tackle

Lipscomb is good but there are some public schools that can play with them. There are many public and private schools who have the talent to stay with Lipscomb. Back in week one, Greenbrier spotted Lipscomb a few scores and then the 2 teams swapped scores for the remainder of the game. They had the talent to "stay with Lipscomb". On any given Friday night, anything can happen. There is no "sure thing" in sports-let alone high school sports. If Houston County is capable of being with-in 1 point of Goodpasture at half-time, then the same thing could occur Friday night at Lispcomb. We will just have to wait and see how the game unfolds.

Jett, You wouldn't believe what lengths Lipscomb went to get some of the players. They play 2 guys at tight end. To recruit one of them, they made his dad the team doctor in 1983. (They even let him play for Lipscomb in the 1970's)-just to get his son on the team. That Coach McCadams is a genius. He named a team doctor 2 years before his son was born, just to get a tight end. Then there is the other tight end. They gave his dad a job in 1983-just to get the player. The player was born a couple of years later and now plays tight end. They must have a fantastic genetics department at Lipscomb. Most of their starters were recruited in kindergarten. I think the kindergarten admissions director has all applicants run a 40 yard dash, max out in the bench and clean and punt, pass and kick. Only the best 5 year olds are allowed into the school. The 238 recruited athletes was closer to being accurate-but that is only at the elementary school level. They weed out the best football players during the 2nd grade. They allow them to stay in school, but they don't allow them to play football. Most of the kids who aren't good enough to play football at Lipscomb usually end up leaving. I have heard that Evengel Christian (in Louisiana), De LaSalle (in California) and Vanderbilt have an agreement that they will automatically take any Lipscomb football rejects. (I don't know if this is true, but I have heard that Kellon Winslow was a Lipscomb reject. This may explain why he seems so bitter about losing to a team from Tennessee.)

Thanks for the info. Daryl was one of my high school coaches. He is as good of a man as you will ever meet.

I think I know Bobby Spayed's family. My grandaddy has told me a lot of stories about his uncles, Cooter and Newter. He played football with them at old Daisy High School, before they merged with Soddy High School. He said Cooter was the best player. He had a scholarship to play for Coach Bryant at A & M in the 1950's, but he had a hunting accident. It seems he accidently shot one of his neighbors cows. He said he thought it was a moose. When he got out of jail, A & M had already given the scholarship to John David Crow. Newter played Defensive Tackle for Auburn. He went on to medical school there and became a veterinarian. I remember Dr. Spayed. Everytime my neighbor's dog,( Miss Eunice Potts-she's the neighbor, her Great Dame was named Duke), had puppies, she would come over and tell daddy that we needed to take Earl (my mom's dauchshund) to Dr. Newter Spayed and have him fixed. Those puppies sure did look funny. I didn't know Bob had left Chattanooga. I bet that's the reason they lost the Spring Fling to Mississippi.

Where is Daryl Walker? I didn't know he wasn't the principal anymore.

That's great. I haven't seen many 3A teams, but he was certainly a difference maker. I thought he was a good quarterback as a sophomore. He is a tremendous tailback this year. Greenbrier went from being a solid team with him at QB, to being a great team with him at tailback. I hope you can continue your run through the playoffs and make it to Blue Cross Bowl. Greenbrier is a 1st class program.

Scissors, I may not be very good in math, but I know the playoff brackets. Oliver Springs will not beat Lipscomb, Tyner and Goodpasture (Unless this is like little league baseball and you can pick-up the best players from teams that are eliminated-hey that is not a bad idea!) Only 1 team from regions 3 and 4 can make the 4th round. It may very well be Tyner, Goodpasture or Lipscomb. From what I have heard, Oliver Spring, Gatlinburg Pittman and Alcoa are the 3 most likely teams to come out of Regions 1 and 2. No matter who makes it to round 4, it should be a great game. ANYONE who makes it that far will be tough.

