VictorTheViking

How is this thread still going? I talked to a former Tennessee High assistant coach who's put in for the job at Unaka. He's fairly young and a really bright guy and a class act. He coached the freshmen last year and did a good job, especially with the linemen. A lot of those kids started for the varsity this year as sophomores and that never happens at THS. I watched him scheme things up against a really good Science Hill team in a freshman game that had their defense mystified. He's a good one. Kind of quiet, though. Not a fiery guy.

Somebody's got to be on the bottom of the standings, too. We need to remember that when we're bleeding hearts about schools who can't win. The reasons the same schools suck year after year are usually things that a change in classifications isn't going to fix. It's the opposite of the same reasons that the same schools are dominant every year. Maryville is the smallest school in 6A and should, by enrollment, be a 5A school. Is there some magic dirt in Maryville that miraculously makes kids a contender when other schools have a lot more big time athletes... or is it something else behind the scenes? Personally, I think the TSSAA should switch to 8 man ball for 1A schools, since you've got some with 170 kids playing schools 2.5 times their size with about 400. I also think that letting a team petition to drop down a classification due to a consistent inability to be competitive where their enrollment puts them is a good idea. But it won't fix the problems that schools like Union County have. I know people in Union County. They just plain don't value football there. The system is horribly crooked and only hires family members, none of whom care about football. There's no feeder system because no one wants to build one. No coaching staff because the school doesn't want to hire and support one. No kids on the team because none of them want to play. Instead of supporting coaches, the administration looks for reasons to throw coaches under the bus and fire them. Kids who are good and want to play football go elsewhere and you can't blame them. How would changing classifications fix all that?

http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/Sports/2016/09/12/UC-s-White-resigns-as-football-coach-Rice-steps-in.html Looks like politics kicked in.

http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/Sports/2016/09/12/UC-s-White-resigns-as-football-coach-Rice-steps-in.html Read: We were going to fire him at midseason but we let him resign so the superintendent's buddy could be the new coach.

Coach White had been there for many years, is well liked by the community, stayed loyal and stuck around as an assistant when he got passed over for the head job a few times, and his team is 2-2, which isn't that bad compared to where Unicoi traditionally is, but he just resigned this morning effective immediately. What the heck happened? Was it really just that awful loss to Happy Valley a few days ago or us there more to it? I can see a coach getting burned out on dealing with the B.S. that's kept UC a basement dweller in football for years, but for UC to be replacing a HC during the season for the 2nd time in 3 years, it's just crazy! It's not like White didn't know what he signed on for when he took the job permanently less than 2 years ago. I know politics in Erwin are always shady. Is there something more to the story? I hope his health is ok.

Greenback by 35. Jellico is still a joke. They're 3-0 with a VERY soft schedule and they're terrible up front on both sides. They'll be lucky to go 5-5 and finish 5th. Anyone who thinks they might win state, or even make the playoffs, is blowing smoke.

Tri Cities Christian has folded up. They forfeited their season due to low numbers and the entire school may be closing after a big backer was indicted for embezzling taxpayer money to give to them. Their coach has left and started another independent program at a different private school. As for this plan... I actually like it, but the "overflow" needs to go to the smallest class or be divided equally among all 6. There's not as big a gap between 150 and 400 kids as there is between 1300 and 2500+. I can't remember the exact number of teams in the TSSAA playing football or how many are public/how many are private, but I'm pretty sure it's significantly more than 288 publics (48X6=288). I think the number would be somewhere just over 300. I don't feel like the classes necessarily need to be perfectly equal in number, but 48 in 8 districts is a good start. The Super 32 was a joke this year. It's got a team playing in the title game who should have been 5A and the other team in the 6A championship got beaten by a 5A team who was eliminated in the playoffs.

They don't let schools just choose to play down on their own. They can play up, but not down. There is a school that should be 6A by enrollment playing down because Maryvillle wanted to play up from 5A. That meant they traded out the smallest school, who gladly accepted. I forget who it is, but I don't think they dominated this year. I hate the idea of an entire class of schools that puts everyone in the playoffs. If you want 6 classes, that's fine, but do some cut off that makes sense besides "the 32 biggest schools." I like 6 classes a lot better than 5, personally, but Super 32 is stupid. Either divide schools into 6 equal classes or make up some arbitrary cut off, like 1400+ is 6A, 1000-1400 is 5A, etc. where there are more schools in some classes than others.. Have some more teams in there, divide them into 8 regions instead of 4, and then make the class even. The travel expenses are stupid, but it is nice to see teams like Dobyns Bennett and Science Hill no longer get to dominate a bunch of much smaller, poorer schools. And, for the record, private schools need to be completely separated. None of this "multiplier" BS for Grace Christian, CAK, and other schools. Put them all in D-II.

Let's see... Greeneville has won state recently and it hasn't been that long ago since Hampton took home a gold ball. A lot of teams from the Knoxville area (like Maryville, Fulton, Knox West) won it last year. Coalfield played for state in 1A last year... Now, once you get east of Morristown, Greeneville's the only one from the region to win state recently, mostly because of those buzzsaws in Maryville, Fulton, Knox West, Alcoa, and CAK that just destroy everyone. That's not a coaching issue as much as it is about talent and school size: our region only has 2 6A schools (3 if you count Jeff County, who won state titles in the 80s). NETN is full of slow white kids with a 2% black population--mediocre black athletes at the handful of schools who have them shred NETN competition week in and week out.. In Knoxville, those numbers go up substantially, as does the number of college talent. Tri Cities and NETN schools just don't produce that. It's not on the coaches: it's demographics.

Rumor I heard from someone in the know is that Daniels was going to be moving out of the AD spot after this year and GC would retire from coaching to take over as AD. At least, that was the plan a few weeks ago. Shawn Witten and Stacy Carter both want the D-B job. Witten's had his eyes on it for a while. He turned down Oak Ridge last year to stay in the area and wait on D-B.

I know for a fact that very few kids who are zoned for Central play for THS. I'm not sure about South or D-B, but I doubt it's that many. South, North, and East are all pretty good right now, with North and South consistently solid. It's so weird to me. They were decent 20 years ago, then they became a laughing stock. I know why other schools in this area stay down, but Central shouldn't be this bad year in and year out.

For years, they said they couldn't win because everybody they played was so much bigger. Now they're in a conference with schools about their size and they're probably still going to go 0-10 after getting blown out by Volunteer. What gives? Is it coaching? Talent? Something in the water? I remember that Central used to be pretty decent in the 80s and 90s, then they fell apart. Why can't they get it going if all the other Sullivan County schools are decent football teams?