Loose End

Ooltewah and Red Bank (and all the teams really) will have a chance to separate themselves from everyone else. Red Bank has several challenging opponents ahead, but so does Ooltewah (with the fifth highest SoS in 5A) against Oak Ridge, Farragut, etc. Until they lose, I think most signs point to Ooltewah still being noticeably ahead of everyone in the area except McCallie, and at this point it could go either way, really. And I, too, am excited about the talent in the Chatt. area, and this should be an exciting week.

Ooltewah has had a particularly strong sports program the past few years. Football, basketball, and baseball all have been clearly one of the best teams in the Chattanooga area (with the exception of basketball this year). Congrats to this year's field of athletes, and lets hope future years will bring similar success.

Ooltewah wins 4-0 according to the coacht score. Good day for Ooltewah sports. Congrats Soddy, good luck in the tournament (unless you play against Ooltewah )

Ooltewah was looking for a sign, and they got one in probably the biggest and clearest rainbow I've ever seen halfway through the game. Ooltewah wins 4-2 with Burke giving up 3 hits. Good game Blackman, good luck the rest of the way Owls.

Yea, as an Ooltewah fan, hats off to Farragut for having a good team and playing well. Farragut unfortunately matches up their strengths with Ooltewah's weaknesses which made it very difficult for Ooltewah, but they hung in there for most of the game. It would have been interesting to see what would happen if these two teams played at Ooltewah, but I guess we'll never know. I do think the PA was pretty ridiculous. I know I've never seen anything like that, and I thought it was pretty classless. It didn't even bother me all that much at first, but when he kept doing it towards the end, when it was obvious that the game was over, it made me angry. Of course, I'll be rooting for Oak Ridge next week. Not that they'll need any more support.

I wasn't replying to you with that paragraph, but BuckOSUeye, who stated explicitly "Private schools are better, the kids that dont like private schools are the ones that have never been to one." I apologize for not making that clear. I also took offense when you told Sarge earlier on in the topic, and again I quote, "By the way, you might want to take a shot at editing again. You missed several spelling and syntax errors - that old Ooltewah education bites, doesn't it?" Compound that with flawed reasoning that Ooltewah has to play McCallie to prove their the best team in the area, and I think it's ridiculous. I don't know why we don't play private schools, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. Ooltewah's in one of the toughest regions in the state and doesn't need to schedule several other good matchups. One of the main problems is when big schools play good small schools, you have little to gain and a lot to lose. Ooltewah is much better served to go and play a team like Cookeville that is a 5A contender every year. Would I like to see a McCallie-Ooltewah matchup? Definitely, and I don't anyone who wouldn't besides the administration. But I don't think it has much to do with fear, because Ooltewah does schedule tougher opponents.

I usually don't come out and speak about Ooltewah's band as I think their record speaks for itself. I really do think that their show this year is as good as any year I've seen it. The music and the theatrics are both excellent. At half time against Oak Ridge (before that miraculous comeback) it consoled us that at least we have a good band.

Yea, I could see how when you were trying to type two o's and a t, you just happened to hit a u, a t, and an e. A typo indeed. And how long do we have to explain that the Chatt Central game is one of importance even if one team is having a down year? It's just like McCallie and Baylor playing. Would either team not schedule the other if they were having a down year (like Baylor going a spectacular 1-3 against opponents with winning records)? Of course not, because that game is important due to the rivalry and the history behind it, just like the Ooltewah-Central game. They are very close in proximity and have the same feeder school. And, for the record, I'm not against private schools. I went to a private school for a lot of my elementary education and my little brother is at Notre Dame now. I wouldn't mind seeing Ooltewah play private schools at all myself. What I am against are elitist schoolboys who think the price tag that came with their education somehow makes them smarter or more cultured than us lowly public schoolers, which I think is patently untrue. And I don't necessarily see how private schools are "better" than public schools. Perhaps you could explain?