Austin was a great player. I saw BA play Maryville at Vanderbilt in the late 70's. I think he was the QB. He was a great player. I also saw him play many times at Ole Miss. If he is indeed the "best QB to ever play at BA", that is a great compliment. BA has had a history of great players and quarterbacks. Whatever happened to Jeremy Spivey? He was a tremendous Linebacker for BA in the 80's. I remember he had an illness, but I don't remember what happened to him after high school.

cbq, I was being 90% sarcastic when I recommended a 3rd division for metro area schools. If anything, I think the discontent with football has been worse since the 5 classifications were created in 1993. Now there are 8 champions. When there were only 3 classes, the complaints were mainly against Brentwood Academy. They were the only private school that dominated the championships. A few other privates won occassional titles, but none on a consistent basis. With the change to 5 classes, private schools were concentrated in 1A and several of the strong A public schools from the 3 class days moved into the 2A division for the 5 classes. We won't ever go back to 3 classes-too much playoff $ would be lost. If there is a total split of public and private, I wouldn't be surprised to see city/suburban schools to be the next target of the discontented. Teacher pay in metro areas is already a target that ended up in the courts. (And I do sympathize with what the 1A schools face. They are at a disadvantage in many ways.)

Last year's Blue Cross Bowl had 10 teams from cities/suburbs and 0 teams from rural areas. 1A-Nashville CPA and Chattanooga Boyd Buchanan 2A-Nashville Lipscomb and Memphis Mitchell 3A-Memphis Ridgeway and Knox Fulton 4A-Maryville (Knoxville suburb) and Nashville Hillsboro 5A-Murfreesboro Riverdale and Brentwood (Nashville Suburb) Are the problems not as much rural vs city/suburban as they are public/private? In the South Davidson/North Williamson County area, there are many private schools with great teams-BA, MBA, FRA, CPA, Ezell-Harding, Lipscomb, BGA and Father Ryan. MANY of the players from these schools are zoned for Hillsboro (9-1this year); Hillwood (9-1 this year); Overton (3-7 this year), Brentwood HIgh (9-1 this year); Franklin (8-2 this year); Centennial (5-5 but in 5A playoffs); Antioch (9-1 this year); and Glencliff (5-5-but in 5A playoffs). Even though these public schools have lost many kids zoned to their schools to the area private schools, many are still very successful. Overton was down this year, but had a very good team last year. They lost 2 of their key returning players to Hillsboro due to rezoning of school districts. I think the problem is as much city/suburban vs. rural as it is public vs. private. If a 2 x multiplier is put on private Division 1 schools (and it may need to be done), maybe a 1.5 multiplier should be put on metro/suburb area schools. In a way, this observation hurts my feelings. I went to high school in a small West Tennessee town and our coaches used to tell us that we were tougher than the "city boys" when we played teams out of Memphis and Jackson. I always wondered why we usually lost to them. My senior year we were 5-0 vs small town West Tennessee teams (Brownsville, Covington, Dyersburg...) and 0-5 vs Shelby county and Jackson Central-Merry. Maybe we need to have a Division 1 for Rural Schools, a Division 2 for financial aid privates and a Division 3 from city/suburban schools and non financial aid privates.

Stallion-I forgot about Seth at Tenn Tech. He just lives around the corner, so I should have remembered him. Here are the kids from Lipscomb currently on a college team. From the class of 2003-Chris Binkley-Freshman walk-on CB/Punter at Mt. Union, Ohio; Richard Whitfield-invited walk-on OL at Ole Miss; Seth Martin-LB atTennessee Tech. From the class of 2002-Ethan Flatt-scholarship at Ole Miss-currently #3 on depth chart at QB; David Dorris-walk-on SE at Ole Miss; Jimmy Sisk-walk-on CB at Harding. Class of 2001-none Class of 2000-none Class of 1999-State Runner-up-only Jonathan Shaub. He used to play at Vandy. He gave up his final year of eligibility at Vandy and is now doing mission work in Kiev, Ukraine. He was a 2 year starter at Vandy and was one of the best to ever play at Lipscomb. Good post Goob 5804. I would imagine that after playing the likes of Maryville, a game with a Lipscomb or Goodpasture isn't that big of a deal for Alcoa. If there are any others, I can't recall. At one time, Nick Varnado walked on at West. KY. Nick was a 5'7" 190lb guard and a great h.s. player. Again, my point was that Lipscomb has great high school players, but the college recruiters are hardly breaking the door down going after their players.

