Philster043

Nice job Chattanooga Central. Except for Hixson, no other Chattanooga area team has ever put quite as much a scare in us as y'all did tonight. It was 13-9 us going into the fourth quarter. But Chatt. Central was driving the ball well downfield, they were on our 15 or somewhere abouts, and they had a pretty good chance to score and lead. There was only about 6 minutes left. But, we held them on fourth down and we got the ball back, and our running back McCord (who had fumbled on the previous series and given Central pretty good field position) busted through their defense for what I think was a 75-yard touchdown run. So, it was suddenly 20-9 and then we pushed them back to their own 5-yard line on their next drive & and we intercepted a badly thrown pass and our defensive end Jeffrey Smith, Jr. (son of a former pro player) scored. So the final was 27-9 but it was a lot closer game than the score indicated. Good game, and we've won 38 straight games now dating back to 2001. Next Friday's game will be a doozy because the Rebels play Knoxville Central and they nearly beat us earlier in the year - that was a double overtime game and we won by three points (27-24) - after they kicked a field goal, we went ahead and scored a touchdown on a run. And now, we gotta play them again. But Chatt. Central certainly knew how to make it seem like the playoffs already. Phil

Central got lucky... Powell got called for roughing the punter, which helped Central stay going on that series.

I'm glad you guys have gone back to the topic... I was beginning to think maybe I shouldn't even comment after a while. Well, I didn't get to go to the Clinton game. If it had been played tonight I would have gone, but it had to be on one of the busiest days of the week at UT for me. Ah, well. But from the sounds of everything it seems that this game was decided really early on, so I'm not too upset that I didn't get to go. But, I'm glad to hear all the freshmen and underclassmen did fairly well. This might very well be the last year, or the next to last year, that I'll watch Maryville football for quite a while, because I'll be going to live in New York soon. The Rebels are sure making it tough for me to move from this state. And I disagree with the person who said that we will really miss Chris McCord next year. Ryan Tallent is just as good a running back, and will do some spectacular things for us next year. And the rest of our running back corps is one of the best I've ever seen at MHS. We should be fine. I'll miss McCord the personality and person, but we will reload easily enough. Our coaches and program will see to that. Wide receiving corps should really be good too. Offensive line should be great. Defense, again, should be something to keep an eye on for next year. Once again we will have to replace a lot of great talent there. But that wasn't any different from what we had to do this year, and we still went 10-0. The Maryville program is going to be pretty dominant as long as George Quarles is coaching there. Heck, it might be that when I come back from New York to settle down in Tennessee, and when my kids start going to high school, GQ's record might still only have single digits in the "L" category!

Be that it may... Anybody have a clue what poll the newspapers are going by?

I was just thinking a little bit about all the great players that played at Maryville in the last ten years and wondered if I had a choice of who to pick for each position on an All-Stars MHS team, and only one for each position, who would I pick? I thought about it and here's what I decided on: QB - Toki McCray RB - Carl Stewart RB - Michael Potter WR - Ryan Maples WR - Brad Merritt WR - Kyle Harris OL - Nick Black, Matt Sharp, Chase Anderson, Chuck Prugh, John Raulston DL - Drew Gaylon, Cole McKinney, Matt Miller, Andrew Hodge LB - Colton Baker, Andrew Healy, Stephen Pacifico CB - David Sweetland, Matt Stalcup S - Scott Wilks, Tyler Gaskin PK - Andrew Baumann P - Andy Kerr Honorable Mentions: # 2 QB - Nick Giles # 3 QB - Jason Phillips RB - T.J. Brock RB - Chris McCord WR - Joey Gourley WR - Will Curtiss WR - Andrew Clement OL - Issac Cline, Drew Eubanks, Issac Simerly, Chris Gowan, James Richards DL - Andrew Heinrich, Ty Brock, Ben Goss, Brad Hilsher LB - Morgan Shinlever, Josh Theriot, Lucas Tipton, Derek Rang CB - Russell Clement, Jacob Holt S - Cole Hammontree, Patrick Thomas PK - Justin Deardorff P - Jason Emert What do y'all think?

Heh, that remains to be seen, brothers. Three-time defending state champion Maryville is still the team to beat.

