ObserverW

1 minute ago, fooseball95 said:

No team in the history of tssaa wrestling has ever been top 25 in the country, so I guess every team in Tennessee wrestling history has sucked and been a failure. U are a true definition of a hater lol. 

Thanks for your input Foolsballs.  I think its a bit extreme though you are correct, there are some teams in Tennessee that, in fact, do suck and are a complete failure, but not all.  

Tennessee has work to do to catch up to many parts of the Northeast and we're making positive steps in that direction but again, you guys need to look out of the cave sometime.  I think Hamm's rankings have too many at Cleveland sitting on the couch patting themselves on the back for their paper championship.  It won't be long now until the results are in and some are going to be mighty disappointed.  I wish Cleveland luck but I have to agree with the silent majority that Cleveland is not the best tournament team in AAA.  

4 hours ago, DaBears1976 said:

You live such a sad and miserable life. Why try to bash a team for no reason? Jealous much? Cleveland on your mind that much? 

10 hours ago, topperpride11 said:

I don't think the sarcasm is necessary. 

You all are so sensitive.  You can talk crap but want to run and hide behind your mom when someone reciprocates.  You all are the ones who have built the Cleveland team up to be world beaters, I've heard quotes that this might be the best team ever in Tennessee, all 14 wrestlers will place, etc. etc. etc.  I'm just giving you a little perspective.   You live in a bubble, pop your head out and look around for a moment.  

I just found the national high school team rankings on Flo and it seems there is a glaring omission or maybe a simple typo.  Cleveland is missing.  What gives?

14 minutes ago, DaBears1976 said:

You all are a good team. Just not Cleveland good. Individual is gonna be a lot harder than you want to think it is gonna be. We know you're a big SH homer. That's a good thing, but beginning to think you really don't know just how stacked that Cleveland team is. Not taking anything away from SH. Most likely will finish 2nd in both states coming up. This Cleveland team could most likely have every kid on that starting roster place this year. If not winning most of them. SH is going to have to have one heck of a roster to compete with that. And that, they do not. 

I think Cleveland made a statement today and it is that they are the best dual team in the state.  However, I think DaBears is smoking the wacky weed if he truly believes they will place everyone on their roster.  That statement is no less than absurd.  This Cleveland team doesn't really even compare to your own Bradley team from two seasons ago who placed 8 or 9.  I don't see Cleveland placing more than six and that might be optimistic.  

Wilson Central also made a statement that they will be part of the process in Franklin.

My last question:  DaBears, since when did you become the eternal Cleveland optimist?  Your bears are down this year and you want to jump on the Raider wagon so you can roll with a winner?  Let me guess, you are also a New England Patriots fan?

Remember were talking about individual tournament here. Not duals. So PF tournament will be irrelevant. 

And you Region 4 boys better start being nicer and less sarcastic. My voters don't take kindly. We will remove Soddy quicker than you can snap you fingers.  Actually they were the legacy vote champion this season so it gave them a bonus in the power rankings. 

I feel like my old buddy Artis has the Team Poll covered.  Being the respected authority on Tennessee wrestling that I know I am, I feel like its my duty to cover the other side of the rankings in a more appropriate manner than is currently being accomplished.  Therefore, I have assembled an all star list of highly respected coaches, press members, AAU dads, hospitality moms, general pundits, unqualified wrestling officials, and Facebook voters to publish the first OW Top Ten Poll.  The maximum power ranking is 100.

Now in its 3rd day of existence, the Poll is primarily a measure of individual tournament strength with no consideration for dual team achievements.  (Also only includes AAA teams because as we all know, no one cares about the A/AA and privates need someone more sophisticated than me to do their poll.)

