ILuvsports

This past week alcoas tyler robinson received an offer from the university of kentucky. he should have more on the way.

sommer is still at ut martin. he played last season until a shoulder injury forece him to miss the rest of the season and have surgery, the surgery went great and he went through spring practice. he was playing a little with the starters last season before hurting the shoulder and finished the season with only a couple catches. Lindsey is no longer at west georgia. he is back home in alcoa and doesnt really have any plans to go back as of now.

I dont think alcoa will be lacking for playmakers at all this season. Jaron Toney, Vee Hambrick and Taharin Tyson will be able to carry the running game. Everyone knows about tyler robinson at TE but steven isom played a lot last season and ever started a few games at wr. Daniel robinson is another wr who has played a ton the last few seasons. Another potential wr for alcoa is daniel rockymore who played a lot last season and is probably the fastest on the team. I believe he ran a 10.8 or so in the 100 meters. Austin Tallant is a kid who was very close to beating out james for the qb position as a soph last season. I also hear that alcoa had a kid transfer in from miami i believe. Hes a qb but is athletic enough to play a few other spots should he not beat out tallant. I would say the biggest plus for alcoa is they return four out of five guys on the line from last season (walden, marsh, evans, hopkey) with connor miles being the only players lost. Coach rankins son John Tucker will probably step into that spot. The biggest question mark for alcoa is punting i believe.

I would say they have a chance to do that. Maryville has been a loss every year since 2000 but other than that they could win the rest. They only lost one game last year and pretty much only lose about 6 guys from that team. Thompson and Hickman will be hard to replace but theres a chance to be an upgrade at the other positions. They return 5 guys who started on the o-line last season in Walden, Marsh, Hopkey, Evans and TE Tyler Robinson. They return both jaron toney and taharin tyson and tb and fb. Wait til you get a load of their soph backup running back vee hambrick. Jr Austin Tallant will replace james at qb this season and probably would have ended up with the spot last season had he not gotten hurt. And thats saying a lot with the season that james had. they should also be well tested after an eary season schedule that includes maryville, kentucky 4-A champs Bell Co, and Fulton. With their coaching staff and the players they have returning they could be a scary team again.

I know that he also likes kentucky. he went down there for a visit during this past season. Hes really close to randall cobb and kyrus lanxter and i think theres a very very good chance that uk will be in the mix. I think randall and kyrus will do everything they can to get him to lexington.

Sam Thompson will be at west point visiting army this weekend. Word around alcoa high school is he will probably choose either dartmouth or lehigh althought i wouldnt count army out.

youre right about being a senior to sign but you can be offered as a junior. Alcoas brandon warren, kyrus lanxter and dustin lindsey all received their first offers as juniors. Brandons was from north carolina, dustin was offered by ut in january of his junior year and lanxter in october of his junior year by louisville. At the moment no junior from alcoa has been offered by most believe that they are about to start coming in for tyler robinson.

Just ask him, he will confirm it. He applied.

Kyrus lanxter lives in crosswinds way, martin white lives right off of hunt road, dustin lindsey lives on edison st. Brian sommer was a karns guy and notice i didnt mention him. These players live in alcoa.

yeah i believe that rankin really wont seriously consider the job for a few reasons. 1) Family comes first to him and he has already moved his family once in the last couple years and his kids love going to alcoa and his son, who will be the starting center next season loves playing at alcoa. 2) Hes got a huge dynasty going on at alcoa right now and from the looks of their young talent it seems like their best is yet to come. 3) I dont see him competing against one of his coaches (brian nix) who applied for the job. He is the number 1 choice when a lot of jobs come open but i think this time he will probably stay where he is. Every season he was at riverdale his name came up for jobs and since hes been at alcoa his name has come up for the science hill job and a job at a school in alabama.

From what I hear, the DC at Alcoa did apply for the job. Im not sure how true that is but thats a rumor that has been floating around in Alcoa.

I thought coleman was supposed to get off the yeller bus at dresden? Almost all of alcoas players that have contributed to this run over the last few years lived in alcoa or have gone to alcoa since their pre-k days. Brandon warren, dustin lindsey, rae sykes, randall cobb, troy hodge, kyrus lanxter, martin white, joei fiegler, troy hodge, dee herbert, sam thompson, taharin tyson, darrall warren, chase james.....all of these kids have been alcoa kids. On this years team i can think of three kids who didnt go to middle school at alcoa that were starters. Jeff Hickman, austin tallent and Darwin Kerr. All three of these players came to alcoa in their FR years. You want to know where alcoas talent comes from then ride up and down the streets of the hall community in alcoa and look at those young kids outside playing. I would love to hear one person that was recruited to come to alcoa.

Sam Thompson has offers from Army, Wofford, UTC, UT Martin, Harvard and Columbia(because they dont give athletic scholarships I believe the last two offers are offers to sign a letter of intent). Chase James has tons of interest from MTSU, Marshall and some other D-1 schools. the only holdup is waiting to see how his grades shape up. Adrian Womac- Tennessee Tech and Columbia both would like to have adrian although I am almost positive he is just going to go to school next year and not play anything. Hes a great player, even better student and even better young man. Which that can best said about a number of alcoas seniors this year. Good luck with whatever you decide guys.