You know, with all those thousands of dollars that was paid for your McCallie education, I thought you might know the difference between a "mute" and a "moot" issue. Anyway, it's quite obvious that Ooltewah isn't afraid of losing, because they have plenty of other good teams on their schedule, three of which are in the top ten of 5A according to the AP poll (which Ooltewah have gone 2-1 against). McCallie's opponents might have a better overall record, but Ooltewah has definitely played against better teams, who in turn have played against better teams and maybe don't have as good an overall record as McCallie's opponents. No matter, if it wasn't McCallie talking about strength of schedule, it would be Red Bank talking about overall record or some of other school giving other asinine reasons of why they're better. Unfortunately, the season's not long enough for the top team to play every contender, but any impartial survey of the situation would have to name the Owls as the best Chattanooga area team.

I might have disagreed with you putting Woods up there after the Farragut game, but he really showed some stuff playing OR. I hope he can keep it up into the postseason. Also, it would be nice to have a TD and Int total to really get a good indication of their performance. It seems Woods has the highest completion pct. and smithson has the most avg. yards per catch.

Ooltewah is 2-1 against the top ten teams in 5A (according the last week's AP poll which probably hasn't changed much). I've seen McCallie play, and I wasn't very impressed, and neither Red Bank or Notre Dame have played against any stiff competition this season. I think Ooltewah showed they do have some heart tonight, and with the talent we know they have, you have to put them on top of all the Chattanooga teams.

Ooltewah has a better quizbowl team than Farragut, so I think I have to give the edge to Ooltewah Friday night.

I think you could put Coach Monroe out there at tailback with that O-line

Err, sorry, I should have said I was talking about Central in the second paragraph. I guess that's what happens when you try to edit as you go and don't proofread.

And as an Ooltewah fan, I'll agree that at least one of those punts had a blatant block in the back, either Ooltewah was just lazy and complacent and not thinking or that's something they'll have to work on. I don't know what the holdup with Central was. It didn't look they even cared about playing tough. Of course, I got there about 10 minutes late and the score was already 14-0, so maybe they had already given up. I just hope Ooltewah can get a little bit more practice against resistance before they play OR.

I'd have to agree, I don't think we've seen the best from this Owls team yet. The way they've played the first few games hasn't been spectacular, and if they had put that kind of performance against Oak Ridge DB, the Owls probably wouldn't have won. That said, I think Monroe's still getting readjusted to coaching, and the players are still getting readjusted to Monroe. We've seen the running, the passing, the rush defense, and the passing defense are all strong, they just need to put it all together. If they get everything running well, there's not a team in the area that could compete with them and other state powerhouses better look out. That said, neither the coaches nor the players will care about running the score up on their old cross-town rivals. A huge blowout would not surprise me. I think the real action will be on the sidelines, lets hope the student groups keep it loud, clean, and (semi)friendly.

This was a good game. Kinda strange in the sense that Mccallie seemed to be playing well and doing well on offense and defence against Briarcrest, but Briarcrest was about to keep it close. Briarcrest is coming off of a huge loss of seniors, about 20 or so, and so they still have quite a bit to work out, especially on that offensive line. They used two quarterbacks, but one of them, Michael Blanchard, a sophomore, really impressed me with his scrambling ability and pocket awareness. He also has the quickness of a small running back and looked like Mike Vick out there, avoiding many, many sacks when the pocket collapsed. If he the o-line improves, and he gets a little more accurate, he could end up being one of the premier quarterbacks in the state.

He's looked real good so far. He's had at least 50 yds and a touchdown in both games thus far as a FB, running behind two smaller but quicker HBs. He looks like a beast out there. He's played some on defence, but I think he was an extra LB. I imagine he'd be a good DE as well. He played at Cleveland two years ago, transferred to the military school, and is at Ooltewah to get his remaining credits and play some football. Does anyone know why exactly he came to Ooltewah?

