JDHoss

Claiborne lost to Johnson Co and Cosby by a combined 93-7 last year. I'd be stunned if D-B isn't up by 20+ after one quarter. As for Gate City, they will be more competitive than Claiborne and will not be intimidated, but they don't have the athletes or depth to hang with D-B for more than a half.

I don't know about the last couple of years, but when our grandson was at D-B, they scrimmaged Lord Botetourt at E&H for two years and Botetourt gave them all they could handle. This year, Botetourt is playing Rye Cove in a regular season game at E&H. Hard to believe D-B couldn't have worked out something with them for a regular season game, which would be a way bigger test than Gate City or Claiborne, although from the money standpoint, I understand Gate City. That will be a full house. Claiborne? Why not Unaka or Twin Springs?

Gate City is a shell of what they used to be. In the 60's. 70's, 80's, 90's and early 2000's this would have been a coin flip most years. GC will play hard and with a chip on their shoulder, but IMO are in it for the money at this point and the Tribe will roll them. On a personal note, the last time these teams played, my cousin was the D-B QB, and they got throttled 44-16.

If you were that far off about a figure that is easily accessible, then it's a good bet that you are wrong about lots of things and make your posts solely on emotion. Being a native of Virginia who lived and worked in East TN for 34 years before retiring to South Florida, I've been to a handful of games at Alcoa, but have no emotional ties to them. I'm also willing to admit that they (along with Murville) have got this down to a science in terms of building and maintaining great football programs. Do they "recruit"? Sure they do, but they are just two of many. If you really want to see recruiting, you should take a look in South Florida where many of these kids will change schools every year, depending on what kind of deal they are getting.

Your $19K figure is wrong. That is from 2000. Alcoa, Tennessee (TN) income map, earnings map, and wages data

I get Gate City. If that's a home and home series, that's two big gates. Claiborne Co? Was Unaka's schedule full?

That was a huge crowd for that game, I'm thinking maybe 1971 or 1970. My cousin played QB on that D-B team.

It's the same way here in South Florida. There are lots of BIG schools down here with BIG stadiums. We average going to two games a week from Vero Beach to Miami, and sometimes over to the Gulf coast, but with rare exception, there will be less than 1K in the stands. Two weeks ago, we were at Jupiter High School, which has an enrollment of 3100. It was senior night and their team was 8-1. There might have been 700 people there from both schools. The only big crowds we've seen in 28 games this year have been Miami Northwestern at Venice and Pahokee at Glades Central for the Muck Bowl. IMO it's a combination of a large, transient population where people who moved here from somewhere else and they have no emotional ties to the schools outside of their kids playing a sport, and the fact that high school football is just another form of entertainment, and there are tons of other options for entertainment here.

If we're piling on, how about..... 1990 (IIRC) when a 10-0 D-B team lost to MoTown West in the first round (18--6 or something like that) as Little Man Stewart ran over, through and around them on a rain saturated field.

Oh man....I hate to hear that. He seemed like a real character and reminded me a lot of someone I know back in my old Virginia hometown who loved high school football. Thanks for the response, and good luck to the Pirates this season. I used to live in Kingsport, but moved to South Florida six years ago when we retired and Roy's posts and the banter between the rest of you made me a fan of SP.

Whatever happened to that Dillard man that used to create these game web-sights? Is he creating web-sights for some other team now, or did he retar when that Murphy man did? I guess he misses seeing that Murphy man's book and pole.

A guy I worked with in Kingsport moved there when he retired a couple of years ago and loves it. He's a big outdoors guy and loves the fishing, hiking and biking, as well as the Pike's Place Fish Market. Me? I retired and moved to the suffocating heat and humidity of South Florida several years ago. Still, there's a lot to be said about walking around in the winter wearing sandals, shorts and short sleeves.

You keep harping on enrollment, but it doesn't mean squat without a good infrastructure and organization from the youth leagues on up, and it's never going to matter who DB hires as a head coach until that is addressed.

Florida had 8 classes before, mainly because they have 22 schools over 3K enrollment, several schools over 4K, and a bunch more right at 3K. They went to the Metro & Suburb classes because the Metro schools were dominating in all the classes. They also have no separation of privates and public, which makes things even tougher for the public schools. Could it be done in TN? I honestly don't know. The only truly large metro areas in TN are Memfuss, Nashville and Knoxville with a combined population of around 4 million. In contrast, the Miami metro area has around 10 million alone, and combined with the Tampa Bay, Orlando and Jacksonville metro areas, it's around 17+ million people. I'm not sure in TN how many schools you'd wind up with in each class if you did that, especially since the public and private are separate.

Everyone from Bristol to Memfuss plays for fun. Otherwise, no one would be playing. What matters is organization and coaching from the youth leagues through the feeder programs to high school. Toss in demographics, population (not school size, but area population), and it's not hard to see how the bigger metro schools dominate 5 & 6A. Last year here in Florida, the FHSAA revamped their classification system to Metro and Suburban divisions. Instead of Class A through Class 8A, we now have 1M - 4M and 1S - 4S. There's also a 1R (Rural) class for remote rural schools like Pahokee. The Metro schools are comprised of the Palm Beach county to Dade county metro area, the Jacksonville metro area, the Orlando metro area, and the Tampa metro area. The reason they did it was because these schools were dominating the state championships for the most part. It didn't matter how good of a youth league program, feeder schools and coaching staff someone like a Vero Beach had, there was just a ton more talent available in the big metro areas, and while I can't speak for Tennessee, the schools here recruit like crazy and in the metro areas, teams can really load up.

The games that really stood out to me when he was at RNR were the games against Duggar. Duggar was in another universe in terms of physicality and organization, and the results confirmed it.

Our grandson played up through the ranks and graduated last year, so I have a good understanding of the mindset. TBH, after watching RNR and Sevier both struggle so much when he was at Robinson, I'm amazed they were able to win as many games in high school as they did. This program won't ever be much more than what it is now until somebody turns it over to a coach who will hire who he wants and retool the youth and middle school programs to fit what type of system he wants to run.

Not saying they need to keep Christian, but until the youth league and middle school programs are better organized, whoever the head coach is will have their work cut out for them.

I went to an opening round playoff game there several years ago when they were playing Bradly Central. There were probably less than 500 paying customers there that night.

I wouldn't discount Graham, now that Clements is healthy.

Tribe 20 Toppers 14 Just because I want it to be. Regardless. it'll be the last win for either of them as R2 sweeps the 1st round.

Tribe 47 Crockett 14

Much obliged. He was dynamite in that game against South Pitt. I enjoyed watching him.

I'm sure this has been discussed previously, but whatever happened to the Jackson kid who had the big game against South Pittsburg as a freshman in the state championship game?

WERE'S THAT DILLARD MAN AT? HE CAN BUILD THESE WEB SIGHTS SO THEY CANT' BE HAKED.