The newspapers (specifically the Knoxville News-Sentinel and the Maryville Daily Times) said that Maryville was ranked #1 in Class 4A. So I was looking for who were number 2 and 3 (Central was supposedly #4) and in all the polls I've looked at so far (Earl Nall, Massey, etc.), it seemed that Melrose is now actually the number one team and Maryville is in second --- especially after Melrose beat Memphis East 35-0 the other week. So what are the newspapers going by? Maryville should be No. 1 again in these polls though, after beating Central last night and also by virtue of being the only undefeated team in 4A right now. It looks like everybody else in 4A has at least one loss.

What a cool game, yeah. I still think of the '97 Maryville-Halls clash at the end of that season --- with the region championship also at stake --- as THE best high school football game I've experienced (as a player for the Rebels), though. When David Sweetland caught that pass from Toki McCray on fourth and like about 25 for a first down, and then Justin Deardorff kicked the winning field goal, the elation after the game was unbelievable. Of course the year before, we had just gone through a miserable 5-5 season, so it really felt good to win the region in a year where we went 13-2. I also might be biased because I had always wanted to beat Halls (after going there to middle school). Then there was that state championship game last year against Hillsboro that was pretty darn memorable, too! Hillsboro had us on the ropes and we outcoached 'em. And there's been a couple of good games against Elizabethton. Some good games against Morristown West and there was a good one against Hixson, too. But I have to say this game belonged somewhere in the top five most exciting MHS games I've seen! Great game. Congrats to both Maryville AND Central for playing their hearts out and showing the state what they were all about. They will meet again in the playoffs! Favorite play of the game for me: That 20-yard tackle for loss on Cassen Jackson in the first OT. That was so sweet, I had been waiting for the defense to do that all game long! Save the best for last, I guess... Offensive play: the first-quarter pass to Chase Sanders and his RAC for a touchdown was great! It was totally unexpected for me to see him make a play like that. We might keep losing players (unfortunately, but it's all part of the game), but we just keep reloading. Go MHS! P.S. Best wishes to Chris Large and thank you for all your hard work and dedication to the game and for your invaluable part in this 35-game winning streak. Best wishes to Ryan Headrick also, and glad to know you're getting better. Some things are more important than football.

Going back to my prior comment about Jason Phillips: Yes I am joking about that. Jason used to be one of my good friends from back when we were playing together in high school. I know coaching takes people to weird places. Just look at one of our coaches - Coach White - who used to be a WB quarterback! Just wished it hadn't been a mere 3 1/2 years since Jason graduated from MHS! I mean, I'm sure Coach Quarles has come up with plenty of new tricks since then, but Jason certainly can tell WB a whole lot of our tendencies and plays. Ah, well. Just as long as there's no option. P.S. sanchezdirty - Maryville fan or not, really, who cares about what you think on here? You've shown yourself as nothing but an insulting buffon. Some of your remarks have me personally disgusted and hoping that you are banned. If you are serious about conversing about high school football, quit it and leave the trash-talking to somebody else who knows how to do it better.

If you can't beat 'em, I guess you join 'em (Jason Phillips with WB) I can see that his blood obviously doesn't run all that red and black... lol. Ah well, in the end it's determination, smarts, good coaching, experience, talent, teamwork, speed, and heart that will win games, and Maryville still has all these last I checked.

In response to that last post, I must disagree. As a Maryville fan I was impressed with that Minnick kid. Despite that interception at the end - which was made under a lot of pressure considering they were down by 8 at the time with very little time remaining - he did a good job getting the ball to his receivers, and making plays out of nothing. He got out of the grasps of our DL men too often. He threw the ball quick to avoid being sacked. This was the best quarterback I saw Maryville play against since that kid at Carter High in Week 0. He made plays against a very tough defense. Since we are on the subject of quarterbacking, I think Cade does throw a little too flat. I asked Cade a couple of weeks ago if he thought the two-quarterback system threw the rhythm off at all, and he said no. But he hesistated before saying it, which told me a lot. I really like Alex Rouse, but if he wants to help his team out offensively he needs to stay over at receiver, or come in at running back sometimes. Leave Cade at QB. Scott Wilks did it, and Nick Giles took over, and they took a 0-4 team to the state championship. If Alex Rouse stays at receiver and Cade can get his rhythm going, just imagine where our offense will be. NO more option. If they play another option play and there is another fumble, I just may have to walk up to Coach Quarles after the game and tell him directly that I throughly loathe the entire concept of it!

