BlueDevil58

You'd think it would be a solid job, but it's not. The administration there is not supportive of football, fans and parents are crazy and throw coaches under the bus at every turn, and the top athletes typically transfer to Mo. West because it's been traditionally been a powerhouse. The last several East coaches were absolutely miserable in the job. With Mo. West being down at the moment, that might change things a little over the next couple of years, but East has traditionally struggled to win more than 5-7 games and that was when they had a supportive administration. The principal who's been there for years now is a real jerk to work for and is very hard on teachers and coaches. He's not going anywhere. If you factor in the big new private school that's about to open and siphon talent from both Morristown schools, there are some major red flags with this job.

They used to be under the old Super 32 system, but in the new 6 class system they were just over the cutoff for 6A by about 160 kids.

You're right. The cutoff for 6A in Texas is 2190. We actually have 9 schools who'd fall into that category. D-B, Science Hill, and the schools you mentioned would fit according to the TSSAA figures from 2018. I had thought D-B was down to about 2000 or so, but I was wrong. I really like how Texas does their classification system, actually. I wish the TSSAA would look at it and learn some things. The UIL, which is the closest thing that Texas has to the TSSAA, has the following classes: 6A: over 2190 (this would only be those 9 schools in TN, but Texas has 142 in this class) 5A Div. 1: 1840-2189 (this is the bulk of Tennessee's 6A) 5A Div 2.: 1150-1839 (this is the bulk of Tennessee's 5A) 4A Div 1: 790-1149 (Greeneville, most 4A schools, and the smaller 5A would be here) 4A Div 2: 505-789 (this is most 3A schools in TN) 3A Div 1: 335-504 (this is the larger 1A schools in TN and most 2A) 3A Div 2: 225-334 (this is the majority of Tennessee's 1A class) 2A Div 1: 161.5-224 (these are the smaller of Tennesee's 1A football class) 2A Div 2: 105-161.4 (I think this catches all the 1A football schools in Tennessee) 1A Div 1: 55.5-104.9 (6 man football!--we don't have that in Tennessee) 1A Div 2: 55 and under (6 man football, too) Tennessee just doesn't have enough HS to support a classication system like that, but what I like about is that the numbers are drawn sensibly. Rather than just dividing the enrollment list into even 6ths and lumping schools into conferences with opponents who are 2 and sometimes even 3 times their size in 1A and 6A, class 4A and below vary from 69 schools to 105 and 5A Div. 1 and 2 have 127 and 125, respectively, to go with the 142 in the largest class.

Texas is apples and oranges compared to TN. They have 4 times the people and football is considered a religion there among communities in those Texas towns. It's always been more popular there than it ever has been in Tennessee. Texas has 6 classes, with the bottom 5 divided into 2 divisions each so it's really an 11 class system. This encourages competitiveness and even matchups, but Tennessee doesn't have enough football schools to do that. The top classification starts at over 2100 and the biggest schools have over 3,000 kids. Tennessee only has like a few schools that size. At those schools, it's normal to pay the head coaches over $100k a year just to coach and run a weightlifting class. Maryville or Dobyns-Bennett would be considered a 5A school in Texas. I've talked to Texas coaches whose entire staffs were given paid substitutes for SPRING football, so the coaches could concentrate on that. The big time schools there play in stadiums that would outshine some in major college football. You have nothing like that in Tennessee. The feeder systems there start at age 5 with everything from Pee Wee flag football through Middle School under the direction and control of the varsity head football coach. Kids practice football year-round and summer 7 on 7 leagues are a huge deal there and have been for years. They're relatively new to Tennessee. The smallest class in Texas plays 6 man football, which helps them field teams with low numbers. I think 6 man would be great for 1A schools in Tennessee but everybody here thinks that's crazy talk. In 2012, Tennessee made a deal with the Federal Government to double down on standardized test scores. Our schools have become test factories now and this has pushed athletics out in many places. Pep rallies have become non-existent or extremely limited in most places. Same goes for weight lifting classes, athletic periods, hiring or retaining teachers who coach sports, etc. A lot of principals are now hostile to athletics because they feel it takes attention away from test scores. After 6+ years of this, you can really see how that has eroded HS athletics statewide, especially in football. Texas never bought into that crap. As far as the calibre of football... a lot of what you see is the product of the stuff mentioned above, but I think your buddy was also falling into usual Texas BS. Texas HS football is different. It's almost all spread out there and has been for 20 years. That doesn't make it necessarily better, though. Greeneville plays "Texas-style" football, but Oakland and Maryville would have hung with the other schools their size playing a different style. Texans often overrate how good everything is about Texas because they want to turn everything into some kind of p!$$ing contest.

