfer what is the problem? It would be just like when Coach Prime was coaching at the high school level in Texas. Do people really not believe that people don't transfer into Westlake to play for Todd Dodge or into Southlake Carroll to play for Riley Dodge? Folks it's really simple, families that have children with football talent want to play for big name coaches for the exposure. It's not the coaches or schools' fault if families move into the school's zone. Are people naive enough to believe that in the 70's & 80's families didn't move into or use fake addresses so that their sons could play baseball for Mel Brown at McGavock High School in Nashville. Did families not move to Maryville or Alcoa to play football for GQ or GR?

Unfortunately kids transferring for athletic purposes happens much more frequently than kids transferring for academics.

For a high school team to have consistent success throwing the football they must have a coach that is able to teach the finer points of a passing offense. It truly takes time to develop quarterbacks and receivers and if someone on the coaching staff did not play QB at the collegiate level or higher it’s almost impossible to become a great pass first and run second team. However, a high school team that has a QB that can read defenses and throw to receivers that run good routes will be able to pick most high school defenses apart.

Again, it’s my understanding that the new regime at Lipscomb will want the coaches to be CofC but who knows if they will bend but not break on some of the rules. This is now President Candice McQueen’s show and ultimately she will make the rules as to who is allowed to teach and coach at Lipscomb. Anyone that feels that Mrs. McQueen and the old school CofC people are not now running Lipscomb should take the short drive down Hillsboro Pike for Sunday morning service and ask a few questions.

I hear that Brothers is a member of the CofC and Nashville Christian School is a CofC school so that may have some weight but who knows. There is also a strong rumor floating around that there could be 2 more D2 coaching changes made before the start of next season. D2 in many ways is nothing more than small college athletics.

The strong rumor that I am hearing out of West Nashville is that Brothers will takeover the Lipscomb Academy program. Several of the BA people are saying that they feel the next BA coach will be a promotion from within the current BA coaching staff. This is a different headmaster and Board of Trust than BA has had in past years.