ILuvsports

McMinn did play alcoa tough in the spring but did lose. Alcoa was without about 75% of their starters due to other sports but mcminn still showed tons of improvement from one spring to the next. If south pitt had a good scrimmage against mcminn then they are doing it against a solid team.

I also thought powell actually looked better than they had in the past. I like the direction lowe is going with his team and the intensity and dicipline he is bringing to that team. his attitude towards players is no NO-nonsense and I think they are getting better. Alcoa I thought looked good but you saw what you would see in any scrimmage this early which were correctable mistakes, missed assigments, decision making and things like that. But with the effort they played with I think they are in for another good season. With continued improvement from James, alcoa is on pace for a great season.

I think with the ones, toney scored 3 tds, tyler robinson two and sam thompson two. The powell ones had two tds i believe. In the freshman part of the scrimmage alcoa tb vanderbilt hambrick put on a show with 3 long tds and another long run.

Haha ballfan has lost his mind. Maryville 2nd round and wb state champs. By the way if you want to take it back a couple years like the fulton game. Alcoa did play sevier co. in the jamboree and was up 14-0, maybe more after one quarter. Same team that either beat wb or came real close to doing so. By the way, one close game to maryville doesnt make you maryville. Their is a HUGE difference in a good team and a good program. Maryville is a great program, wb had a good team

So far Alcoas cobb has been very impressive at qb as well as wr at uk's camp. Hes actually been so good at qb that they are thinking of leaving him there fulltime. Here are two links with uk coach rich brooks talking about cobb Link: http://tomleachproductions.com/index.php?b...322&author= http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/dawson/blog.html

If you are playing a cover 2 corner and it is a 3 step slant if you are coached right its not harder than playing saftey. The most difficult part of being a corner is when you get high lowed with something such as a flat and a 12-15 yard out. As a saftey you have so much more field to cover. What happens when you get two verticles at you. Thats not easy to play. When do you lock on, what happens when one breaks out after after 12 yards. Is it lock or do i stay deep. Safties are also responsible for stressing backside on trips and things such as that. Safties also must deal with the ultimate high-low with routes like digs ran with post. Youve also got to realize that as a saftey you are primary run support in a lot of schemes. As a corner the only time you are primary is in cover 2. You have to be a much better open field tackler as a saftey and im sorry but cant say he is better than thompson. Being a deep halves and an alley player is a lot more difficult than coming up in one tiny little 1/3. I can tell you right now that i wasnt the most athletic player but was able to play corner because the rules are so clear cut and not as difficult to read as a saftey. where corner becomes difficult is when you take it to the next level where a lot of man coverage is played. In high school you can take a good OLB and sit him out in a squat hard 2 and he can be okay. the fact You can say he is as good but not better. And your point about the coaches winning at Alcoa and not WB, umm i think ill agree with the guy who talked about talent. Forget the coaches. coaches win with players. It must be something good at Alcoa because Rankin left 5A riverdale to come to alcoa. so take it how you want it, Alcoa has players who are not only on the rosters at D-1 schools but making impacts. Well what do i know, im sure the SEC isnt as tough as your 5A.

Actually corner is a lot easier thank you very much. Ive played both at the college level and when youre playing a squat cover 2 youre not responsible for much at all. When youre playing cover 3 youve got a 1/3 of the field, has over most of the time. A saftey has more to cover and more reads. yeah cope had 7 pics, thompson had 6, 8 the year before that and 2 as a freshman. hes also done it in big games with pics in the last 2 championship games and two in the semi-finals the year before. Maryville standing toe to toe, thats a joke. All that matters is who won the game. Who looks back and says you remember 23 years ago when wb almost beat maryville but they didnt because of a trick play. News flash, those plays are part of football and its what has help GQ and the rebels win title after title. Alcoa is a 2A school and they play a 4A power house, then theyve played fulton, with a better rb than anyone wb has ever faced(rogan), mccallie with a better qb than wb will ever face (coleman), and white house, so atleast they do attempt to play competition. WB why dont you schedule somebody big. why dont you go schedule B.A., MBA, go find riverdale and smyrna before you talk.

Well i guess we will never know because blount wont play alcoa huh. The last time Alcoa and WB played alcoa won so????????? the only semi matchup theyve had since then is in a little passing scrimmage and WB wasnt very good.

Ill agree with flash on this one. How about production over measurement. There are a lot of 6-2 qbs around the country sitting on the bench for colleges because they were chosen on their measurements. I dont care what anyone says, if you complete around 67% percent of your passes (47 tds to 6 ints) over a 2 year period you can play. He has one of the stronger arms you will see. Check out his rivals profile and watch him throw it. Hes going to be successful because he works so hard.

UK head coach at todays press conference- On Randall Cobb and where he fits into the lineup... "We're going to look at him the same way. I tried to explain earlier that a player cannot be on the field for practice more than three hours. So we're splitting Randall Cobb between the first and second practice. He comes out late for the first one and finishes early for the second one. At the first he'll practice at quarterback, the second at receiver. It's conceivable that he could fill a role in the rotation at quarterback but still playing some receiver. We'll just have to ascertain how that's going to work out after we get into practice a little bit while practicing with some of his teammates." He is working as a qb, not just wr

Thompson cant help the competion that he plays against but i would be willing to bet that some of the teams hes played against over the last 3 years would beat some 4A and 5A teams. Be honest McMinn Co, Heritage,South-Doyle, Lenoir City arent exactly powerhouses. As a matter of fact, I believe 4A Lenior city was blown out by 2A Loudon of Alcoas region. A team thompson caught 3tds on. Does it help that he played lights out the other day in scrimmages against Morristown West and South-Doyle. Yes, its a scrimmage but its still against your so called better competition. Ill be the first to tell you that Jordan and Cope are more athletic but there has been none more productive than what thompson has done. He has been a starter on championship teams since his soph year, technically his freshman year, because he started the final two games (tyner and goodpasture) at WR for Alcoa. If you can play, you can play no matter what.

they probably think that because alcoa only lost 5 seniors off last years team. they pretty much are looking even better than last year right now. not 41-0 at halftime but by the end of the game they should be up by a good margin.

