BlueDevil58

You don't have to limit the squad size. I think some states do limit it, but most don't because the 8 man teams are probably already going to have low numbers. Some 8 man teams play JV and even Frehsman schedules in other states. There are over 100 schools in Texas who play 8 man. You don't even need equal size divisions. Michigan has about 30 teams statewide who participate in their 8 man division, most of whom were bottom feeders in the smallest class in earlier times. Games are a lot more competitive. There's more travel because the fewer teams are spread out, but the travel costs are offset by the savings on equipment and the savings on gas from using short busses to travel.

Good luck to Coach Bennett. He'll be an improvement over what they've had but he's got his work cut out for him.

That's better than what I heard, then. I 'm glad to stand corrected. What I'd heard was that the AD knew GS from a class they had together, so as soon as he found out the job was opening up, he called up GS and offered him the job without an interview. I've also heard that GS found out about the opening from Graham Clark. It's probably best to just let that one rest. I heard that Carr had applied for it and will probably be leaving now since he didn't get it. He's the favorite to get the Unaka job. Again, I wish GS and DC the best, but this will be a rougher transition than a lot of people realize.

What I've heard, and this is second hand so maybe it is BS, is that a few of the assistants on staff with more coaching experience wanted the job but never were given a shot. GS didn't even have to apply for the job: the AD went to him and offered it to him before it was even open. They had interviews for show, but GS was going to get it all along. Again, none of the coaches have told me this themselves, but it makes sense they'd be put off by that sort of thing after working hard there for years.

How do you know? Bosken and the previous staff worked their tails off there to build Crockett up into what it became, but that was still a sub .500 football team over the past 3 years.

If you had 6 or 8 man ball, you'd have more teams in the pot, which means more teams per class, because teams who can't field a team now would then be able to start one up because it's much, much cheaper and you need a lot fewer players. You could have a 40 or 50 team 8 man class, consisting of schools of all sizes who opt in, as well as start-up programs from tiny, non-football schools like Clinch, then four or five higher divisions of 60-80 teams each. The bottom line is that enrollment doesn't always correlate with success, but it also doesn't correlate with roster sizes because of distance and cultural factors that schools can't control. There are some small schools that dominate and there are some big schools who struggle to get 25 kids out and get run out of the stadium every night. 8 man would give the schools who can't get the numbers up an option to compete with other schools that have the same issue while letting the others keep playing traditional 11 man football. If anything, the higher classes could be stronger because a lot of the creampuffs would opt to play 8 man instead of being the district patsy. Combine Div. II into a single classification. Have a 6 or 8 man class for the schools of all sizes who choose it, including privates. Play the rest of the publics into 4-5 classes, divided more or less evenly by enrollment. That's actually one less championship for the T$$AA, though, so they'd squash that idea. Looks like fans hate the idea, though, which is why it's not going to fly anytime soon. It's different, but it's not "flag football," it wouldn't necessarily water things down by creating a whole extra class, and it's not for teams who are can and do compete in 11 man ball successfully. Lots of good players and great HS football tradition have come out of 8 man ball (and 6 man ball) in the Midwest. You mean to tell me this: or this: Wouldn't be fun to watch?

Another round of interviews is being scheduled for next week. No word on who they're bringing in.

How so? He's retired from the NFL, so he should have all the time in the world to put into football. Sounds like he's approaching this as a hobby instead of a career. I do know that the remaining assistants at Crockett were alienated by how this went down.

That's insane. Any idea what's wrong there? In situations like that, it's usually not the coaches or the players that are the problem.

Or they could stay in 1A based on enrollment and play 8 man (or even 6 man). Give schools the option of 8 man or 11 man, then have a class at the bottom for 8 man and 4-5 classes, divided evenly, for 11 man football. If we did 6 or 8 man football, it would open up football to all the basketball-only schools who can't even dream of fielding an 11 man team year in and year out. That would be good for the game and dramatically expand the number of programs in the state, making reclassification more equitable. You could even open the 8 man class up as an option for larger schools that struggle to keep numbers up and compete where they're at, like Union County. No team who's successful in 11 man would want to move down because fans think it's weird.

I know that Carr did, and a couple of other young coaches also interviewed but I haven't heard names. I hear they may have interviewed Adam Bolling separately, too, but he wasn't there yesterday--he's the interim coach right now and is handling the weightlifting. My source could not deny that Brock Pittman might've been brought in... Most coaches in Carter County feel like Unaka's a lost cause and a "coach killer" job, so they didn't get much interest from within the system at all, despite some of the things I heard earlier. A few of the candidates they tried to bring in for interviews removed their names from consideration when they found out about the pay.