This is kind of funny that this question was put on here because I had just asked the wr coach harris who are some the kids he thought may crack the wr rotation. He said he had a couple of players who were pretty much givens and could step out on the field at anytime and be fine and they are tyler robinson at TE, steven isom and daniel robinson. After that he said its going to come down to daniel rockymore, who he said probably had the best last 3 weeks of practice than any wr on the team. Then brenden rudd, jared jett, chaz vesser and jon roy were also names that were mentioned. He then said the one guy who needs to be watched closly is Fr Lejuan Warfield who he said could be better than all the previous names mentioned(exc. Tyler Robinson) and has more physical ability at that age than any other wr hes coached including lanxter, sommer and thompson, which is kinda scary. I also heard a rumor from Darrall Warren (kind of reminds you of another warren) that he may be headed to TE to give alcoa a nice 1-2 TE punch. As far as the backfield goes, I have really heard that the qb position will mostly be a battle between tallant and another soph tyler hartley, who has been said by qb coach paul talley to throw a better ball than any qb on alcoas roster, including james. Although I believe sharpe will get a fair chance to win the job I expect tallant to start and hartley to be backing him when the season starts. The TB Jaron Toney is back after another great year and with the strides he has made from year to year I would expect to see something special. He will be backed up by another special TB vee hambrick who will remind a lot of people of shiverdecker with the way he cuts and makes people miss. Taharin Tyson will be back at Fb for alcoa after running through and around defenders for close 900 yards as a soph. He will also continue to get better. I expect both toney and tyson to hit 1,000 yards with hamrick not being far behind. As with any good team, it will all start up front and alcoa returns a load of players who started and played on the offensive line this past season. Starters returning are marsh, walden, hopkey and evans. Then you can add in guys like burchfield, rankin and caleb mangum who all received a significant amount of playing time this season. They will be very good up front again. As far as alcoas defense goes I think the two obvious players you have to replace are thompson and hickman. Coach Nix said in the paper that hickman was the most dominant D-Lineman hes ever coached. Thompson was just that steady hand you could count on game in and game out. One wild card with the defense could be tyler mcglothlin who was very active in practices and jv games. He had to sit out last season as a transfer. Hes a DT who goes about 6'3 215-220 pounds and he won the line 40 yd dash at the jamboree this past year. I think alcoa will be in a great position to do some good things next season. They have a number of good players coming back mixed in the with a great coaching staff. they should be hard to beat if they continue to put in the work that past alcoa teams have and theres no doubt in my mind they will do that.

yep, that is correct. That was the other time alcoa didnt score on the first possession this season.

To answer your first question the only games this season where alcoa did not score on their first possession were Rockwood, CAK (play-offs) and Milan. I talked to a few of alcoas last week and they told me all week that milan would be the 2nd best team they played all year(maryville first) and i think that really held true. I think alcoas ability to get in two TE sets and run the football and control the clock was the main reason they won. They were just able to control both lines of scrimmage. Milan is the most athletic team weve played all year and they came out and did a great job competing. I can tell you from past experience watching alcoa games that most teams that get down 21-0 to alcoa pretty much just give up and you end up with the 50-0 games. I think milans team and coaches deserve a lot of credit for fighting their way thru that and showing the grit that got them to the championship game. As for alcoa, im very proud of our team. The defense played great but i also think the offense should get a lot of credit also. People are so used to alcoa lighting up the scoreboard. I think it says so much for alcoas offensive staff that they can go from a team whos qb had completed 71% of his passes with 28 tds to a team that lined up with two tight ends and said here we come. Were proud of our offensive coaching staff, coach rankin, riley,talley henry, harris, gossett and our defensive staff coach nix, gamble, brooks,adams, dunkin and hackett. Thanks for helping our boys bring home another title.

Congrats maryville from an alcoa fan on an awesome run. No doubt coach quarles and his staff will bounce back from this. You guys did an incredible job this season when not many people thought you would be this far in august. Hillsboro you guys played a great game.

Yeah, thats kinda funny because alcoa did win the state sportsmanship award last season. so ill go with that over your claim that alcoa has no class.

