Governm

What's hard to figure out? There is a lot of apathy hanging over the program. That should be obvious. Nobody is committed to winning down there at WB. That's why I have folks telling me I can't overreact over one bad game. It's not about just one bad game. This is game one of year #7. Lol, get out of here with that nonsense. We still can't block and tackle and it looks like our feeder program is on the decline too. It's obvious something is not working here. Like I have already said, we get beat by everyone upfront. Last year we weren't even able to dominate Oliver Springs - a 1A team - at the line of scrimmage. They were able to run the ball down our throats, but luckily they fumbled themselves right out of the ballgame. That kind of line play ain't getting it done in 6A ball. It doesn't matter how good your skill players are when they don't have a chance to succeed because they don't have any blocking. I went to the Central/Greeneville game on Saturday night and thought Greeneville's back was very similar to the tailback that started at WB in 2019 as a freshman. I believe the Greeneville back's name was Dugger. He looked very similar to the kid who transferred to Greenback, and he looked like a stud against a good team like Central. He ran all over them. That's what is possible at WB if we actually had a good strength and conditioning program and good line coaching. Line play is everything. You have to be mean and nasty upfront and we are soft as Charmin on the line. If you think I'm exaggerating, get a load of this. In the second half we had a chance to get back in the Clinton game, but we turned the ball over on downs because we couldn't gain six inches. We have a 6'2" QB. That's how soft we are upfront. There's no push at all.

What is your motivation for asking these questions and making these points???? First of all, WB was at least 5-5 or better in the regular season almost every year from 1997 to 2007 with the exception of a year or two. That's a decade of decent to good teams. WB also had some success in the early 90s too. So your insinuations that WB can't have success in football are flat out false and BS. Meadows left because he had success here and was offered a head coaching job at Knox Catholic. They were offering a lot more money, but surely I don't have to explain all that to you. Also, do you think every coach from every good program is good by default???? Of course not. Just look at Nick Saban's coaching tree. Pruitt was probably the worst coach in UT history and he seemingly had the right pedigree when they hired him. Like I said, I don't know what your motivations are, but I'm just telling you how I see it. I don't expect winning seasons every year, but I expect to see a well-coached team that knows how to block and tackle and do the basic stuff that you need to do to be competitive in 6A football. I have watched almost every WB football game in the past decade plus and we haven't been well coached since Meadows left. Period. Let me ask you a question since you are such an expert. WB has the right size boys to push people around upfront, but we always lose the line of scrimmage. Why do you think that is? We have 1900 students and usually have 70+ players, but other schools that are smaller put players on the field that can push us around. Again, why is that? Do you think those other schools have big boys that are just inherently better football players every year? Or do those schools just have good coaches that can teach and develop their players better than ours can? I'm leaning towards the latter. Talent isn't everything. If it was, Alcoa would beat Maryville almost every year, but they don't. Just saying.

Well, WB had one of its best years in 2007 for one thing. Yes, we lose players, but that's not an excuse for our players to show up to the first game of the season not knowing how to block or tackle. Where's this great offseason in the weight room that Shad tells Stork and the media about every year? He must be lying because I saw our lines getting dominated all night. Heck, we had a defensive lineman get driven back into the goalpost on one of Clinton's tds. That's embarrassing in any game, and it's especially embarrassing when it's against a team that has been worse than you for almost a decade and that was with them going up against worse competition than the teams we play every year. The difference in last night's contest was coaching. Clinton's new coach had his team playing hard and fundamentally sound in the first game of his second season. Our coach is in year #7 and we are still seeing the same things we see every year.

I have sat through over a decade of losing seasons, friend. Last night was rock bottom and I'm not just saying that. I have seen a lot of bad football and last night was the worst effort I have seen since I have been supporting this program. It actually hurts me to see WB be so bad. I have seen WB as one of the best teams in the state back when I was in school. Those teams played physical and we had linemen that could block people. This program could be so much better than what I saw last night.

Even our uniforms and branding suck right now. Bring back the old logo and navy helmets.

That won't happen because WB has never fired a coach for losing. We have admins who openly excuse our lack of success by bringing up the fact that Maryville, Alcoa, and Greenback poach our players. They focus on that so much that they don't notice that our coaches fail to teach our players how to block and tackle and how to play with an edge. They also don't seem to notice that our play calling does not put our offense in a position to succeed. Like I said, nobody cares down there. It's perfectly acceptable to put that kind of team on the field at WB.

No. There's no bouncing back from that. This team will beat Heritage. That's the ceiling now. And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they lost that game too. I don't care either way. I'm definitely not coming to any more games this season. I have had it with this loser program and loser school. Nobody cares about winning down there. Nobody has any pride and it's making me sick to my stomach.

Barney, You had to be there to see it. The Govs came out sleepwalking in the first half and looked like empty uniforms. I put that on the coaches. If you're a football player, how do you not get excited about your first game???? There's something bad wrong with that picture. The play calling sucked too and our coach was still sitting on all three of his timeouts late in the second quarter when the game was already over. There's no glossing over those details. Last night was a really bad look for this program and coaching staff.

Clinton played well. Congrats. You guys are an example of what is possible with good coaching. You can be awful one year and decent the next. What's our excuse? We don't have any.

Tonight was disappointing on so many levels. I kept hearing about how we upgraded our staff, especially on defense. Our defense played flat out awful tonight. We couldn't stop an old car on cinder blocks. And as bad as the D was, the O was just as bad. I don't see any path to a decent season now. This is right up there with the loss to Lenoir City to open the 2017 season. We went 1-9 that season. That will most likely be our record this year unless a lot of things get fixed really fast.

We better be glad Heritage is even worse than us. That will most likely be the only game we win all season.

Who else was really impressed with our play calling? We were still doing the run, run, pass play calling when I left. How about that jet sweep on 1st and 20 when we were already down 19-0 and looking completely dead in the water?

Shadroach, I have defended these coaches and this program in the past, but I can't defend what I saw tonight. When I left Clinton was up 19-0 and we had just gone 3 and out. This was late in the 2nd quarter and our coach was still sitting on all three timeouts. How do you justify that???? As a coach, you should call a timeout when your team is playing completely flat and uninspired football. It's hard to believe this coach cares and is doing everything to win when I see BS like that.

I have never been more embarrassed to be a WB fan. I was so disgusted that I left before halftime. I didn't see any effort out there this evening. None. We didn't play with any fire or excitement and it is the first game of the season. If our coaches don't have the boys excited and ready to go on the first week of the season what are they even doing????? The play calling was pee wee level and why didn't our great coach call a timeout as soon as it was clear we were playing flat? Also, Shad said that the team had a great offseason in the weight room. I didn't see that tonight. We were completely dominated in the first half and only had one first down that I recall. This team ain't winning a game. Our coaches need to go. We have no excuse when a bad Clinton team was able to turn it around in one year. It must be nice to have coaches that actually call timeouts and have their players prepared to play.

Shadowens is such a great coach that he is sitting on three timeouts late in the second quarter when this team is playing like $##+. It's just 19-0 coach and your team hasn't even showed up.

How about calling a timeout to teach our defense how to tackle? This is ridiculous.

Our coaching is awful. Fire them all tonight.

I hate Blount county refs. They blew an obvious pass interference that happened right in front of one of the officials. They are just about worthless.

Clinton thinks they are gonna win? Bishop Bullwinkle has something to say about that... Hellz yeah! Go Govs! Sis boom bah!

OR has blown it on punts twice now.

WB has several really good receivers and a pretty good qb who is also able to keep it and get some yardage on the ground. We're usually more of a passing team and we tend to be sloppy (that has been the case for over a decade). We like to turn the ball over and kill ourselves with penalties. I thought we did a better job of not doing those things in 2019, but we took a step back last year. I'm hoping a big part of that was the reduced number of practices due to COVID-19. I think most teams had more issues last year for the same reason. The Govs improved the coaching staff in the offseason. I can't think of the names off the top of my head, but we got a new defensive coordinator from South Doyle that a lot of people think highly of. I have heard the defense was already looking better in the scrimmages and in the jamboree. If the defense is halfway decent this year (we've been atrocious on defense more often than not this decade) we have a chance to be pretty good. The running back spot is the big question mark for me. We've struggled to run the ball consistently and it sounds like we had an issue holding on to the football in the Bearden scrimmage. I know we have a really athletic incoming freshman who is going to play some running back. I heard he looked really good in the JV scrimmage and scored several touchdowns. It sounds like he should be playing on varsity in my opinion. I'm guessing we'll see him playing on Friday nights at some point this season, but I'm not sure if they'll turn him loose this week.

Bearden ended up giving Powell fits in their jamboree game, so they might be better than people think. I'm just concerned about turning the ball over 4 times in that scrimmage.

Tell me about it. I was offered a job today with the condition that I have to get the vaccine. I told them to shove it. I will not give in to the coercion and fear. This country is in a sad state and things are only going further downhill.

Oh believe me... I have no illusions that this is a sure win for WB. You need to understand that most of the very lofty predictions come from Maryville, Greenback, and Alcoa fans who set them that high so they can laugh at and/or criticize us when we don't meet them. We haven't won more than 4 games in over a decade, so I find it funny that people act like 6 or 7 wins is a foregone conclusion even with the supposedly easy schedule that they criticize. Is the schedule favorable? Yes. It's the most favorable schedule I have seen since I have followed WB football. WB is capable of beating a lot of teams on the schedule, but those teams are also very capable of beating us too. Most games will be a coin flip for us which will be fun. This could be a really nice year if we can leave old bad habits behind, but the turnovers in the Bearden scrimmage are cause for concern. Turning the ball over 4 times will get you beat in most games.

I'm excited for this game. I'm not hyped for the jamboree at all. The format they are doing has been lame for years. They are about as worthless as t*ts on a boar hog and they want to charge $8.00 for one quarter of the same teams not showing anything.