Pledgemaster

Any news on the injured player? I hate to hear this. Prayers offered.

Continued prayers.

Goodpasture is a good football team. #4 has elite speed. Big time football player.

Congratulations to Coach Williams and the TCA community. As stated throughout this thread, Dexter is fantastic coach, but an even better man.

DA is a great team. Great players. Extremely well coached. I'm glad to see them move up, but would love the chance to play them. They are fun to watch. Congratulations to the Bears on three in a row. That is something that is hard to do at any level. Good luck next year.

DA is as big, fast, and athletic as most teams as I've seen at all levels. Swinea is obviously a great player, but DA is far from a one trick pony. Great QB play and a punishing line. Jaylen Brockman is the best lineman I have seen all year. USJ has played well since the loss to DA in the regular season and has great players, too. I think this game will be much closer than the first game.

Great stadium.Very nice!

I hope that "clear up a little before game time" comes trues. There's some pretty significant rain out there right now.

IMO USJ had one of the best TE/H backs around in #24.

We'll worry about that in 2021. I don't know anything about reclassification and truthfully don't really care at this time. The discussion wasn't about two years from now.

Perhaps I'm being a homer, but I think next year will be a good one for USJ. Obviously, we are losing a lot of quality players, but I think we have players who are more than capable of replacing those who are leaving, which GTFan outlined well. DA will be stacked. NCS will be too. I think to pick us third in the region wouldn't be unreasonable. USJ returning to Cookeville is not out of the question. Indeed, a lot would have to go right for that to happen, but it is my opinion that USJ will be every bit as good next season.

The day has come. Getting ready to head to Tucker stadium for the big match up. Looking for a good game for both teams, but obviously hopeful for a USJ Bruin victory. The Bruin faithful are in Cookeville en masse, and am sure that the DA folks are too. Going to be a good one. Safe travels for those still en route and prayers for the teams to play injury-free.

Disappointing indeed, in all three facets of the game. Need to turn around quickly for FA next week. I agree that USJ is still in the mix.

I expect another good game. Hopefully, some positives will come out of last week's defeat for USJ. Again, the Bruins have to do a much better job of protecting the football.

I will be surprised if either team scores more than three touchdowns.

I was really impressed with #24 for Knoxville Catholic.

Odom and Shields on this game: These two along with Fayette Academy are the three undefeated teams in Division II-A West play. USJ has played well behind quarterback Andrew Smith, who stepped into the role after starter Cody Smith got hurt in Week 2. Nashville Christian is giving up 11.8 points per game, while USJ is giving up 8.2. Shields' pick: Nashville Christian 27, USJ 20 Odom's pick: Nashville Christian 35, USJ 31

Any gifts for those who can answer at least one of those “fun facts”?

I won’t comment on the initial part of this post, but I do want to say thank you for the nice word about Ben. Ben actually trained some with Joao this past summer. I’m looking forward to see what’s in store for TCA’s #10.

The fact that the school has produced the best track athlete in the state is something to be proud of. Kevin is a top notch athlete and a great young man. I am very new to USJ, but have quickly become very proud of the fact that my child goes to school there. If I’m being honest, I’m not a big fan of the students running to the TCA side and understand your being annoyed in the moment at that. However, as has been stated here before, a teacher/coach headed them off, stopped them, and sent them back to the appropriate place. While I am new to USj, I’m not new to high school athletics. I have seen less than sporting behavior from individuals at every school. I’m not sure why some of you seem to be so obsessed with anything that USJ does. This whole thread about a game you have nothing to do with is evidence of that. Im reminded of something I heard one time: “When you stand heads and shoulders above the rest, you make a bigger target.”

I don’t remember the USJ students running around a track. I remember them running around the concrete path at TCA, but never around a track. But, you can tell your “friend” that they didn’t attempt to do that to the CA fans.

I was an assistant coach on a public middle school team two years ago. Our only loss was to a strong, athletic, and well coached USJ team in OT. We played TCA the first game of the season. Our team (Northeast Middle) had 36 players and TCA had 13, as stated above. Those two teams had ZERO business playing each other. To cancel games because of numbers is completely understandable because ultimately, middle school football is about coaching kids to be prepared for high school. I have a difficult time trash talking about middle school football, and find it harder to look at middle school as a predictor of high school success. What Kublah said about middle school being about having a bigger, faster RB is spot on.

I didn’t witness anything that was out of the ordinary in the game, as far as “shenanigans” go. In my experience, any “chippy” behavior is a two way street. No one just stands back and takes it, just like no one keeps giving if the other person isn’t “playing along”. It’s a rivalry game. That stuff happens, but again, I didn’t see it.

Thanks! I appreciate the kind words. I doubt it seriously, but who knows what Coach Hardegree has planned on special teams. As a freshman, Ben couldn't consistently kick touchbacks, so the onside kicks were a necessity to keep from kicking to Davis. I look forward to a good game on Friday.