I've heard rumors that Kingsport is trying to lure Ballard to come there as a coordinator. For him, it would be a significant raise over what he was making at Greeneville for a lot less stress. I have no idea if there are is any truth to those rumors, though. Joey Christian is a good man and a good coach who is beloved by the people at D-B, but he also has a lot of heat on him after last season. The rumor goes that he'd turn the offense over to Ballard to run as he sees fit while Christian concentrates on managing and rebuilding the program. D-B has high expectations, but I don't see them firing Coach Christian after a single bad year. I posted about this in a Greeneville thread on the 4A board and the Greeneville fans scoffed, but I don't think those people realize how much better the pay would be in Kingsport and how D-B could easily exceed any "perks" he was getting in Greeneville. His combined teaching and coaching salary alone would go up by a minimum of $12k a year and they have other ways of bumping his pay further, like putting him in a cushy administrative job. He's been highly successful, but people don't get just how refreshing a lot of head coaches find it to get to step down and focus on coordinating or just coaching a position. As head coach, you don't actually get to coach the players and do the stuff that makes it fun, so much as you turn into an administrator and manager who's constantly fundraising, schmoozing boosters, handling discipline, filling out mountains of paperwork, etc. It's a grind and it burns guys out. Almost every single head football coach I know misses the carefree days of being an assistant once they get the big job. I'm not sure if Ballard feels that way, but doing all that he had to do in Greeneville to maintain that level of excellence had to be exhausting year after year. The thing is, if you're a coach, you still want to coach. The drive to coach doesn't just die when you leave a job, and here Kingsport can come calling with a big stack of cash and a cushy, less stressful gig that gives him more free time... Again, these rumors could all be smoke, but I've heard them from several different people who have close ties to the Kingsport central office and the D-B Athletic Dept. We'll see what happens.

Coaches have a saying: "Don't be the guy who follows the legend. Be the guy who follows the guy who follows the legend." He's got a tough act to follow, but Greeneville should be in good hands. This is exactly the kind of move I called them making. They should just keep running right along without missing a beat.

First off, I'm not dogging Baugh. I just think he's been underwhelming in his opportunity at Cherokee. Mike Sivert was there for over 30 years and finished with a record over .500, consistently won 6+ games, went to the semis a couple of times. Under Sivert, Cherokee was consistently tough, physical, and hard to beat even in a down year. It's not like Baugh took a job at North Greene or Volunteer or some other football black hole that didn't have the ability to compete. I'm just pointing out that since Baugh took over at Cherokee, they've underachieved even as the whole conference has been a little down. They have committed the cardinal sin in football: they've gotten soft. Basically, every position on that team except for QBs and maybe WRs has regressed and they've only won 6 games in the last 2.5 years. He's got connections at Greeneville and is a good coach, but do you want to hand a championship program to that guy? As for Ballard, I actually do know what he was making at Greeneville as Head Coach ($7300/yr on top of his teaching salary) and I know what Kingsport would pay for him to be an assistant there ($5300/yr on top of a teaching salary that would increase by about $14k over what Greeneville paid him). So if Ballard were to go to Dobyns-Bennett, he would be making at least an extra $1,000 a month with cheaper insurance and a lot fewer headaches/more time to spend with his family. Head coach is a big job, especially to keep things moving on a championship level and do all the stuff that's expected of a championship coach in a place like Greeneville. I don't think you realize how much of a grind that was for Ballard and if you knew many head coaches, you'd realize how many of them would gladly trade the title and responsibility for a raise and less stress. Now that his son has graduated and he's accomplished everything he could ever want to accomplish there, it's not as crazy as you might think. Again, I'm not saying he's definitely going to Kingsport, just that I've heard there've been feelers sent out. Kingsport has always liked to lure successful NETN/SWVA head coaches away and they've done it several times in the past.