Any WB fans on here know whats going on with the qb race? Ive heard rumors that soph zach whitt broke his ankle and that Garner has moved at taken some snaps at qb. Any truth to these rumors?

Randall didnt miss a lot of tackles. He did however knock the living snot out of a cak wr after a catch. Its on the youtbube highlight tape of the game. He also had 150 yds passing,3 tds and 120 yds rushing with 2 tds. Both of those TDs on amazing runs. Throw in an INT and that was Randall Cobbs CAK game. He didnt even play that much defense in the game. You usually dont need your star when you win 59-21. I remember one missed tackle.

Yeah, Cobb is at KY, this year but everyone else from that team is back and a year better. That includes #15 Jaron Toney, a junior who ran through the defense as much as Cobb. I think he scored tds on his first 3 carries in that game and finished with over 100 yards. I do expect white house to come out and fight hard but Alcoa may even be a little better than last year. Especially after watching what they did to those 4A schools in that scrimmage. Cobb was at the scrimmage on the sideline with the Tornadoes and said that if gave him chills watching how good alcoa is this year.

One injury. Alcoas Daniel Rockymore hurt his ankle in the very last scrimmage

alcoa had the look of a team that has a world of potential. It was kind of scary to think that the tornadoes are always improving during the season and are always playing their best ball at the end of the year. With Gary Rankin and his staff you know they will continue to get better and that is a scary thought for 2A with the way they looked last night against two 4A teams, one of which (Mo West) could easily end up winning 7 or 8 games. If they can continue to not beat themselves with turnovers and things like that, it may not even be a close 2A game.

Senior Chase James is the qb this year. There isnt a competition at all. Rankin said in an interview that Chase won the job and unless something unexpected happens Chase will be the guy. Hes a great summer and start of fall practice as the qb. James is an improving passer and is a lot like Cobb with his ability to carry the ball and make plays. Not many people noticed but in a lot of games last season coach rankin would bring james in at qb the 3rd series of the game no matter the situation to get him prepared for this. Hes by far outperformed any of the other qbs so far. Last season Alcoa pretty much put it on White House anyway they wanted but you hear the alcoa coaches telling their players all the time thats not a true inclination of the White House program. they are a much better team than what they showed. I think they really got shell shocked and didnt know what to expect and how good alcoa actually is, not for a AA school, but for anybody. I still think alcoa wins by a good amount, but it wont be 41-0 at halftime this year.

I saw in Murphy Fair's mag where he has Maryville pre-season number 5. With 60 wins and four titles in row, there are four teams that are better than them. I know its just pre-season, and people say it doesnt mean much but it does mean a lot to the pride of a 16,17, 18 year old who's used to winning. Maryville doesnt need the no respect card. I think Murphy just upset them off for all of our teams who have to play them. Thanks Man /thumb[1].gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":thumb:" border="0" alt="thumb[1].gif" />

Nope overall would be Jordan or Thompson because they do more. Cole Lail plays LB. Jordan is a DB, WR, KR and Thompson plays DB, WR, P and PK in some games. To be the best overall you have to do more than one thing. Thats not saying that player will sign at the highest division or go to a bunch of all-star games but its speaking on the versatility of that players and the players that probably embodies those qualities the most right now is Jordan with Thompson in second. When a player is able to be that effective on offense, defense and special teams they are such an asset to their team and headaches to opposing coaches because they are very good and NEVER come off the field. Jordan is a headache to other teams because you cant dodge him. Hes always on the field.

Yep, only 14 of those points came against the starters. coach rankin took those guys out to rest up for a semi-final matchup with DCA

There is no record of UGA even recruiting Cermak much less giving him an offer. Hes not listed as one of the guys georgia is even contacting. While I dont doubt that Cermak is a fine player and will have a good season for heritage, the day Mark Richt has to come to Heritage to get a RB is the day UGA is no longer competing for an SEC title.

James Rainer from alcoa didnt even run a 4.3 in high school and he was a 10.4 100m guy.

Thats a funny comment because a fans cockiness has no bearing in any way on how the players play games. The players play and prepare how coach rankin makes them. Im pretty sure that Alcoas coaching staff doesnt let them get outside themselves and develop a bad attitude. It seems to me that it was Alcoas hard work not cockiness that got them to a title. All they heard was that last year was the year you were going to beat Alcoa. So i would be willing to bet that if all that negative talk didnt bother them then the people talking good about them wont effect them either. They swagger that they have helps them win football games. I can promise you, just like maryville when alcoa gets up 14-0, 21-0 in the first quarter of games then that doubt from the other teams starts to set in. They work as hard as any team in the state. I think after going 55-5 ( 4 losses to maryville, who one state each time and oen loss to fulton, who also won state) you have a right to be a little proud of your program. To say that a AA team hasnt been within single digits of alcoa since 2003 is pretty impressive. So Alcoa players and coaches are doing something right and their fans can say all they want because its their team.