1. Science Hill  - 90

2. Cleveland - 89

3. Bradley - 80

4. Wilson Central - 61

5. Blackman - 58

6. Soddy Daisy - 57

7. Beech - 39

8. Halls - 37

9. Arlington - 22

10. East Hamilton - 19

Also receiving votes:  Heritage, Rossview, Mt. Juliet

I'm beginning to question the validity of these rankings.  138 has had two kids ranked from Summit for a while now.  Are they that good that they get two ranked kids? 

138
1. Cody Matthews (Cleveland)
2. Daniel Bradford (Blackman)
3. Nathan Porter (Summit)
4. Job Dooley (Franklin)
5. Luke Story (Science Hill)
6. Cole Klingensmith (Summit)

Brown is not at 138 for Halls.  Its Ian Morgan who has beaten #6 Frye.

Burns is at 138 not 132.

Wysong at 132 is not eligible this season.

Matthews  #1 at 138?  HA!

Horst #1 and Borders #6 even with Borders win over Horst?

Mann hasn't been at 113, hes wrestling 126

Harter hasn't been at 152 all season, hes 160/170

Whiteside #4 at 145? Based on?

Wilson #1 at 160?

5 hours ago, KingGreene said:

Hope to see Christian get to the finals and see how a match between him and Trent Knight would go! That would be a good one! 

A couple other good possible matchups I noticed: 

Teaster (HER) vs Weist (MJ)

Buckman (HAL) vs Gibson (BC)- Rematch

Also found it interesting that Kyle Burns was #6 seed. Must be a lot of talent in that 138lb bracket. 

Looks like Teaster might have been looking ahead to this match and Jalen Brown proved that was not a wise choice.

Blackman leading the team score.  Heritage is way behind in 6th and also was not in top 10 at the US Army Classic in Kingsport last week.  Is Heritage overrated?

Artis-I know we are boys and all now so I feel obligated to offer some friend to friend advice.  Stop the shameless begging in an attempt to fill your closet.  Someone told me you plan to give the swag as Christmas gifts.  Surely this can't be true.

Artus- Thanks for the shoutout and for finally showing some love to my Tigers.  Memphis area is strong this year!  And its time to pull the plug on Beech and get Blackman in the rankings.  You need to whip your harem into shape and get this going.

58 minutes ago, salterjd said:

I wasn't there, but I do not think Noah overlooked anyone. Noah ended up in the hospital last night after the match. I hope he has a speedy recovery and we get to see these twooutstanding young men go at it again.  

Was the Clarksville match where he beat Isbell 10-5 before or after the loss to Borders and subsequent trip to the hospital?

46 minutes ago, werazzlin said:

Wilson Central is very underrated at this time. 

HAHA  You don't say.

Good to hear from you again Artis.  I feel like you might be on this mark this season with your early poll, except for the legacy vote for Soddy.  Soddy doesn't deserve that spot and they certainly are not ahead of Halls.  Take a loot a Blackman and Mt. Juliet, I think they are more deserving of a top 12 vote. 

In no particular order:

Greenbrier

Pigeon Forge

Greenville

Page

Alcoa

Gibbs

Forrest

Notre Dame

Red Bank

Harpeth

22 hours ago, ArtusCimber said:

Thanks for all the encouragement. There aren't too many things more fun than talking about wrestling.

Don't forget to send me some swag if you want me to represent your team. Hats, toboggans, XXL Ts, hoodies, etc. 

email me at tanneran18@gmail.com and I'll send you my address.

 

Aris, my old pal, are you serious about this?  A bit shameless don't you think?  If we get you some Tiger swag will you really wear it?

I just had a conversation with a coach of a top ten team. He told me he is not opposed to putting out a line up, he feels that any good coach has done their homework anyway so putting it on Coacht won't make a difference. He said he thinks the reasoning is most coaches try to avoid Coacht to avoid the drama!  Hahaha. Drama?? On Coacht?  I guess we will see if that holds true, who will be the first to post a lineup? 