Replace the option with the Rhino offense. Hey, it works! For these of you who weren't there, during the fourth quarter we had 3rd and 4 to go and we got in a Rhino scheme, that is, the whole offense, mostly big boys with three running backs in there, all lined up really tight, with the intention of running the ball over the opponent's DL. We got a first down, and did the Rhino again. We got another decent gain, and the next play, we did it again! And Chris McCord scored a touchdown. I hate the option. I saw the fumble coming from a mile away when Alex Rouse tossed it. I saw it before the play even happened. Rouse's a good athlete and I'm sure if he had to do it all the time, he would be good at it, but he doesn't. So they need to quit it. It causes more headaches (ie. turnovers) than good plays, and that's never good in my book. Props to our defense for pulling out a very tough win despite all the dumb mistakes our offense made tonight. I can't believe Morristown West didn't score a touchdown tonight - they were in the red zone about what, four, five times?

It's funny, I was just thinking back earlier today to the first game in 1996 when we went up to Morr. West and beat them around 54-28. That was during our last 5-5 season. I played in that game, too. Like somebody else here has already said, I think we have Morr. West's number. Sure, they caught us by surprise in 2001 by beating us 31-24, but we came back to beat them in the playoffs 23-7. Morr. West won't ever catch us by surprise again. Maryville 28, Morr. West 6. And so far I've been almost exactly right on each game prediction too. I predicted Maryville would win by 45 last week against Heritage. They won 43-0. Against Halls I said we would win by 42, and we did! Against Alcoa I said we would win by 21. I don't remember what I said about Carter but I think I was also close there. So... let's see if I can keep it up Go Rebs!

Not really sure that Morr. West will be all that exciting a game either. Last year we spanked them when they were one of the best teams in the state. This year they're seemingly in a down year (having just lost to Jefferson City from what I saw on the News). Maryville's defense is really fast and smart. The linebackers all have talent, they just don't have the instincts right now. I can see a little improvement every game though. I am truly impressed with Maryville's DBs. You can really tell that these kids worked extremely hard to get to where they are. They play on such an advanced level that I wouldn't be surprised to see all of them playing in colleges when they graduate from HS. Andrew Hodge is playing great. He better be in Knox News' Top 25 top players from East Tennessee when it's all said and over. And I hate the option too. I think I said that in my Alcoa game analysis. The option only works well when you are an option team and that's all you practice, or if you have an extremely powerful line and really savvy athletes handling the ball (like the '98 team did). From what I have seen, the '03 team, while very talented and dedicated to the game, they're not quite as formidable mentally. Too many lost balls. Luckily we have the defense to back 'em up. And it did distract the defense when Alex Rouse was back there; they obviously expected him to run. He threw two touchdown passes. And how about Chase Sanders? He had some good long catches. If he keeps at it, we've got yet another weapon. Not what Maryville opponents want to hear! Byner did an excellent job on a return too, scored a TD on it. The little guy was patient, waited for his blockers to lead the way, and then when he saw a hole he took off like he was shot from a cannon. He had a nice touchdown run too. I was beginning to doubt his value to the team's offense in recent weeks, but he proved he could do the job with this outing. I don't think McCord is yet recovered. He seemed very off tonight. Maybe Heritage's defense was just keying on him...

Hmm. Looks like ol' Maryville is still the team to beat in 4A after all, doesn't it? Three shutouts in a row. Scored 136 points and allowed only 7 points in four games. If Central really does have a lousy defense then they won't be able to beat us - we're way too balanced. Still, Central's still the toughest opponent we'll face, I guess, until the playoffs. I wonder if we will actually play them two times though. Maybe Central will lose to a 4-4A team or something. Congrats McCallie. I knew nothing about you guys, but you certainly made an extremely nice first impression on me. Oh, by the way. I was originally rooting for Central to win. After reading this thread, though, I'm glad they lost.

