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You are right about one thing. It is not that important. But how can Brighton have always been in 6A when we have never had a 6A classification in the state before? Now they have been a 3A school in basketball, baseball, golf, etc. but for the last 4 years they have played 4A football. The same as JCM, Northside, Munford, Hardin, Hardin and Henry. Change has always been a challenge. Again good luck with Fairley, Melrose/East, Hillsboro/Maplewood, Maryville which should have been a 5A school in football all along. I like your confidence though.

Yes they started counting from the top. You are correct if West Creek, Mitchell and Northeast do not move up in classification then Whites Creek, Dyersburg and Chattanooga Central would have been in 5A. Not a perfect system but again there rarely is one.

Sorry but you are incorrect. Brighton enrollment is 1466. Without the 3 schools moving up into 3a or basically what we will now know as 5a and 6a the break would have made Brighton the largest 5a school. Your right there was no precedent there ususally never is with change.

The classifications have to be determined some way and historically that has been by enrollment and the change came with the opportunity for schools to move up in classification. TSSAA board makes the decisions in regard to classification, it has to be determined somehow. Yeah henry, morristown and brighton got "bumped"/"forced", boards decsion. The cut off could have been 1250 students or 1500 students then someone else would be forced to deal with moving into a higher classification. Like I said in early post not rocket science and I must add not a perfect system either. But that is how it works. As for Henry County and Morristown, they may or may not get a favorable decsion on this. Honestly the ground work and rules were laid out for all to read and meetings where held for input. Surely everybody knew this was going to happen to someone. If I were a voting member I would have to listen to the proposal, but stand by the boards earlier decsion because it is just going to set off yet another controversy. Maybe it works out differently in 2014. Good luck in the post season with Fairley, Melrose/East, Maplewood/Hillsboro, Maryville.

My reference was strictly travel expense but you do make a good point about region 7 traveling well. I believe TSSAA took into account the lack of support for schools and their need to cut down on travel cost. To answer your question. The way it was structured allowed schools to move up from the 1 to 2 or 2 to 3 then draw the lines. So 5A couldnt move up to 6A put I guess if a school so decided they could make a proposal to the board. If 40 schools had decided to move up then I am certain the 6 classifications would have been formed regardless, with the intent to put an equal number of teams in each classification. Not exactly rocket science.

From my understanding of the process. tssaa allowed all teams the option of moving up in classification due to the high travel cost which some teams incurred from wide spread regions. Take Mitchell for example, they moved up in classification to compete with local schools in region and control their travel cost. In direct contrast, Henry County is obviously doing well as far as financially supporting their football programs and other athletic programs as well from the dollars generated by the football program alone. Thus can can absorb high travel cost as they have had playing in region 7 but do stand to gain finaically form the move to a new region with teams located in closure proximatry. The lines had to be set after teams moved up to balance all the classifications. I followed TSSAA steps through this process. They had 3 goals, 1) allow teams to determine their classification by moving up to cut down on cost; 2) attempt to create some sense of parity among all schools across the state as their research showed most state championships are won by metro schools. Before you respond I did say most and this research is available to the TSSAA web sight. As for the 3rd goal of TSSAA, it was about the money generated from having 6 classifications of independnets for football championships plus the privates which is a whole other issue entriely.

i saw hardin county score 6 but didnt really think anybody from our side was counting. good try though.

i am certain that melrose would rather play at home. fairley is loaded with athletes and are well coached. more speed across the board than anyone in region 7. would be interesting to see melrose defense against the big fullback allen. henry county needs to pound the ball b/w the tackles against fairley. but if the fairley back gets outside, well as their announcer called it, "there he go." good luck henry county, i predict the semis at least, would like to see a title from the region.

hc takes this one, the offense will be clicking, stay focused and play with discipline, instead of somebody stepping up, i want to see everybody step up.

as stated earlier, sam shutt has good character. thanks sam. pa

i dont doubt your word. i did see the game. i can say our program works hard to build character in our young men and sam is a young man of good character. guess it goes to show the intensity of competion can be taken to far. unfortunately that is what is shown to our young people by professionals, college players and unfortunatley some fans beginning as early as youth sports. it is a problem. am I embarrassed, no. would i remove him from the game as 43 was, i dont know, as for as how that young man was yanked around on the side lines after his personal foul call, makes me wonder if other issues have been present. on the other hand, does Gaddis remove a player when the game situation is different or the state title is on the line? it would impress if he did, thats teaching character. wish you guys best of luck and hopefully we meet again in two weeks at your place. i hope we dont get shell shocked again, i for one appreciate a good hard fought battle on the field.

first, need to say to the young men that play for henry county, impressive, clear that you have worked hard and are well coached, best wishes in the playoffs. second, i have followed the henry county threads all year, you guys seem to have fun and do provide adequate insight on football in wst tn. however, it is rather ridiculous that grown men tend to want to spout off rather than just support their team and hopefully show good character to the young men playing the game. it is normal for particpants in a game to loss their heads, i saw that from both sides on friday night. word of advice, if your not on the field then your time has passed and when the words get out of hand, let each man stand for his self.