6 hours ago, durdon said:

McCallie encourages their highly developed MS wrestlers to travel and wrestle nationally instead of wrestling for the McCallie MS team.  You will see most of them wrestling for the Minions or HCB at all the major National Duals and entered into all the major national tournaments like super32, Dixie, Philo, Tulsa, Liberty etc..  

Also, a large percentage of the MCCallie varsity wrestlers will enter McCallie as freshman or 8th graders wrestling HS so they are not at McCallie for MS Wrestling. 

This year, McCallie picked up 3 Varsity wrestlers who enrolled as 9th graders, 2 varsity wrestlers who were at McCallie for MS who only wrestled nationally and will pick up one 8th grader who will wrestle nationally until he joins the HS varsity team after Christmas. None of those 6 varsity kids wrestled for the McCallie MS season. 

And just FYI, If all the rising  8th and 9th grade kids from this current upcoming class that have currently applied and committed to enroll at McCallie next year actually show up on campus next fall then McCallie will have a completely different lineup next year and it could be one of the best this state has seen in a long time.

Sounds like a lot of excuses to me Mr. Durdon.  BB did exactly what they were asked to do. They beat the team the McCallie put on the mat in front of them.  

33 minutes ago, KingGreene said:

This is so true! Every year there is another team that is close and many think will overthrow the Chatt area team. However, the top team out of Region 4 is always the team that comes out on top. Cleveland has been there. Bradley has been there. Soddy has been there. Until proven otherwise, they are the teams to go through for a state championship. 

This year Cleveland is the "Team to beat". They've proven themselves and been at the top before. I believe that Beech has a chance to overtake them and I believe that we have the tools to do so as well. However, it's silly to say we are a "clear front runner"....It will take a lot of work to get our team to a place that we have never been before. It's new territory for our program. I definitely believe that we are the underdogs in this situation, as we should be. But I also believe it's an obtainable task. We are going to push our kids to shoot for that state title, get better throughout the season and bring the best dual team we can into Franklin in February. And by that time I think we will be a very tough team to beat. But so will Cleveland, Beech, and many others.

I don't think there is any clear front runner this year, but it sure is nice to have The Hill in the talk! 

This is a post that would sound great in the newspaper but I'm reading between the lines and here is what I gather.  You say Cleveland is the team to beat and you are the underdog.  Yet five sentences later you say there is not a clear front runner.   I understand coaches being modest and not creating a target on their own back BUT I don't think you can have it both ways.  Either you say Cleveland is the front runner or you say its up for grabs and vote on yourself.  

I was taken to task last year for stating the obvious that Science Hill & Soddy were one of the few teams that always received the legacy vote because they were supposed to be considered one of the front runners.  Early on last year they were picked to be at the top of the heap and unfortunately neither was top 10.  This year, I think SH actually has the firepower to be considered a clear front runner and it seems that you don't want to carry that torch.  

Soddy on the other hand, doesn't seem to have it this year either.  

I'm really surprised CobraBoy hasn't come on and said it depends on whether you are talking about the individual or dual tournament.  Because duals are all that matter and maybe those old 106's would show up then.  The young kids would probably throw out their medals from individuals or use it as a door stop.  Right Cobra??

Just now, werazzlin said:

Sandbagging???? What was i sandbagging about?

I think you have a few others on your roster that will be contenders.  Maybe "being modest" is the better term, rather than sandbagging.  

Hey folks, have you missed me?  Sorry about the absence, I've been focused on my son playing football, but since that is hopefully wrapping up soon let get into some numbers!

I went through the unscientific listing by Werazzlin and added up the number of wrestlers listed for each school.  I think the results were a bit surprising.  And I have to give it to my ole buddy ArtisClipper, his Hilltoppers have made the top of the list.

SH - 10

Clev - 7

BC - 6

WC - 6

Beech - 5

Indy - 4

Arlington - 4

Black - 4

TN - 3

Summit - 3

Halls - 3

MJ - 3

Heritage - 3

SD - 2

WBlount - 2

My commentary is as follows, I believe Mr. Roberts to be sandbagging his listing a slight amount so I think Beech is higher on the list.  Much to the dismay of many, BC has not fallen off the list as everyone predicted.  WC and Black were my two biggest head scratchers.