My impressions - The Defense? A couple of weak spots (they know who they are) but overall a very, very solid unit, with a great secondary backing the D-Line and the Linebackers up so that any opponent will always be hard pressed to score on a big play against us. A classic bend but don't break defense, and definitely one very capable of scoring on turnovers as was evidenced tonight! Andrew Hodge told me after the game he had problems with his asthma tonight, which is I guess why he didn't have his usual outstanding game but he did have some good tackles for losses. The D-Line still managed a lot of pressure on the Halls quarterbacks tonight despite Hodge's occasional absence. A lot of sacks by some other players. A lot of forced turnovers. I've already said I was impressed with Valentine last week, so I'll skip over the usual praise for his work this time. Let me say I'm impressed with some others tonight: namely, Larry Hannan (good hitter!), Andrew Clement (just as dangerous on defense as he is on offense), and Logan Flowers (certainly showed his stuff tonight with that 80-yard INT return for a touchdown.) On offense, I continue to be flabbergasted by the athleticism of Tyler Gaskin. He made one YAC (yards after catch) look so effortless! He just shed tacklers off him as if they were nothing more than water. One was coming at him after he caught a ball thrown about 3-5 yards to him, he calmly stepped forward, the tackler wrapped his arms around him but his momentum carried him past Gaskin. Gaskin then began to ran, and it took about four touches before he was finally stopped. The result was a first down. Gaskin is a playmaker, and that's all there is to it. So is McCord. He could make a cut on a dime. His touchdown run consisted of about six or seven different turns for him, and because of these cuts I don't think anybody that was close even touched him. He told me he was sore after the game, but happy to be back in the game. I think I can speak for all the Maryville fans that we're equally happy to see him back in action! I'd go on, but others have already mentioned what Cade did. Very nice game indeed.

That's odd, Chris's brother told me he would be playing. I hope he gets to play but I don't want him to rush his comeback if it'll only hinder him in the end. You have a point about defenses having a hard time adjusting to Maryville's quarterback rotations and option plays, but it still leads to a higher percentage of the worst thing you can do in a football game: turn the ball over. If the defense manage to guess right, and the quarterbacks are a little off because of their inconsistent time on the field, then it's a disaster of a play from the start. For example, if we had been running an option play on the play that Browning didn't block Warren, Warren would have likely had a more memorable play than just a great hit on Parnell; perhaps a forced fumble and a return for a touchdown ---- or another interception before the ball even gets to Parnell. Maybe a sack of the QB, with the risk of serious injury to the QB since Warren was going at full speed, unhindered. I just don't like it. I wouldn't like it if our 1998, 2000, 2001, or 2002 teams did it much, either.

Agreed. I think it was Browning that missed the tackle, because Quarles was chewing him out before he even got to the sidelines. He just totally missed his blocking assignment. Warren had nobody in front of him and he took advantage of it to crash into Parnell like a sledgehammer. But f Warren is a D1 prospect, then so is Gaskin, because Gaskin really gave him a headache of his own on one play! I wonder if Warren is still feeling the aftereffects from that one hit! I guess it could be arguable on which one was the hit of the game, but they were the best hits for each team, respectively. By the way my saying Central had the best defense in the state may have been a litlte misguided. I had that impression because of the preseason previews of Central but perhaps they aren't as good as they were last year, especially with the results of their outing against William Blount. I guess we'll find out in October. Glad you enjoyed my posts, DaRebelMan! I try to comment on everything I found interesting about the games. Hope you get to come to the next game (Halls).

Actually it wasn't anything you said, GovMan, I thought Central would have a great defense this year for some reason. That's always been their forte it seemed so I just assumed they would have it again this year, I guess. If they have a better offense than last year, but a weaker defense, then I'm not as worried about the Central-Maryville game as I thought I would be! Of course it's still a long way to go before the game and Central's defense might improve, but ours are already looking excellent right now. Nothing against W-B of course, I just don't know much about them right now. But I'll be watching their progress the next few weeks to find out if it was just that their offense was that good. Oh, and Rouse is a senior. Might have been why mhs was confused you didn't mention Wojo.

GovMan, I don't think it's ridiculous when your team's offense commits five turnovers and misses several opportunities to score touchdowns to question exactly why Quarles does this and that. I feel that most of these turnovers happened were because of the quarterback rotation and the option. We have never had to depend on either in the last three years, and our team is too inexperienced to try to succeed with either method. Quarles is an offensive mastermind, but employing the QB rotation and the option are two things I totally do not agree with at this point in our season. I think that GQ did it because he knew this game with Alcoa amounted to playing a lesser opponent, and I am not trying to knock Alcoa or anything but even if it is a rivalry game it's still not a regional contest, and we clearly were better than Alcoa, a 2A team with very little depth, no matter how many mistakes we made. Hence the 23-0 win, despite all the dumb mistakes we made. I guess I felt compelled to speak up about it because I'm more or less hoping he's not going to use the option or rotate the quarterbacks too much against Central - that would be a flaw mistake IMO. Central probably has the best defense in the state, after all. But we are extremely lucky to have Coach Quarles. I know that. He was one of my favorite coaches on the team when I was playing, and one of the friendliest people in all of Maryville to boot. Phil P.S. Everybody, check out the Knoxville News-Sentinel Prepxtra section today. There's two large, extremely cool color photographs of Tyler Gaskin and Andrew Hodge in action, plus a good article.

