Redtwin

According to Laxpower, there are now 33 teams in TN, up from 21 in 2005. It is particularly encouraging to see a large amount of this growth coming from public schools and schools in the Knoxville area. Something that irks me, however, is the fact that since 2005, Division I has grown by a whopping 1 team, while Division II has grown by 11 teams. This is particularly irritating when you have schools like Father Ryan and Webb Bell Buckle, schools that have fielded lacrosse teams for over a decade now, dropping down from Division I to Division II. While the overall growth of the game in Tennessee is very encouraging, something needs to be done to limit the amount of time a team spends in Division II before moving up to Division 1. There's no reason that the growth of the primary division of our state's lacrosse league should lag so far behind other states in the Southeast in terms of its expansion. I'd be curious to hear other input on this matter.

I believe MBA junior attackman Connor Pagnani has also verbally committed to play lacrosse for Coach Bill Tierney at Denver University. Coach Tierney won six national championships while coaching at Princeton. The Pioneers are the preseason 17th ranked team in Divisiion I.

McCallie senior midfielder TJ Kemp has signed to play lacrosse for the University of North Carolina next year. The Tar Heals have won four national titles and is the preseason 4th ranked team in Division I. TJ was also named one of the Top 50 rising seniors by Inside Lacrosse magazine and I believe he will likely be the first 3 time All-American in TN high school lacrosse history. Zack Ward, a senior attackman at McCallie, has committed to play college lacrosse for Salisbury University. The Sea Gulls are the preseason number 4 ranked team in Division III and they have won 8 Division III national titles, most recently in 2007 and 2008. SU is arguably the best program in DIII. Charlie Graff has also signed to play defense for Vermont and Parker Mincy has signed to play midfield for Presbyterian College.

MBA junior midfielder Clay Adams has verbally committed to play lacrosse for Syracuse University. The Orange have won more NCAA titles than any other Division I program and were ranked the preseason #2 team in the country by Inside Lacrosse. Quite an opportunity/challenge for Clay. MBA senior midfielder George Curtis has committed to play for Middlebury College. The Panthers are the preaseason #6 team in Division III and they have made 13 NCAA Tournament appearances in the last 14 seasons, including taking part in the title game during six of the last 11 seasons. They won 3 consecutive national titles from 2000 to 2002. Congrats to these two young men.

MBA has gotten progressively worse? They've been to the finals 2 of the last 3 years and won one of them. The year they didn't make the finals, they lost in the semifinals to the eventual state champion, one of the best TN high school football teams in the last decade. Sure is a tough time to be a Big Red fan.

I could tell Brunetti was not anywhere near 100%. He hardly tried to run the entire game. I thought the offense and special teams from MUS were excellent. The defense, however, as very average. They're probably the best team I've seen all year, and probably one of the best two teams in TN. Are they one of the best 25-50 teams in the country? Probably. Sixth? I highly doubt it. As has been pointed out several times, however, these national rankings are very arbitrary. Either way, this MUS team has a lot to be proud of and has done a great job representing TN this year. I tend to agree with you...again, nothing wrong with that. MUS is a 2-time winner with several huge out-of-state wins on their books. That record speaks for itself. They are without question the best in TN and deserving of whatever national ranking they achieve. But, regarding the national ranking, MBA/BA/MUS, etc....I don't think it's possible for us to achieve that top 10/top 5 type status. It's just not possible when you're a small private school and simply don't care about football that much. The Brunettis/Ingle Martins of the world can play anywhere, but the total talent/depth just isn't there. How many boys are in a typical class at MUS? I think MUS is smaller than MBA. At MBA, I think it's like 100. So if 20-25 from each class play football (and that's stretching it), you've basically got a 75-person team. They work hard, play hard, and are well-coached, but you can't compete with the likes of Byrnes which will send every year 5-6 guys to D1 schools in the SEC/ACC. Or Miami-Northwestern, which sent 6 kids from one class to U of Miami. The private schools that are outright recruiters--like Oaks Christian in the LA area; Evangel in Louisiana--those schools can compete with everyone. Oaks Christian the year of Jimmy Clausen had 10 guys sign LOI's with d1 schools, and several more with D1-AA schools. That's from a senior class of like 70 kids. I remember laughing when I read that...can you imagine of the people in D1 had had to deal with something like that back in the day? I'm not disagreeing with you, but the Bolles team we beat junior year sent 14 guys D1.