When I created my first list I said that Bradley would be out of the Top 10.  Partly to create a discussion and partly as wishful thinking that maybe my team didn't have to end up facing them at duals.  After some further reflection and talking with others I believe the hype around the demise of Bradley is highly exaggerated.  Even losing the fire power that they did, Bradley will remain a top competitor and I'm saying a top 5 individual finish and top 4 at duals.  The consensus seems to be that Cleveland, Beech, and Science Hill are the front runners this year.  I believe there might be a little hype there as well, especially since all three have been in the conversation for the past three years and only Cleveland has been able to go home with a trophy.   Bradley, Tennessee, Wilson, Arlington, Mt. Juliet, Indy, Halls will all be there to make it interesting.  DaChamps is simply trying to deflect the attention away from BC so they can hand out an under the radar butt whooping.

Bottom line, don't count out Bradley Co. until the last whistle blows in Franklin.  

17 hours ago, hawks11 said:

There's been a lot of good discussions about 106. How are some of the other weight classes looking, and who are we thinking those favorites are? I know it might be early, but I'm curious where it is looking like kids are going to end up at. I'm sure a lot of kids have grown over the summer. 

Arlington will have a few that will be in contention for medals:

Michael Cannon - 113 (returning medalist)

Harrison Phillips - 145 (returning medalist)

Dalton Cockman - 152

Austin Antcliffe - 170

Jack Lewis - 182

20 minutes ago, durdon said:

Most years the 106 big school champion including last year has been previous years TNAAU state champion usually the 100p chsmpion..  TJ was the exception to that for 2 years.   Braxton has a ton of national experience, and had done well nationally.  He placed 3rd at TOC.  He is a kid that has never cut at all either.  He will be one of the favorites at 106 this year..  I was talking to several coaches not from East TN yesterday at the Super32 qualifier in Ga and we were talking about different weights this year and they all said that Braxton will make the finals at 6 this year.  6 is pretty wide open this year, and there not a lot of returning guys at that weight.   Who do u think will be on the medal stand if not Braxton.  

While not scientific, I've done a small study.  There were 17 middle school state champs who graduated to HS last season.  Of those 17, three placed.  Noah Horst was probably the most heralded MS wrestlers to come out of the TN system up to that point.  Garrett Bowers was pretty close.   Mann didn't even win his Region last year and he was a DNP at one of the Top 100--not sure that's in the same league with Horst or Bowers.   I would say that if he has a shot at a medal then its only at 106 and as I mentioned before, because the people at the Georgia S32 qualifier said so. 

Mann will have to go through some of the following wrestlers who might end up back at 106.  

Te'Nario Thomas, East Hamilton who was about 4 seconds from beating Horst

Chandler Davis, Walker Valley

Christian Isbell, Clarksville who only lost to the other finalist

Gabe OCallahan, Barlett 

Cal Rogers, Tullahoma

Tyler McKeefery, Farragut who was in the finals of the GA S32 qualifier yesterday.

Just now, durdon said:

Most years the 106 big school champion including last year has been previous years TNAAU state champion usually the 100p chsmpion..  TJ was the exception to that for 2 years.   Braxton has a ton of national experience, and had done well nationally.  He placed 3rd at TOC.  He is a kid that has never cut at all either.  He will be one of the favorites at 106 this year..  I was talking to several coaches not from East TN yesterday at the Super32 qualifier in Ga and we were talking about different weights this year and they all said that Braxton will make the finals at 6 this year.  6 is pretty wide open this year, and there not a lot of returning guys at that weight.   Who do u think will be on the medal stand if not Braxton.  

Ok I guess it is settled then, especially since people at the GA S32 qualifier said so.  I'll go with you, Mann to the 106 finals.