Actually, this is incorrect. Tee was "Co-Offensive Coordinator" from 2016-2017, a title he shared with Ty Helton (Clay Helton's brother). Ty Helton called the plays. Tee coached the WRs and had some input into gameplans and practice plan, but had little authority on game day. Ty Helton left USC to come to UT and become the Offensive Coordinator there. When Ty left, Tee was promoted to being the sole OC with playcalling duties going into the 2018 season. Last year, 2018, was the ONLY TIME IN HIS ENTIRE CAREER that Tee called plays in a game, a duty that was stripped from him at midseason after a 4-4 start due to poor offensive performance. He also had that embarrassing postgame interview where he was probably just tired after a loss, but came off as dumbfounded and clueless. The line on Tee Martin as a coach is this: He's not much of an OC, but a good position coach (especially WRs) and one of the best recruiters in the whole nation. He's also not particularly sentimental about Knoxville, so I don't know how long he and his family will be here. If someone else offers him more money (like we just did) he's out.

Tee had accepted a job at Louisville. He had other programs lining up for his services because he's a great recruiter, but nobody wanted him as OC. He's back at UT because we offered him more money than the rest. We will probably be able to keep doing that for a few years, at least. Nobody's going to make him OC unless they just want him there for recruiting purposes.

My bad. I don't know how I got 28 losses. Trying to multi-task got me in trouble. The point stands, though. Do you hand a 2 time state champion to a favorite son with a Derek Dooley-type record as HC? 12-19 in 3 years, and 6-18 since halfway through his first year? I just don't see them doing that. I think they promote from within. If they do go outside, they hire someone with a lot of success and a name. Hiring from within might leave a few assistants on staff jealous, but hiring an outsider might royally upset the apple card and alienate them all. I've heard rumors that Ballard is going to go to Dobyns-Bennett as an assistant now for less responsibility and a big raise. We'll see if there's any truth to that.

You're right, but Baugh's been 6-28 since then with a record that's gotten worse each progressive year. He started out 6-1, then finished that season 0-4. Then he went 5-5 and missed the playoffs. Then he went 1-9 this past season. Every position on the field except for QB has regressed pretty badly at Cherokee since he took over and that's troubling. More than one coach who faced Cherokee this year told me they couldn't understand why they were so bad, especially on defense. They had talent, but played soft. Very, very soft. Those are harsh words, but I'm not really knocking him. I think he's a fine QB coach and OC when he has more talent than the other team and great assistant coaches all around him. But he also left Greeneville and they're coming of back-to-back state championships. Do you really believe that two former head football coaches, Steve Starnes and Pat Fraley, are going to hand the keys to that dynasty over to a guy who's career's been going in reverse for the past 2 and a half years? They're either going to promote from within (obvious choice) or try to get some big name (maybe a young college coach or someone with rings from elsewhere--maybe Bryan Rosser from Knox Central) to come in and keep the gold balls coming. The only thing that will work against them is that the job doesn't pay nearly as well as other elite football schools or even as much as Dobyns-Bennett and Science Hill. If Baugh wants to come back as OC, he'd probably be welcome, but that would be a big pay cut from what he's making as the head guy at Cherokee and I don't know if he'd want to do it.

The Director of Schools who hired him at Cherokee is now the Director of Schools in Greeneville. Stranger things have happened, though I'd expect them to promote from within due to all their success. Baugh's teams at Cherokee haven't even lived up to the standard that Mike Sivert set there for years. I halfway expect Jeremy Bosken to apply for it. I know he just landed a plum gig a few weeks ago, but GHS the kind of place where he could walk in and win a championship and he knows it. He's not afraid to jump ship when he sees greener grass.

Better to have a coach doing that job than some administrator who's never coached before. In most states, the Head Football Coach is almost always the AD and nobody bats an eye.

Is this the same Troy Flemming who was winless in 3 years as a Head Coach at Concord Christian and led the program to be completely dissolved? Being a great athlete and football player does not automatically make you a great coach. People need to realize this. Gerald Sensabaugh at David Crockett was a prime example a couple of years ago.

New school pushed back by another year due to delays. Opening in 2020 at the earliest.

Bosken already burned his bridges at Halls that quickly, huh?

Do you know that Cov. 1 is played on about 60% of all NFL snaps now and has been for a while? I think those QBs can throw and those OLs are pretty good. As teams run more RPOs, defenses run a lot more Cov. 1 so zone defenders aren't pulled out of position.