I wish they would offer it. It's the way to go for 1A, I believe. Even 6 man or 9 man would be good. The 3 fewer players really does make a big difference. That's 2 linemen and 1 less skill guy you need to worry about putting out there, or 27% fewer players overall. It also helps open up space on the field. A team with 24 kids on the roster will struggle just to field a team in 11 man football, but in 8 man that's like having 32 kids, which is doable. It's just easier and cheaper to put together. The TSSAA doesn't offer it because they don't feel it's viable (read: less gate money for them) and even most of the small schools would rather play 11 man because we don't have that tradition here and people don't think it's "real football." I believe we will see a push for it in the next 10 years as participation in football drops and expenses go up. There are some 8 man teams in Tennessee, but they play as independents or as part of other associations. Most of them are privates or home school associations. Tri-Cities Christian began as an 8 man program, then went to 11 man before they folded up shop a year ago. The established 8 man teams we have are almost all based around Nashville and Memphis. The "championships" these schools compete for are jokes, though. You've never heard of the leagues they play in, where they compete against what are basically HS-aged Pop Warner teams in a Travel Ball version of football. Their "playoffs" are money rackets more than anything else.

That rule is rarely actually enforced by the TSSAA. If it is, they'll just pay the $500 fine and move on. The only time you ever see it matter is if a teacher files a union grievance over qualified teachers being excluded from the job and those rarely go anywhere. They are making a special "Work Readiness Specialist" position for Sensabaugh to get him in the building. There are literally no job duties or certifications associated with this position, so your guess on what he's actually supposed to be doing as good as mine. To me, it looks like he'll get paid $10 an hour just to hang out around during school hours. I wish him the best, but my prediction is that he gets a rude awakening on what it means to be a HS coach at a rural county school and will be gone within 3 years. It wouldn't surprise me to see him resign after a year.

The fact that we're talking about coaches "in the hot seat" in regards to HS football is crazy. This isn't the SEC, where assistants get paid millions of bucks and it's all about talking those 5 star recruits with 4.4 speed to come to your school and play for you to prepare for their NFL careers. Most coaches are teachers who get paid a few thousand bucks extra to pull 80-100 hour work weeks with assistant coaches they don't get to hire coaching up average teenage kids they don't get to recruit. The coaching pay works out to well below minimum wage when you add up all the hours they put into that on top of teaching. Unfortunately, that's the reality of how things are done now. Maryville's new coach is automatically in the hot seat for not being George Quarles. That's how messed up this line of thinking is.

Interviews were yesterday. I think they brought in 4 finalists. I called up the former TN High assistant who put in for it. He said his interview went well and they seemed to like a lot of the things he said about getting kids out and stressing academics and discipline, too, but he's not sure if they want him. His goal is to recruit like crazy to get 40 kids out at Unaka and have them competing with Cloudland for the conference championship within a few years. Of the candidates that leaked my way, I think he's the best fit after talking with him about it. He wants it badly and has experience helping rebuild small schools up from nothing before. The pay makes the job unattractive. Carter County has probably the lowest teaching salary in the area and the stipend is only about $2500 for a head coach. An assistant coach who teaches in any of the surrounding systems is going to be taking a sizeable pay cut to work much longer hours. That turned off a lot of people who applied. They also don't have any spots to bring in other teachers to work as assistant coaches, so whoever they get is going to have to do it all by himself. They're supposed to announce who it is in 2 weeks.

What is wrong with Whitwell? Why can't they keep a coach? Even when they win, they run the coach off within 2-3 years. This will make 9 coaches in 18 years. That's insane!

My source is now telling me it'll be Carr, too, but he's been wrong in the past so I'm not sure how much faith I have in him anymore. He said they've not done any interviews yet, but all along he's said that interviews would just be a formality and they're going to pick who they want based on connections behind the scenes. Again... he's not been very reliable through the whole process, though. Weeks ago, he swore up and down they had someone in the system picked out and ready to go. What they want is someone who's young and charismatic to get kids out to play. Those are the main things. Carr might fit that bill, but there are some questions about whether he's ready to be a head coach or to take on the kind of rebuilding project that Unaka's got ahead of it. In digging a little bit, here's what I've found out on Derek Carr. He just turned 27. He played RB at Elizabethton and graduated in '09. He's only got a few years of experience as a coach and I think that's all been at Crockett. He's been at Crockett all 3 years under Bosken as the WR coach and is really close with him. He was never at Sweetwater, to my knowledge, and I used to know the coaches at Sweetwater. He definitely was not a coordinator there. He works as an Instructional Assistant at one of the elementary schools in Washington Co. and has never been a teacher--may not even have a degree, which works against him. The TSSAA says that you need to have 5 years of coaching experience or be a certified teacher in order to be a head coach and I don't know if he has either. However, Unaka currently has an opening for a part time Distance Learning proctor who doesn't need to be a teacher, so they could get him in the building. Bosken gave all of his full-time assistant coaches some kind of "coordinator" title at Crockett to make them look better. Carr shared the title of "Co-Offensive Coordinator" along with another assistant coach, but David Crockett is a Tony Franklin System team who paid about $3000 a year to be told how to practice and run their offense and Bosken still called the plays in games, so I don't know that the "Co-Offensive Coordinator" means anything. It sounds like a meaningless title to me and I don't know what you can tell about him being "offensive minded" from that. From what I'm hearing, he was basically just a WR coach. He's got some real strengths. He gets along great with kids and they like him. He's charismatic and energetic. He works hard. He'd recruit the halls to get kids out. However, some people I've talked to tell me that he thinks he knows a lot more about football than he does. One person I talked to who's coached with him said that he's a good guy, makes a good impression when you talk to him, and knows how to draw up plays on a board, but he would be in way over his head as a head coach and doesn't have a clue about how to teach blocking or defense, which have been two of the biggest problems at Unaka the past few years. He's also not a disciplinarian at all. Still, he's not the worst they could do. He'd definitely be an improvement over Pink. Just getting a guy in there who's willing to work and who kids want to play for would be big. I hear there's another assistant from Crockett who wants it, too, but I don't know who. I think that guy's also not a teacher. All in all, my source tells me that over a dozen people have put in for this job. The only one I know personally is the ex-TN High assistant and I think he'd be a great hire now after talking with him about it.

Peyton Manning is an NFL Hall of Famer and one of the most popular professional athletes in America. That would be like Michael Jordan calling up to be basketball coach. It's in a whole other level than what's being talked about here. The former NFL player in question had as solid career and was a good athlete, but he's not Peyton Manning. He doesn't have that kind of name recognition or prestige. Coaching and playing are two different skill sets. What if Nick Saban quit coaching to go into the construction business. Would being a good coach and having successful experience managing a team in a different field mean he's the best guy to show up the next day to add a room onto your house or remodel your kitchen? These kinds of hires are typically made by people who don't really understand football, but are dazzled by the mystique of the pro athlete and think he's going to bring some kind of magic with him. It's not like hiring a coach who played in the NFL is suddenly going to make your team as athletic or as dedicated as he was. It also doesn't mean he understands the game beyond what is own position was doing on his own teams in his career. I'm not saying the guy will fail if he's given the job. I wish him success and I hear nothing but good things about him as a man. But he would have a lot to do in order to be successful that he hasn't done yet. It's not that he can't do it. It's that just being a great athlete doesn't mean he can handle all the fundraising, organization, management, discipline, and teaching that goes with being a high school coach. History shows that when teams hire former NFL players with no experience (that's the key--no coaching experience!) to take over a team based on their playing days, the results can be mixed.

Nope. Even if they promote the ballboy to Quarles' old job, that program is so good from top to bottom that it would take at least 2-3 years to see that kind of decline. There's Maryville, then there's everyone else east of Nashville. People forget that Tim Hammontree won state there the year before Quarles took over. Quarles didn't put Maryville back on the map, he just kept it there for nearly 2 decades of dominance.

