johnandjimmy

You're comparing apples and oranges when you talk about Alcoa and William Blount. Since you're so wise, you should understand the huge difference between 2A and 5A football. Alcoa does very well in their class, but don't fool yourself into believing that they're better than William Blount. No, William Blount has never advanced past the second round, but you switch the teams and put Alcoa in 5A and William Blount in 2A, you're looking at 4 straight titles for the Govs and none for Alcoa. Yes, William Blount is a 5A team, but if you're wanting to compare the two teams straight up, you've got to look at it like that. While we're on the topic of comparing things straight up, let's look at the recent history between the Govs and Tornadoes. In 2004, when William Blount was MUCH worse than they have been the last three years, the score was 20-7. Alcoa won that game and went on to win a state title William Blount went 3-7 and allowed 49 or more points four times. William Blount was horrendous that season and couldn't beat their way out of a wet paper bag, and lost by only 13. When you take one of Alcoa's title teams and put them up against a vastly improved, 9-3 William Blount team, what do you expect to get? In 2003, William Blount beat Alcoa 28-6, while finishing the season 5-6. In a season where we didn't even break .500, to beat Alcoa handily speaks volumes for what would happen to Alcoa if they played 5A teams. When one of William Blount's worse teams of the past seven years wins by 22 points, you can venture a guess to what one of William Blount's best teams would do. In 2002, William Blount also went 5-6. Oh, and did I mention that they beat Alcoa 44-8? In the three most recent games of the series, William Blount has a 2-1 lead, with their two wins being by a large amount. Head-to-head is the best measuring stick, so there you have it. Since the series was ended, William Blount has improved greatly each year, competitive wise and record wise. There is no logical way that a Alcoa team that got pounded by Maryville this most recent season would have competed with a William Blount team that was every bit as good as Maryville. Shall we continue this knowledge session?

I may say that Alcoa could give Sevier County a game, but Sevier County is a team that we've consistently seen in the playoffs the last few years. It's logical to want to play a potential playoff matchup in the regular season to prepare your team and get used to a team that you very well could face in the first or second rounds. The same applies to Dobyns Bennett, but Alcoa could not give them a game. You talk about Upper East Tennessee football being overrated, that's quite ironic when you're comparing them to Alcoa, who fits that bill pretty well. Solomon...I'll change my name to "docjeffandheather" if you change yours to something that depicts your knowledge more accurately.

You talk to any of William Blount's players, and they'd LOVE to play Alcoa every year! The players aren't scared, and the players aren't the ones that took Alcoa off the schedule. The reason William Blount stopped playing Alcoa was an issue with the Coach, and everyone knows that. Now, it's a disadvantage for us to play Alcoa. Look at our non-region schedule: Sevier County, Dobyns Bennett, and Maryville. We'll stick to playing 5A schools (and one "4A") that actually help us improve and get experience for the playoffs. That's the goal, not beating a 2A team for "bragging rights."

William Blount wasn't outplayed in any sense, we made a couple of mistakes and that hurt us. I'm not even going to blame the refs. I will say this, if our kicker kicks two extra points down the middle, we win and there's NO dispute. But there is NO way you can even try and put Alcoa's team from last year on the same level as us. William Blount would have done the same thing that Maryville did to Alcoa.

Irony at its finest /thumb[1].gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":thumb:" border="0" alt="thumb[1].gif" /> And for the record, that 13-1 stat means nothing to me. I'm not a moron, I know that William Blount hasn't had a great program in the past. That's no secret and nobody's debating it. I'm talking about now, I'm talking about the most current and relevant season. That 15-0 record means nothing to me when the second toughest game of your season is a 2A team. I know you can't determine the class that you play in (although I could make some statements about that too) but don't fool yourselves. The best team in Blount County last season didn't win that game.

Because we stay in the shadow of Maryville and get no respect, when I know that we're just as good of a football team.

Call me a hater then, because it's true. But don't call me jealous. I'm not jealous of Maryville for their 4A championships and Region wins over teams like Lenoir City, Powell, South Doyle, and Clinton. It's the arrogant fans that does the trick for me. Have fun in 5A!

Probably so fans like you can stop declaring everyone else as "jealous"

McMinn should be a threat again, but losing Devon Johnson I think will be a big blow. Ooltewah appears to be loaded, although last year the talk before the season was that they were supposedly going to go back to the semi-finals. William Blount always has a terribly tough time with Farragut, as they've lost to the Ads six times in a row. The Maryville game, despite what anyone says, is the biggest of our season. Last year the loss took a lot out of us, maybe we can finish the job this year. It'd be that much sweeter to end a longer winning streak, on their home field, with all their new Nike stuff. My predictions for Region 2: 1. Ooltewah 2. WB or Farragut...this is a toss-up 4. McMinn Co. 5. Oak Ridge 6. Soddy Daisy 7. Heritage 8. Bradley Central

I don't see the defense giving us any problems, Cole will be good and we have Gordley and Hassett on D-Line. Garner should be playing some safety this year, he's extremely fast and a hard hitter. The offense is where the main question marks will come into play, but I'm not worried about the wide recievers. Cope was amazing last season, and we have other senior players (even though they haven't started) ready to take over the other reciever slots. The offensive line lost all five starters, but we've got some big, strong younger guys that will do just fine. I think this year's team is physically stronger than last season's. The quarterback position is the thing that worries me...maybe we'll find a way to keep that from hurting us too badly. We're going to miss Kase Whitehead, even though he was the punter, he did an incredible job of flipping the field for us. This season, we can't punt from our 20 yard line and pin the other team inside their 30-20. It's something that we took for granted, but will be missed. We have some talented players, I just hope our team can come together to do something special.

Good point CU06...I look for the Govs to finish second in the Region again, to possibly Ooltewah or Farragut. We'll probably win at least 7 games in the regular season, with three losses out of Maryville, DB, Ooltewah, or Farragut. If we split those games, I'd happy with another 8-2 regular season. The playoffs are where it really counts, hopefully this will be the year we break through. The first three rounds are against Region teams (our region and Region 1), if we can beat them in the regular season I see no reason that we can't finally make a run in the playoffs. Every year there's a surprise run, I see no reason the Govs can't make one this year with a few breaks.

I want to see the Govs make a deep playoff run, and I'm not sure if this is the year for that or not

Maybe you should get your facts straight before you go around trashing William Blount...if you were even at the game, you'd know that the William Blount players showed a great deal of maturity shaking hands and not saying a negative word to the players after the game. If you actually were close to either program I wouldn't have had to point that out to you. Igorance is bliss, so I'll try not to ruin your party.

There's no reason Halls should be above any one else on Maryville's radar...lot of hype for a team that brags about a close loss

There's no reason Halls should be above any one else on Maryville's radar...lot of hype for a team that brags about a close loss

I think William Blount came pretty close /rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" />

WB won against Heritage

I think the WHOLE state is going to be down this year...

William Blount makes it two in a row against the Rebels this year

Way to get off topic MaryvilleRebels...I guess you just can't handle the fact that every thread isn't about Maryville...so you had to drag them into it Aren't there other topics where you can fascinate us all with your tales of WB fans /rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" />

WB has very strong assistants, however...don't expect any drop-off with the Governors!

I wish the best to Coach Meadows and his family

Bump...spring practice is one week from tomorrow...the journey of the 2008 season begins very soon

I'm not sure if this is correct...

As a William Blount fan, I'm worried about our trip to Kingsport next season! It was a great game last year...do you DB fans see the team being improved from last year?