Last year's Blue Cross Bowl had 10 teams from cities/suburbs and 0 teams from rural areas. 1A-CPA and Boyd 2A-Lipscomb and Memphis Mitchell 3A-Memphis Ridgeway and Knox Fulton 4A-Maryville (Knoxville suburb) and Hillsboro 5A-Riverdale and Brentwood The problems are as much rural vs city/suburban as they are any other public/private, but that is an argument that would have to be addressed on the public private board.

I realize that this is a waste of time, but I'm eating luch now and have a little time. Without posting names, here are Lipscomb's offensive starters and how far they live from campus (distances are rounded) QB-3 miles-Forest Hills-Davidson County HB-5 miles-Crieve Hall-Davidson County TB-5 miles-Bellevue-Davidson County TE-1.5 miles-Oak Hill-Davidson County WB-3 miles-Forest Hills-Davidson County RT-1 mile-Davidson County RG-6 miles-Crieve Hall-Davidson County LG-12 miles-Franklin-Williamson County LT-5 miles-Bellevue-Davidson County SE-12 miles-Franklin-Williamson County That is 9 of 11 from Davidson County-all south of campus between Lipscomb abd the Williamson County line. My sources probably aren't as good as yours. I got the info from the campus school directory that my children brought home from school this fall. Nothing I could ever write would convince you otherwise, but there have been only 2 D1 football signees in the last 22 years and no one from last years team signed any kind of football scholarship. There are 2 walkons from that team now playing. The last kid Lipscomb sent to UT on scholarship was Jay Williams in 1977. I am not saying that Lipscomb doesn't have great players, they do. They have many good HIGH SCHOOL players. They are not the blue chippers that you seem to think they are. If you came to one of the practices, you would be surprised at the size of most of the players. Sweetwater had a great team last year. Lipscomb was on a roll after the 1st half of the Marion County game last year. Marion County was up 6-0 and driving with a 1st down at the Lipscomb 1. Marion fumbled a snap, Lipscomb recovered it. They hit a bomb out of the endzone and went on to win 21-6. If Marion County had scored then and gone up 13-o, who knows what would have happened. I personally thought the team that played Milan in the clinic bowl was better, but I have only seen Sweetwater play 2 time. I have nothing by my opinion to base this on.

Lipscomb is definitely a "University" caliber team. Since Coach McCadams went there in 1982, they have had 2 players receive division 1 scholarships-Jonathan Shaub from the 1998 team and Ethan Flatt from the 2001 team. That is 1 DI caleber football player for every 11 years he has been at Lipscomb. That sounds like a football machine to me. The truth is that very few of Lipscombs kids go on to play college football. None of the 20+ seniors on last years team were signed by D1 schools. One player is a freshman walk on at Mt. Union and one is an invited walk on at Ole Miss. Does Lipscomb have good players? Absolutley. Are they a football player factory. No way. There strength lies in the way they play together as a team, not in individually great players. The same thing happens at many other high schools in the state. (Portland most years, Trousdale County, White House,...) I looked at the roster posted on a link. It came from the Tennesseean. Most of the weights are inflated. I think Coach Mc lets the players weigh in pads and then add a few pounds. about 1/2 The biggest kids on the roster are listed 3rd team or lower on the depth chart. They only play in B-games or on the PAT team. By the way, Lipscomb's B-team is loaded. They went 1-5 this year. They beat Creekwood and lost to MBA, CPA, Marshall County, Goodpasture and Brentwood.

These 2 nominations are for "pound for pound" best players ever. Jimmy Noonan, a nose guard for Dyersburg and then UT in the mid to late 70's. Corey Moore, a defensive end for Haywood County and Virginia Tech in the mid to late 90's. Both of these guys were too small to play Division one football, but they both were great players at that level because they played with such intensity and speed. They are my pound for pound best Tennessee players nominees.