What did the guy from Crockett do there? How young is he, anyway? People talk like just a kid with barely any experience. I know nothing about him, but everything on here sounds extremely positive. The guy from TN High has been around a few different places. He's been a coordinator on both sides and really knows the game inside and out, plus he's a hard worker and he treats kids the right way. I can vouch that he would be a good one for them over on the creek if he gets it. I know him personally and talked to him about the job after seeing him described on this thread. He's being humble, but he really wants it badly, too, and has a big master plan laid out for how he'd turn it around if he gets it. The kids would like him. A lot of people feel that Pittman got a raw deal at Cloudland due to politics and he has some friends in the system there. He's likely going to be a finalist, too. I don't know him, but his record up there wasn't bad and there's not a lot of experienced head coaches who've put in, AFAIK. There's chatter that someone related to the Ensors might want the job, too. No idea who, but those kind of family connections probably have some pull. They say a Dobyns Bennett alum who recently retired from the NFL is looking to get into coaching in the area. He's the favorite to get the job at Crockett, but I hear he may have put in at Unaka, too. It'd be hard for them to turn him away if he wants it. Anybody else hearing names? The big thing that makes it hard for Unaka is matching the coach with the teaching opening at such a small school. Pink's PE job is attractive to a lot of good coaches, though.

I'm not bashing Bosken at all. I think he did a great job of turning that program around and I think he's a heck of a coach. I've said as much on here before a bunch of times. Coach Bosken deserves all the credit in the world for that and I'll be the first one to say it. I've said on here several times in this thread that he's going to be hard to replace. At the same time, complaining about stuff in the paper that's just a routine part of coaching and firing your assistants left and right (he had a new defensive coordinator every single year at Crockett) isn't very professional behavior, nor is taking shots at the administration to the local news on your way out. Good man or not, that does not reflect well on him. I'm not bashing a coach who hasn't started, either. If they're going to hand it to a guy with almost zero coaching experience because he was a great athlete himself, that's their decision and I wish him the best, because he seems like a good man. However, I think there are valid questions with a guy like that. That's not "bashing" him. That's saying "he needs to do these things but doesn't have experience doing them." I've not said anything to actually criticize the guy. As for applying to the job opening, no I didn't. I don't want it. That's going to be a hard place to walk into now as a head coach for several reasons and I'll leave it at that.

I know the former TN High assistant you're referring to. He's really smart and has a good work ethic, but I don't know if he's charismatic enough to get kids out and get them fired up. He likes to pound the rock and kids don't want to play like that anymore. Good man and a good coach, though, and he's worked in tougher places than Unaka before so he knows how it is up on the creek. I don't know who else has put in, since my source is apparently wrong about the job already being promised, but if he's interested he'd definitely be an improvement over what they've had.

Floor scrubbing, washing uniforms, and the other grunt work is part of being a HS football coach at 95%+ of schools. He likely wouldn't have had to do all that by himself if he hadn't kept alienating his assistants and running them off the way most people change socks. But that's Bosken and how he chose to do it. Will GS do that, or all the fundraising, etc? That remains to be seen. Crockett's a typical county school program in a lot of ways--not much worse than what you'll see at plenty of the other county HS in the area. Their facilities need upgrading, but with all the fundraising that they did under Bosken, instead of paying Tony Franklin thousands of dollars every year to run his offense or taking the players to football camp, they could have likely done some of those themselves.

I doubt that. Quarles was very close friends with the new HC at Furman going back to their college days. This wasn't a Gus Malzahn situation.

Well, if he's not a certified teacher, the TSSAA says he needs 5 years of coaching experience to be a head coach in football. If he doesn't have it, that's a violation. He sounds like a great guy to have on staff... but also a very, very risky hire as head coach or even coordinator since you're taking a guy who has been a great athlete but handing him a lot of administrative and teaching responsibilities he's never had before. Sure, he used to run a 4.4 and played on an NFL team, but does he know how to teach a freshman offensive lineman how to block or how to relate to kids and keep them out? Does he know how to set up the schemes just right on both sides of the ball so they have the answers the team needs, but aren't so complicated they confuse the kids? How's he going to handle discipline when his best players act entitled and skip weights or practice? How's he going to handle all the paperwork and fundraising and administrative stuff? How's he going to assemble and keep a quality coaching staff--one of Bosken's shortcomings at Crockett? Those are the things a Head Coach has to do. In the NFL, they don't really teach fundamentals. They draft or sign guys who are supposed to already have them and then it's just scheme, scheme, scheme every week to get the right matchups and keep from getting beat. That's why they flip out over small things like whether a QB knows how to take a snap under center or whether a guy can switch from DE to OLB. In high school, it's the opposite. You take your best athletes and teach them the game. Can he do that? Schools do this sometimes and it's always hit or miss. If this man gets the Crockett job, I wish him the best of luck, as he seems like a great guy and will probably become a great coach one day. He sounds like the kind of hire that Washington Co. would want to make right now. But if what you listed above is true, there are a lot of questions due to his lack of experience and it could go very, very badly.