Hey, if the offense scores against an excellent defense, it could be considered "taking off"... in a sense anyway

Hey guys, It's been a tremendously busy time for me. I'm afraid I can't continue to keep up with this thread on a daily basis. I think, though, that if you wanted to raise awareness of your teams' quarterbacks, all you really need to do is to post your information here and people will notice. As for the inquiry on the running backs, I'm sure that would be an excellent thread and I was thinking about it but abandoned that idea when I realized just how many RBs there were in the state and that I had no time to find out who they all were. I mean, just look at Maryville High. We have six running backs, all of who will get the ball at some point. Chris McCord, Antonio Byner, Adam Parnell, Ryan Tallent, Zach Thomason, and John Hughes. Right now in two games, Tallent has the most running yardage for us (over 100 yards tonight), and who could have envisioned that at the beginning of summer practice? Then there's the running specialists like our second-string quarterback Alex Rouse, who had 60 yards against Carter last week and probably about 30 more against Alcoa tonight. Nooo thanks. Not me. Maybe someone else can do it. :justwrestle:

Two things I just remembered and wanted to say something: Kudos to Dave Garner for making the most impressive attempt at trying to get an interception that I've ever seen. In the third quarter, Fiegler threw a ball and Garner, a cornerback I think, jumped like 10 feet high or something like that to try to get the ball. Didn't get the ball because one of his feet was hit by an Alcoa player at the same time he was trying to get the ball, but I certainly appreciate the superb effort! The sideline was wowed by it, too, the players all commended him for his work even though he didn't get the interception. Our secondary and defensive ends are definitely the strengths of our defense this year. The Rebel linebackers and the defensive tackles are starting to catch up with them, too. Then I wanted to say kudos to Tyler Gaskin for making a really impressive 15(?)-yard catch to keep a Maryville drive alive in the first quarter. He ran along the Maryville sideline, and Cade threw a lob his way, a defender had good coverage, but Gaskin just jumped up, concentrating totally on the ball, had his right hand out, not to catch it, but to tip it so that he could catch it more easily as he was falling down. One of the most impressive catches I have ever seen in my eight years of watching high school football, and that's saying something being a Maryville fan!

I'm a deaf guy myself (although I played for Maryville High) but I've been to TSD games. And they do use sign language to communicate. The quarterback or defensive leaders, however, have to come to the sideline to get their plays from the coach, usually behind some kind of screen held up by players or assistants, so that the other team can't "see" what they're saying. It's a rather interesting twist to the game, I must say. They also use drums to announce when plays end and so on - like already mentioned. It's rather startling, too, to people like me who have to rely on vibrations (as well as vision) more than hearing. TSD used to be a very powerful team because of their ability to instantly communicate through sign language to each other over long distances, which I think made them all on the same wavelength with each other, both on offense and defense. Even in the havoc of plays, a subtle gesture can go a long way towards realizing what is happening and taking advantage of whatever opportunities come up. Unfortunately, TSD is becoming a smaller and smaller school every year. Athletes feel compelled to go to public schools (like myself to Maryville High) because of the higher standards of education offered therein. When I transferred from Halls and was offered to go to either TSD or Maryville, I took Maryville in a heartbeat. TSD is typically two grades behind on other schools, which is completely ridiculous but nevertheless that still remains the case, I think. I'd probably get in trouble if I stated exactly why deaf schools have such trouble getting the point across to their students in classes, because it's not too flattering to what TSD terms as its "deaf culture" - of which they are very protective to the point where they stubbornly refuse to admit any of its weaknesses. Anyway, this lacking enough athletes has resulted into TSD, and most other deaf schools in America, turning to eight-man football. I've never actually seen this kind of football before - the times when I went to TSD they were playing normal football. Anyway, hope that answers all your questions. Congrats to the Vikings for their success over the weekend.

Appreciate it, then, robjim, for checking it out. :justwrestle: