GG22

That stadium is way too big, with the little crowds the games have been getting for years. The new soccer stadium would be perfect after it opens next year, though. It'll be much nicer than any other stadium in the state and have plenty of capacity at around 30,000.

In practice, I don't think you'd need an attendance cutoff initially, as I don't think many/any schools that can still field an11-man team would make the jump. There are currently 11 public schools with under 200 attendance that play football, plus several that don't. That's probably your target audience among the publics, plus maybe a few slightly larger magnets or charters, so you might get 10-20 there to start. Once the sport was established, you'd probably get interest in the second cycle from some bigger schools that struggle to get 30 players or compete. If the TSIAA privates were drawn over, that's around a dozen schools in a given year, and with the added legitimacy of TSSAA sanctioning I think you'd get to 20 privates pretty easily, possibly more since there are privates up to about 300 whose football interest isn't enough for 11-man. I could see one public classification and one-two private ones to start, depending on the numbers. 11-man would probably need to return to 2 classes on the private side, which may be a net positive as it'd allow for better geographic regions and classes big enough for a state championship to mean more than a region championship. If there's enough interest in it for there to be more profit than hassle, TSSAA will eventually add it.

It really favors speedy players, as there's so much space since you play on a regulation football field with 3 fewer players. That's why the scores typically resemble arena football.

CPA had a noticeable advantage in size and depth this season, and Lipscomb still snuck out one win and was close in the other game. Ingle is a great coach, but Lipscomb will get their share of wins if the talent level continues to improve. Isn't Pulaski Academy the school that never punts and always kicks an onside kick? That should be interesting. GAC is a C of C school like Lipscomb (tons of GAC graduates attend Lipscomb U) and a powerhouse program in Georgia, so that could become a great interstate rivalry.

The school district is Fayetteville City Schools, as opposed to Lincoln County Schools. Also, before the county high schools consolidated in the '70s, the biggest high school was located in town and was known as Fayetteville Central High School, or Central for short. Central became Central Junior High when LCHS was built. Fayetteville Junior High was the Fayetteville City Schools junior high in the same era and was known as City to differentiate it from Central. That building later became the City high school, and the nicknames (City and Tigers) stuck. The colors did change from orange and blue to orange and black, though.

Agree. I also don't buy the argument that the risk of injury is too high. It all comes down to LC for years not wanting to play out of spite and City not wanting to now that they have the advantage, similar to Texas refusing to play an SEC Texas A&M and then A&M deciding not to play when Texas saw the light. In both cases, it's hard for both sides to agree at the same time that a great rivalry should happen, rather than try to maintain a perceived current advantage. The City-LC game should happen in baseball and basketball, too, and there's even less reason not to make that happen since games across classes are so common. The City girls recently played and beat Shelbyville for goodness sake.

The thing is, the program has been on life support for about 15 years now. The crowds are just sad compared to the golden years, no one outside Lincoln County talks about them at all anymore, and really only the diehards in a Lincoln County still follow closely most years. There's not a long way further to fall, so I see this as a way to at least generate more interest in addition to being just a fun game. There's actually a strong argument City has more to lose. They're riding high, and many, probably most, think they're better than LC. If they lost, people might say they're only champions because they beat up on minnows. Fayetteville would probably beat LC comfortably right now, but that wouldn't always be the case. It'd effectively be a return to the old City-Central junior high rivalry, which was pretty evenly matched. LC would supplement the "Central kids" with the best from Flintville, Blanche, Unity, etc. now, so in the longer term their size and depth could win out many years.

Maybe over the course of the season, but not in that game. Very little impact other than an early interception when the receiver slipped and fell.

It's a shame that's not an annual game. The kids would love playing it, and the crowds would be bigger than anything seen in LC in the last 25 years other than the old timers game a few years ago. The game wouldn't count in region standings, so the only thing at risk would be the pride, mostly of administrators, old timers, and coaches.

TSSAA. Basically, the kid moved to Lincoln County but not to Fayetteville proper. Both Fayetteville City and Lincoln County schools are open zoned, so you can attend either regardless of whether you live in the city limits or not. So, based on that, City considered him to have moved into their school zone, and the TSSAA ruled him eligible. I don't know who was pushing them to keep looking at it, but on the third or fourth consideration they determined that he was not in fact eligible as a transfer to City from Alabama because no City bus ran by his house, which was apparently a relatively obscure eligibility bylaw. He would have been eligible at LCHS, as a County school bus did run by his house. Conversely, if he'd moved into the city limits, he'd have been ineligible for LCHS, which I doubt LCHS people would have realized either. TSSAA made the right call on the letter of the law, but it was arguable whether it was right to reverse a decision on a technicality after they'd previously ruled at least twice that he was eligible and he'd been playing in good faith. He was a decent player but by no means key, as the other QB was a far better overall athlete. They were undefeated in several games without him, and he transferred out this season as a rising senior as it apparently looked like he was going to be beaten out by a sophomore.

If I remember right, City was without about 8-10 key contributors when they played Gordonsville. Several were suspended after coming off the sidelines the previous week, and I believe the four that had transferred back to City from Lincoln County didn't become eligible until after that game.

Yeah, that could definitely happen moving forward, but so far it really hasn't been the case. Almost all of the City kids have been kids that grew up in City schools. Both City and County schools are open zoned, though, so it's not at all unusual for a City kid to grow up in a County school of vice versa, as long as they don't need to ride the bus. It's been that way for at least 40-50 years at the elementary and junior high/middle school level; it just carries over to high school now.

I'm sure others could give you a much longer version, but there had been some that had wanted a high school for the City schools for a long time. A long-time superintendent had been staunchly opposed, and there was never enough push from others to give it any traction. A decade back, there was a different school board and a different director of schools who were supporters of the idea, and it happened fairly fast. The argument I've heard is that a lot of the kids that the City schools serve were falling through the cracks once they got to the high school. Sports weren't a driving factor as far as I can tell, but I do remember talk they'd be a force in basketball (the old junior high basketball program was dominant in the region for decades) and football, as they were "playing 1A football with 5A talent." It took several years for that to happen in football in particular, though. Lincoln County stared sliding in the mid '90s, with a couple peaks again in the early 2000s. It appeared from the outside that the program got stale, and there were also other schools in their class that were getting far bigger. Fayeteville native O'Connor from Giles County High had agreed to come back to try to revive LCHS, but then he backed out when City announced its plans to open a high school. LCHS took a big hit in speed and athleticism when that happened, and it's become even bigger now that City's football program is good enough that no one is leaving after middle school to go to LCHS, which still happened some until really last year. Truth be told, if the schools were still merged LCHS would have a good chance at winning 5A next year, as they have a few very good players returning and would be the biggest school in that class. There was a lot of bad blood for years, particularly from the LCHS side and probably mostly from older administrators and boosters. I don't know if it's still the case, but for years LCHS refused to play City in any sport. That's a shame, as it'd be a fun game to watch and would draw huge crowds. It'd be like the old City v. Central (the former big County junior high) junior high rivalry on steroids. The kids and fans looked forward to those games all year.

All the folks claiming South Pitt had a huge talent advantage couldn't have been more wrong. Fayetteville was every bit as talented, maybe moreso, and at least in that game they looked considerably tougher. That wasn't a case of the better team blowing it by any means.

Now that one was solidly late. Not dirty late, but late.

That last one was a weak call. That hit couldn't have been more than a split second late.

Both are in together much of the time. It's more like changing QB and running a read option.

Those kids crew up at City schools, and they transferred back before the new MC coach and his boys arrived. All transfers on both sides were 100% legal. Both programs are clearly much improved in the last couple years. Looks like City returns more of its key contributors next season, but I'd expect MC to be back fighting for the top spot in future years as that was an impressive team.

MC TD. 3:27 remaining. 32-29 after conversion.

MC 1st down with 4:45 to go.

QB mishandled high snap. 4th and 1.

5:54. MC 3rd down and short on their own 34.

Still 32-21. False start, then offensive pass interference, then failed 2-point conversion from the 23.

Fayetteville 32-21 pending conversion. Drove it right through MC. Just under 7 remaining.

26-21 at the start of the 4th. Fayetteville has the ball 1st and 10 at about its own 25.