When I was in junior high school in Ripley, Mississippi, we had a great punter named Jim Miller. Jim would always punt barefoot in the Punt, Pass and Kick competition. He usually had the contest under control with his punt. He had to wear a shoe due to High School rules. (I can see both sides to the argument.) They tried to come up with a shoe that was as close to barefoot as possible, and still be legal. When he went to Ole Miss, he went back to punting barefoot and was an All American. He later punted for the 49'ers for several years.

If going 9-1 is what you get from "making your son the superstar", then it sounds like Coach McAdams is on to something. I hope the Tigers can roar in the playoffs.

Coach Busey at Houston County is one that a lot of people probably don't kow about. The progress Houston County has made has been incredible. They went from being shut out by Montgomery Central in week one, to beating East Robertson and Westmoreland (and playing tough against Goodpasture) and qualifying as the number 3 seed in the playoffs. He should at least the Region 4 2A coach of the year.

I don't have a prediction, but I think Coach Busey (spelling?) deserves strong consideration for the Region 4 coach of the year. The progress Houston County has made from the beginning of the year to the end is amazing. Good luck against Marion County next week!

Coach Tighlman is in charge of the big play chart, but I heard he gets players to do the actual work.

Fatcat, I think TedDavid is correct. Marshall County will get votes because writers from across the state know them by past reputation. Unfortunately, many local paper sportswriters don't know about Greenbrier. They look at your record (6-3 I think) and don't give you any consideration. That is the problem with any poll. You went from being a good team with Herndon at QB, to being a great team with him at tailback. You have a great chance to make a playoff run. Your offensive line and defensive lines are very good. If Greenbrier continues to play well in the playoffs, sportwriters will learn who you are and hopefully remember it in the future. Coach Williams is doing a great job. I hope y'all can make it through West Tennessee and get to Murfreesboro.

Who and where does Tyner play this week?

Riverdale, I was in the class of 78, but played high school football in Tennessee. I played in Ripley through the 8th grade. My family then moved to Tennessee. I don't think we played Shannon in jr high. I remember playing New ALbany, Booneville, Falkner and Kossuth. I remember watcing Ripley and Shannon play when I was in elementary and junior high. Shannon usually beat us. Ripley had several players in the early and mid 70's who did well in college. James Story was a running back at Ole Miss, Jim Miller was a punter at Ole Miss and later with the 49'ers and Michael Dees went on to State. I seem to remember Shannon having some outstanding players also. While I don't have too much contact with that area any more, I do know that Ripley has 2 players at Ole Miss and has had a player at Auburn lately. There are a lot of kids from that area that play D1 football.

Paper, not that it is important, but I was one of the 40. You are probably from Kentucky or Indiana and wouldn't understand any point made on a football message board.

As I drove home to Tennessee from the Ole Miss/Bama game last weekend. I noticed something that is present there that you don't see in our state. Just about every little town I drove through had their own school and football field. Very small towns like Falkner, Walnut, Blue Mountain and larger towns like New Albany and Ripley. I looked it up and found that Tippah County has high schools in Walnut, Falkner, Blue Mountain, Pine Grove and Ripley. That's 5 high schools in a county that has about 20,000 people. I crossed the state line into Tennessee and entered Hardeman County. Hardeman County has 4-5000 more residents, but only 2 high schools-Bolivar (3a) and Middleton (1a) I just wonder if the Mississippi Schools don't have a higher percentage of kids in athletics than Tennessee does in the county schools that exist in so many areas here. I would think that more kids who live in Falkner, Mississippi play football for their hometown school, than would play if they just had one big school for all of Tippah County in the county seat of Ripley. I know that Mississippi ranks at the bottom end on most educational rankings. I also know that Tennessee isn't very far ahead. I'm sure we will never go back to the small town schools in some areas for a variety of reasons (and some of them are good ones.) When I was growing up in North Mississippi in the 70's, you just knew you were going to play football. We had about 40 boys play 7th grade football in a class of less than 50 boys. We watched several of the high school kids go on to play at Ole Miss and State, others played in the numerous junior colleges in Mississippi. Football was just what you did after school. The 8th grade team had similiar numbers. I would bet that those percentages are down now from what they were 30 years ago, but I do think that there are many good reasons to keep small town schools. Some Tennessee counties still have the small town schools (Gibson County). I hope Mississippi will continue to do that.