I guess all this stuff comes down to this: Old fashioned offenses (like the Wing T, triple option, I formation, etc.) are all about team offense. Everyone is working together to concentrate strength in one particular place on any given play. Spread offenses are more about speed in space and individual matchup. If you've got the dudes to win those matchups, you're going to shred people. If they have the dudes to win those matchups, like Alcoa and other schools do, you're going to be in trouble. Tempo is a different thing. A slow tempo shortens the game by milking the clock and running fewer plays. A fast tempo lengthens it by creating more snaps. Basic probability says that the more talented athletes *should* win the majority of matchups against less talented players, so if you've got more talent and you go up tempo, you're in good shape. If you've got less talent, you're on the wrong side of that equation.

You accuse people on here of not knowing anything about football, but you really don't get how the Wing-T or any of these other offenses actually work, do you? If you think they're just "lin(ing) up and ground a pound" a team without any thought process behind it, you're mistaken. Those teams put defenders in conflict and use plays in series, too. Heck, they INVENTED those ideas. You can even run RPOs in those offenses. Waggle is the original RPO When you try spreading out against a team with better athletes in space, do you know what happens? They play man coverage, take your spread receivers out of the game with their better athletes shutting your guys down, and then make you run at 7 in the box from 4 wide. They stuff those runs easily, go up by a few scores on you, and then they just pin their ears back and get after your QB when he tries to pass. Pretty soon you've had some fumbles and INTs and now you're getting blown out before the 1st quarter is even over and you still have 3 quarters left. And guess what: going up-tempo doesn't fix that at all because you can't even get positive yards consistently enough to get a 1st down. All you're doing then is getting your own 3 and outs over with quicker, so your own defense goes right back on the field and gets ran over. They're the ones with their tongues hanging out. You don't even get some advantage from keeping it simple, because that defense doesn't need to sub or do anything fancy to beat you. They just line up in their base defense and beat you up physically in all those 1 on 1 matchups. Meanwhile, defensively, instead of having to defend 40-50 plays, now you've got to defend about 60-70. The opponent gets about 30% more chances to score ON YOU. Plus if you're spread all the time, you do see some issues in practice with preparing for more smashmouth offenses. You try teaching a LB how to stuff an Iso play when you don't use a FB. Anyway, go coach for a while and go all spread, all the time with less talent. See how far that gets you. It's become an amplifier, not an equalizer, because EVERYONE runs the spread. From a defensive perspective, facing a spread offense now is no different from facing a Wing-T or I formation offense in the 90s, because everybody is a spread team now and half of them don't know what the heck they're doing.

But everything you just wrote can apply to Wing-T, Single Wing, or option, too. You can run spread sets and throw the ball in the Wing-T or anything else, too. I don't think it's possible to scheme around having a bad OL. I see teams think "we'll just run spread and then we don't need to block anybody!" I don't think I've ever seen that work. When teams try to do that, you get Sullivan Central or Union County before Kerr took over and started going under center and running the ball. I'm talking years without winning a single game, being a joke to every team on the schedule. There is nothing more demoralizing to your own football team than trying to run a spread offense with no QB. All you do then is turn the ball over, have bad shotgun snaps, or keep stopping the clock with incomplete passes because the only choice is to run the ball at 7 in the box from 4 wide. Bad teams used to get beat 35-14. Now they get embarrassed 70-06 every week because they're spreading the field. All it takes is 1 or 2 games like that to ruin football for a school for years. As far as preparing players for college offenses, that's the college coaches' job. That's no different than NFL coaches whining about how spread offenses don't prepare players for their level. Since when did the possible success of 1-2 kids on the team a few years down the road matter more than the success of them all this season?

