CHARGERFAN

Regarding Blue Oval (the Ford plant), it is too soon to tell how Covington High will be affected. Stanton has a new RV park for construction workers. That’s Haywood county, so any kids there will go to Haywood. Truck production is scheduled to begin in 2025, so that’s when construction ends and permanent employees move in. I’m sure Tipton County will get some new folks, but Mason is the closest town to the plant in Tipton and it’s zoned for Brighton High. We will see how it shakes out in a couple of years.

Westview seems to have folks who like to talk a lot about how good they are gonna be. What was it that Yoda said - “There is no try. Do or do not”? As a Covington fan, I think that the Region 7-3A title will go thru Dyersburg and Covington for the foreseeable future. Aside from last year’s win at Covington over Westview, I can recall that Covington and Westview were last in the same region Ty Simpson’s sophomore and junior years. At our place in 2019, Covington won 53-7. The following year, Covington shut out Westview in Martin by a score of 48-0. I know that past results are not indicators of future performance, but I recall that Westview fans were touting those two teams a lot, just like they seem to be doing now. But, y’all are welcome to continue doing that.

Awards ceremony happens next week.

Good luck to the Tomcats tonite. Hope y’all can win and go to Chattanooga.

I’m pulling for Dyersburg to win this one.

The three finalists for Mr. Football are Class 3A Radarious Jackson, Sheffield Skylan Smith, Covington Brandon Winton, Alcoa

Good luck to the Trojans. Here are two computer predictions: Massey E. Nashville 30 Dyersburg 20 Cal-Preps Dyersburg 22 E. Nashville 21 So, y’all do have a chance. From the Cal-Preps score, they must have seen that two-point conversion y’all ran to beat my Chargers. It looked pretty hard to stop.

Way to go Tomcats. Y’all go up to Middle Tennessee and win. Go play for the Gold Ball.

Congrats to Dyersburg. Hope y’all can win next week and go play for a Gold Ball. I love my Covington Chargers. Great season and y’all improved a bunch since losing 24-0 here in game 3. Hold your heads up, we fans saw how good you are. And, to whoever said the first team to 24 would win (was it @BIGPURPLEMACHINE)? Actually the first to 24 didn’t win, but the first to 25 did win.

Well, your answer made me look at our region. For Region 7-3A, the longest drive is from McNairy Co. (Bolivar) to Westview (Martin). That’s 90 miles and GoogleMaps says it’s 1 hr 50 minutes. I’m lucky to live near the center of our region, so just over an hour is my longest drive.

Here’s some playoff history for each team. Source is AHSFHS.org database, but it only has records through 2020, so I had to update it for the last two seasons. COVINGTON. DYERSBURG OVERALL RECORD 51-26. 27-28 APPEARANCES. 26. 28 1st ROUND 18-6 14-13 2nd ROUND. 16-3. 9-5 3rd ROUND. 11-5. 4-6 SEMIS. 6-6. 0-4 FINALS. 0-6. 0-0

Was just looking at a map. A three-hour drive to play a quarter-final game! Wow! I’m glad that my team did not draw an opponent that far away. Good luck to both teams!

Here's the Commercial Appeal write-up: https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/sports/high-school/2023/11/15/tssaa-football-playoffs-germantown-houston-memphis-area-top-quarterfinal-matchups/71443254007/ Covington (10-2) at Dyersburg (12-0) When: 7 p.m. Friday Covington suffered two losses this season and Dyersburg was one of them. The Chargers were shut out in Week 3, 24-0. In that game, Skylan Smith had just 48 rushing yards, his second-lowest total this season. As Smith goes, the Chargers go and they’ll need a performance like his 192 yards and two touchdowns a week ago. Wilcox’s pick: Dyersburg 24, Covington 14

From the Daily Memphian https://dailymemphian.com/section/sportshigh-school-sports/article/39916/tssaa-quarterfinal-playoff-preview-six-memphis-shelby-county-teams Class 3A Covington (10-2) at Dyersburg (12-0) Storylines: Everyone on the planet, or at least in Tennessee, knows what Covington is going to do. The Chargers are going to line up in their tried-and-true Wing-T offense and feed the ball to their star running back. This year, it’s Skylan Smith in that role. Lakeland begins Econo Lodge demolition The junior ran for 192 yards on 26 carries and scored two touchdowns in last week’s 38-6 victory over Ripley, taking his season totals to 2,006 yards and 31 TDs. It was also Smith’s ninth game in a row over 100 yards, with three of those over 200. Not coincidentally, the Ripley game was also Covington’s ninth victory in a row. Which brings us to Dyersburg. The Trojans shut out Covington, 24-0, Sept. 1, held Smith to 57 yards and allowed just 162 in total. It’s rare to see the Chargers held so completely in check, and certainly Dyersburg will be brimming with confidence because of it. But that loss more than two months ago also seems to have lit a spark for Covington, and the smart money says Friday’s game will be much different and much closer. What’s next: Liberty Creek (8-4) or East Nashville (10-2) will play host to the winner of this one in the semifinals. Covington has reached the semifinals 12 times, most recently in 2022 when it lost to East Nashville.