I think we need to hold off on calling Marshall better than Caldwell. Defences are keyed in on Caldwell after last year, which gives Marshall the chance to run a bit freer. I think the three-pronged attack we have with them and Gaston is awesome and it's going to be to watch. I'm just glad to see that Woods threw the ball a little this game. 10-17 isn't too bad, but I hope that he gets to see more passing opportunities as the season progresses. Having a good passing attack will make a big difference come the post season and since Ooltewah gets out to those big leads Woods should get a lot of time to practice with his recievers against defences without worrying about the outcome of the game. How many times has Woods busted out a big scramble? That could come in handy later as well. And it kinda startled me to see that Rhea managed 18 first downs to Ooltewah's 20 against this defence. I know that the secondary improved, and all the other numbers looked good, but that's not a great statistic.

Well, what I meant was they looked better in a long-term sense, first game jitters and blown plays and adjusting to a new coach and system and having to compensate for a couple of questionable calls and generally not caring for the second half. At the game, I was afraid the football gods were going to give the game to Cookeville simply because the Owls seemed comfortable and lackadaisical after their early big league, but the Owls did show some heart finally in OT. I just a think it's a testament to Ooltewah's ability that even when outplayed and probably outcoached for 3/4's of the game they were still able to hold on for the win. Also, you have to realize that Caldwell was a) running on tired legs toward the end and had the entire Cookeville defense keyed on him because that's Monroe called. Marshall was impressive, I just don't know about his size. Maybe he could contribute quite a bit as a wideout.

Hah, I saw that interview on Stump, you gotta love Monroe's swagger. Something along the lines of . . . Monroe: We really played terrible tonight, it shouldn't have been anywhere near as close as it was Interviewer: You gotta give those Cookeville Cavaliers credit for their gutsy play, right? Monroe: (pause) Well, we really just stopped playing and didn't execute and played horrible tonight. This is going to be a good season

I'll have to agree with mnewballer, Ooltewah did seem to be the better team, struggling through two very, very questionable pass intereference calls both on 3rd and long (if I recall correctly) that put Cookeville inside the twenty. That said, Cookeville was able to catch on eventually and stop the run with some success, and they got their running game going towards the end, so maybe they're a little better than they let on as well. I really hope Monroe spreads out the workload next game. You can't put some of these guys on the field that much and expect them to play up to speed. And I'm sure they're going to focus on the secondary because their performance was definitely not what it should have been. There were several lob passes during which two or three Ooltewah DBs and one Cookeville WR were around the ball and the DBs just didn't seem positioned or fast or tall enough to contend for the ball. I think Ooltewas passed a total of 7 or 8 times and completed 4 of them. At first it was because Cookeville couldn't stop it, and later it was to run down the clock, but it seems like Monroe could have at least tried a few creative or short passing plays when the run wasn't as effective as it was early on. All that said, it was a really good game, and both teams seem poised to have great seasons.

What exactly did Grad do to deserve any of this? Be a fan of his school, especially a team his little brother plays for? Cleveland played a better game tonight, and that's what counts. Though it is a shame that the better team won't get a chance to advance and play at a higher level.

I don't really count myself as a baseball fan, especially in relation to basketball and football, but I cam coming around on it and I really do think it's an acquired taste. The action of football and basketball are pretty simple and you can at least get a feel for the game by just watching it. Baseball is a horse of a different color, however, and there's not as much going on but enjoying it requires a fairly deep knowledge of the game. I took my girlfriend last night to the Ooltewah - Red Bank game and it was question after question about what was going on. That being said, I don't think most students who come to sporting events events pay much attention to the game anyway. At least that's been my experience in student sections. I think one of the main drawbacks to baseball is that it's outside and there is sometimes heat, sometimes sun in your eyes, sometimes bugs, etc. The bleachers, depending on the field, aren't too comfortable either. Also, I'm not totally sure, but it seems like baseball isn't much of a cheering sport. At least in the sense that people start chants and can be loud and whatnot. Maybe that's just my limited experience though. Although, one thing I will say, the price of admission at baseball games is much more reasonable than basketball and football games.

It's interesting how well Ooltewah did this year in most all of its athletics. They won districts in baseball(+?), basketball, and boy's tennis, they won region in volleyball, and had the best record (as far as I know) of any Chattanooga 5A team. Heh, I wish we did this well last year when I was a student, but perhaps we are seeing the formation of a perennial powerhouse in the Chattanooga area.