Because that's mostly just what coaches know now and it's what parents, boosters, ADs, and kids expect, so that's who gets the head coach jobs. Anything else is looked down upon as "youth offense." The really bad schools always think that they don't have the talent up front to win, or they think they need to run some flashy offense to get athletes out, they wind up just making things worse. Another problem is if coaches know spread and pro-style stuff... those offenses have a certain set of answers, techniques, and drills they need to do in practice to teach that stuff and it takes a few years to really learn that inside and out. Those little details are the difference between 4 wins a year vs. 8+. If coaches want to "run what fits our talent this year," all that stuff goes out the window and they start from scratch every year. If you're radically changing every year... you're going to only be mediocre unless you just catch lightning in a bottle with a stud or two who simply need to be turned loose. Not many kids like that in NET. I'm old enough to remember when Mike Nelson and Stacey Carter first brought "the spread" on the scene in NET, first at Sullivan East and then to Sullivan South and Science Hill. They absolutely torched people at first with Sullivan East's talent because Carter knew how to coach QBs better than other coaches in NET, plus NET defenses really had no clue how to defend it. Now... that's what everyone does. I think Chuckey Doak runs Wing-T. They used to suck, but after they started running the Wing-T a few years ago they became decently competitive. Sullivan North was godawful for a while, but then Robbie Norris took over and installed the Double Wing and they started making deep playoff runs again with it.

Coaches are well aware of the fact that, no matter how much you win, people will always gripe about whatever you're doing, especially if you're doing something that's "unfashionable." There are legendary coaches in other states who win state titles regularly who have been run off for running veer, Wing-T, single wing, or even the I formation. Meanwhile, a lot of fans just want to see the ball in the air. If a coach runs the Wing-T and goes 3-7 for a couple of years in a row, that coach will likely be fired. If he finishes 3-7 throwing the ball around, they'll probably keep him around for a while. Two of the most dominant HS programs in the nation , De La Salle in CA and Bellevue in Washington, are old fashioned Split Back Veer and Wing-T offenses, respectively, and they roll over everybody like they're made out of tissue paper... but that doesn't stop people in the peanut gallery from griping that they're not running a more "modern" offense and demanding changes. Same goes for other top national HS programs like Smith Center in Kansas (who ran a unique wishbone until a few years ago), Apopka in FL (single wing and is the Maryville of Florida, basically), and JT Curtis in LA (who are also veer). Don Markham, the inventor of the Double Wing offense, was one of the most successful HS coaches of all time, with a ton of amazing turnarounds and national records at multiple schools in multiple states--I mean the guy made a career out of taking over perennial doormats who were 1-9 or 0-10 and going undefeated with a gold ball and state or national scoring records in his first year on the job... but he never stayed at any HS for longer than 3-4 years because of all the griping about how the offense wasn't good enough. You see this on the college level, too. Years ago, Nebraska got tired of winning only 10-11 games a year running that "outdated" option offense, so they fired their coach and brought in a succession of pro-style and spread coaches to throw the ball to mediocrity. A lot of HS coaches have realized that they can still get away with running an old fashioned offense if they can figure out a way to make it work from the shotgun so it looks "modern." Go under center, and the Wing-T, I formation, or triple option is outdated. Back the QB up 4 yards with a bubble screen every now and then and all of a sudden you're a genius. It really is that simple... if they can make it work. Heck, I've talked to coaches in other states who run the Single Wing and get away with it by calling it "Power Shotgun." Give me success over style points, any day. No matter how you score, a TD is still only worth 6 points. Honestly, I think a lot of the truly terrible teams out there trying to run spread offenses would be a lot better off going under center and grinding it out so they at least kill some clock, stop turning the ball over, and don't get humiliated 50-7 every week. Also, with everyone trying to run "the spread" now, being that one team on the schedule who does something different and punches you in the mouth on every play can be a huge advantage.

I've talked to some people from up there. Apparently they just don't care about football at all. The principal is trying to use the opening as an incentive to hire a good Math teacher. They aren't going to advertise it on any statewide football boards because they don't want someone who'd care more about football than Math test scores. My sources say the basketball coach has been killing the football team by telling kids and parents that if they play any other sport, they'll get hurt and miss out on a basketball scholarship. They also say that the principal there won't hire any decent assistant coaches to help their football team, either. They just hire somebody's buddy whether they know football or not. The feeder system almost doesn't exist. The basketball coach thing makes a lot of sense. Jellico used to be pretty good in football until he got there. Ever since then the best athletes don't come out.

I never understood why they're always so bad. They have athletes and some talent and they're usually pretty good in basketball. What gives? They were decent for a couple of years, then their coach left. Now they're looking for like their 4th or 5th coach in a year. What the heck is going on up there?

Stockton, just when I thought you'd said the stupidest thing ever, you keep talking. Stop embarrassing yourself. It's over. Your team got exposed for what they were all along. Go eat a big ole helping of crow. I hear it'll help cleanse the pallet before Thanksgiving dinner.