I could tell Brunetti was not anywhere near 100%. He hardly tried to run the entire game. I thought the offense and special teams from MUS were excellent. The defense, however, as very average. They're probably the best team I've seen all year, and probably one of the best two teams in TN. Are they one of the best 25-50 teams in the country? Probably. Sixth? I highly doubt it. As has been pointed out several times, however, these national rankings are very arbitrary. Either way, this MUS team has a lot to be proud of and has done a great job representing TN this year.

rollredroll I believe you missed my point and you don't understand how hard it is to fill our schedule. If South Pittsburg wanted to play Alcoa this year it would have happened. As far as the toots on the 3a-4a thread. I agree but we all have them. Even your DII brethren. I was just asking you guys to schedule Alcoa in 2011 and 2012. Just thought more people would want to see the match-up between any of these schools. To suggest that either MBA or MUS is scared to schedule Alcoa is ridiculous. Obviously, based upon who they have scheduled in the past, they'll take on anyone. Can't really say the same thing about Rankin. Here is a man who has made his living by beating inferior competition. He led the push for the split when Riverdale couldn't beat BA and then leaves Riverdale when Rutherford County opens new schools to split up his talent pool. The only time Rankin wants a piece of a private school is if there is a coaching vacancy and he'll never land one of those jobs. You can talk about Alcoa being a little old 3A school, but the fact of the matter is that Alcoa should have moved to a higher classification years ago. If it's so easy to win the 3A title and you want to prove that you're the class of Tennessee high school football, then voluntarily move up and do so. Plenty of teams have done this in the past.....come to think of it, they're primarily in Division II.

Pretty strong turnout last night. Has anyone seen an attendence number?

Congrats to MUS. Thought MBA played pretty well. The penalties that stalled MBA's early drive, the faulty snap on the FG, and the fumbled punt are hard to overcome when you play a good team like the Owls, but the Big Red kept fighting and were in it for the whole game. This year's team has a lot to be proud of. Hats off to them as well.

I believe Alcoa finished #1 in the USAToday poll once. Maybe Baylor too.

South Panola is up 27-7 against Madison Central at the half. Not much of a game in Batesville.

I could be wrong, but I believe that USAToday has been around longer than any other high school football poll. I can't remember the name, but they also had a highly regarded writer who covered high school football for a long time, but he is no longer with the paper. It might have been Tom Lemming. Combine these reasons with Itzme's reason and I think that's why their poll gets the most attention.

I think the early exit by EHS sealed this award for Brunetti, who was probably already the favorite. Cooper will probably still grab the lineman award.

It's been great to see this MBA team rally at towards the end of the season, and the last two upsets have been huge wins for the Big Red, but MUS is clearly the favorite in this game. They've won 25 games in a row while playing the toughest schedule in the league, and they have a very talented backfield. Is MBA capable of beating MUS? Absolutely. But, MBA will have to play close to perfect and they will have to capitalize on an MUS mistake or two. I believe that MUS is the only team in DII that holds a winning record over MBA, so I'd love to see MBA win, but it's not going to be easy. Good luck to the Big Red.

Owl, can you provide a little more info about what's bothering Brunetti and McBride? I would imagine that having 12 days to rest and recover would mean that they will be ready to go on December 3.

Go Big Red! Congrats for another gutsy performance. These seniors have done a great job of leading when it counts. They'll face their biggest challenge of the year when the face MUS in the State Championship. They'll be playing for their 14th state championship, having made the game 7 times in recent memory, winning 6. Not bad for a school where the students don't care about football.

"You'll get 'em next year." Love it.

Dreamer BRD, you have put yourself in his shoes. After losing to MBA 12 times in a row, dreaming about other teams destroying MBA is about as close as any Ryan fan can get to actually doing it.

MBA's defense did a great job against a very high powered rushing offense. Despite this, I predict that BA will get their points. The thing that makes things close is MBA's improved and, no doubt, still improving quarterback play to go with their already good rushing game. I think it is pretty certain that MBA will score more points than last time. That may very well be the case. It puts a lot of pressure on the defense when the offense isn't working. The new QB and Mobley seem to have developed a nice connection, and the Big Red have definitely been moving the ball better of late.

The MBA defense just did a pretty good job against the best rushing offense in the division, but they have been inconsistent, so it'll depend on which defense shows up. I think some key injuries have contributed to the inconsistency, but injuries are part of the game. I thought the MBA D did a good job in the first match-up for the most part, but there were 2 or 3 big plays that really won the game for BA. Should be a great game on Friday. I hope the Big Red comes out like they did last week.

Great win. Really excited for these seniors

How in the world is Antonio Richardson not a finalist for DII Lineman?

I think Brunetti gets it.

I can think of 12 reasons in a row why your last statement makes no sense. As this year proves, a decent MBA team is better than Ryan's best team in a decade. Good luck to the Big Red on Friday.