I wouldnt say this is alcoas weakest team at all. As a team they are better than they were last season, just not as explosive as they were with guys like cobb and hodge. When a team is winning games on an average of 44-3 then you really cant say they are weaker. Had it not been for alcoa shooting themselves in the foot against cak its probable they would have scored around 49 or so and last weak actually killed themselves again with a td called back last weak. They are usually very efficient on offense with their qb james completing over 70% of his passes for 1400 yds, 25 tds to 4 ints. Hes also ran for 6 tds and returned 5 punts for td. They are a team that shares the load running the ball (no rb on the team has over 80 carries) so you dont see a lot of mind blowing stats from alcoa. As someone mentioned before they do have a couple of kids that will play D-1 football ball and those guys are #3 sam thompson(offered by army and some others), tyler robinson(kentucky, bama, nebraska....) but nobody who will make an impact on that level like cobb, lanxter and warren. They do graduate 12 seniors but out of those guys only thompson, hickman, conner miles, and adrian womac will be big loss. The fb #2 tyson is a monster and he will probably play d-1 considering hes just a soph. But what you have with alcoa this season is a bunch of good high school players. Not many big names, just really smart, great character guys who are very good on friday nights. Alcoas reputation has helped them out on the field a lot this season. The fear factor played into the game with loudon. Alcoas reputation with speed caused loudon to try to punt away from alcoa all night and ended up giving alcoa amazing field position. Any teams best chance of beating alcoa not buying into the hype (CAK). Even when you look up and the score is 14, 21-0 alcoa, you cant stop playing.

The Trigg co statement is totally off. Alcoa coaches have said they will NEVER return to trigg, co where they played Hopkinsville high school in 2005. The bell co rumor is very true but alcoa will try to schedule tennessee teams first and if they cant then they will put bell co on the schedule for next season. Right now they are just waiting to see what happens with the teams they are calling. After scheduling maryville, fulton and mcminn for non-region games they still have two fo find.

Fulton is for sure playing alcoa next season in week 3. McMinn and alcoa play in week 9. Other than that all the other talk is just talk. Alcoa doesnt want to play AE because its possible they will play in the playoffs and they would like to schedule some other teams. There is a strong possibility they will be playing bell co. ky next season.

Knoxville News sentinal: Loudon rb Tyler Barr "Alcoa is beatable" Although this is true and anything can happen when you play in a football game I dont think I would have given Alcoa anymore motivation. Especially after ive been beaten 63-14, 44-8 and 38-0 in the last 3 games with alcoa. the last game was as dominant as ive seen Alcoa on Defense and Alcoa also had a very efficient offense. You gotta like the young mans confidence but i think would have taken more of a CAK approach and say were just gonna do everything we can and see what happens.

CAK stopped alcoa on their first two drives of the game and after that alcoa stopped themselves. Alcoa had 3 fumbles inside the CAK 20, one by chase james, one by tyson and one by cameron foster. This is something that doesnt usually happen for alcoa as they are very good in protecting the ball. CAK also had a goaline stand against alcoa on a 4th and goal from the 1. Had alcoa not shot themselves in the foot they probably could have added 3 tds or so to that score. Alcoas sam thompson also missed two ints that led to cak tds. On the last cak td thompson had the ball in his hands and and the cak wr made great play and just took it away from him. These are things that usually dont happen sam either. One thing you must credit cak for is they once again played alcoa harder than any other 2-A team plays them. when most teams get down to alcoa they get that "oh here we go again" look and the score usually gets worse than it should be. CAK's team fights no matter what the score is and takes advantage of alcoas mistakes. They have scored 21 points on alcoa in two games and 14 have been off turnovers, so you must credit the cak staff for having their kids ready to play and credit the kids big time for the energy they come out and play with against alcoa. they are the one 2a team that doesnt lay down to alcoa. But this is the playoffs and any win is a good win so keep it going alcoa and cak great job last night.

For some reason people think alcoa is just a speed team. That couldnt be further from the truth. Alcoa is a power run team as most of their runs are counters, traps and powers. Their big offensive line has the ability to knock you off the ball and give alcoas backs 5,6,7 yards at a time. Alcoa played a big physical 1 loss white house team in the rain and drove down the field first down after first down to score on 4 straight possesions without a big play. Thats classic Gary Rankin football. Being able to line up and run the ball right at you. Alcoa so many times this season has just lined up two tights and said here we come. Its not easy to throw and catch a bunch of balls in driving rain and wet conditions. If the conditions are bad I dont care whos faster, if you cant line up and run the ball youre going to have a difficult night. Alcoa play goodpasture in 2000 in the worse conditions I have ever seen and came away with the win, not because they were the fastest team alcoa has ever had but because they were able to stop the run and run the ball. Nobody could throw that game, and alcoa had Michael George at qb, james rainer, jamel sankey, jonathan meschendorf,jerome robinson, jonathan harris and a host of others on the field. Whoever can run the ball tonight, wins the game.

People say let him do both. Well alcoa has let DB both with special treatment that nobody else on the team could even ask for. Say the principle does override coach rankin and let derrick back on the team. What happens when its the semi-finals or the state championship game and he decides that he wants to go to a soccer game instead. The kids see that derrick doesnt have to come to spring practice, summer workouts or fall practice but a couple days per week and only for a few minutes. Now were just gonna let him play when he wants to, thats not right. I agree with the guy who said he made a commitment to the football team and gave his word that he would never miss a game so he should honor that. No doubt derrick is a great kicker but he was told last week if he misses again that his stuff will be taken up, and it was.