I think you are right. The playoffs are always “win or go home”. This game is no different. The losing team puts away their gear for the winter. Many of their seniors will have played their last ever game of organized football. The winners will advance to travel to Middle Tennessee next week and play the Liberty Creek / East Nashville winner. Congrats to both teams for making it this far. I’ll be pulling hard for my Chargers to advance, but both squads have had great seasons. I’m hoping for no injuries and a well-played game. May the best team win.

I really can’t predict the outcome of this game. I have seen every game that Covington has played this season, and I do see improvement on both sides of the ball since our loss to Dyersburg. I have not see Dyersburg play since then, so I can’t assess how much they have been hurt by injuries. So, I have gone to three outside sources to check their predictions. Massey predicts Covington 34 Dyersburg 28 Cal-Preps predicts Dyersburg 28 Covington 26 and the Sonny-Moore Power Rankings are Covington 131 Dyersburg 120 To get a point spread, the difference is 11 points, but Dyersburg gets 2 points for home field advantage, putting the point spread at Covington by 9. I personally think this game is a toss-up. It may be decided by turnovers and penalties, as close games often are.

What was the score when these teams met earlier in the season?

I am always of the opinion that high school football decides it's final placings through the TSSAA playoff system, rather than through polls by voters. However, I have found that alt least this year, the two systems correspond pretty well. Here is what I mean. The TSSAA Playoff Bracket for 3A shows these Quarterfinal games: Alcoa @ Gatlinburg-Pittman Giles County @ Meigs County Liberty Creek @ East Nashville Covington @ Dyersburg So, I looked back at the final AP Poll for 3A published on Oct. 30. Here is the poll: https://dailymemphian.com/section/sportshigh-school-sports/article/39565/ten-memphis-area-high-school-teams-ranked-ap-prep-football-polls Division I - Class 3A School Record Points Prv 1. Alcoa (10) 8-1 116 1 2. Dyersburg (1) 10-0 107 2 3. Meigs County (1) 10-0 100 3 4. Gatlinburg-Pittman 9-1 76 4 5. East Nashville 8-2 67 5 6. Giles County 7-2 60 7 7. Covington 8-2 59 6 8. McMinn Central 7-3 24 8 9. Sheffield 8-2 19 NR 10. Kingston 7-3 14 9 Others receiving votes: Unicoi County 10. Westview 4. Sequatchie County 2. Chuckey-Doak 2. Comparing these lists, seven of the eight Quarterfinals teams were the top seven teams listed in the AP Poll. I find it interesting that all seven made it to the third round of the playoffs without anyone getting upset and knocked out. And, I have to conclude that the AP voters did a very good job of identifying the top teams in the state. I'm curious. Do you think this is unusual, or do you think that the playoffs and the polls always agree like this?

I have Haywood winning this rematch. Any details on injuries for Haywood from their last game? Heard the end of that game on radio and they were playing a freshman QB?

Suits me. I’ve never seen most of these teams play, so I have no idea where they rank, unless they have played each other.

Skylan Smith of Covington is up to 2006 rushing yards for this season. As far as scoring TD’s, he has 31 rushing, 5 receiving, and 2 via kickoff returns.

The Covington rushing attack is built around Mr. Football semi-finalist Skylan Smith, who is at 2006 yards rushing for the season after last night’s Ripley game. Dyersburg stopped Skylan effectively in the previous game. What’s been added in the backfield is Skylan’s freshman Brother Jaheim. He was not getting any significant playing time until game 8. Jaheim may be faster than his older brother. He is averaging 9 yards per carry and gained 118 yards last night versus Ripley.

So, after a long season and two rounds of the playoffs, Covington will visit Dyersburg again. I know that when the Covington coaches and players came home after being shut out at Dyersburg 24-0 in week three, they were embarrassed and feeling pretty low. We fans were too. Dyersburg fielded a very good team, but I think most Covington folks felt that we just didn’t compete like Covington has always competed. Maybe it was just due to better talent for the Trojans. That is what the upcoming Quarterfinal game will determine. Are the Trojans truly just a better team this year than the Chargers? Can the Chargers use the confidence we developed while winning 9 in a row to step up against what is apparently the best talent in Region 7-3A? It’s like the old serials they used to run at the movies. “Tune in NEXT WEEK folks for the thrilling end to this saga”. What’s the word out there on this one, folks?

Congratulations to my Tomcat neighbors. Welcome to the Quarterfinals. I hope y’all can win a trip to Middle Tennessee next week.

Final 38-6. I guess we win a return game with Dyersburg at their place next week.