Signal Mountain HS Eagles

[catsbackr]

Chattanooga radio station Talk Radio 102.3 interviewed new football Coach Bill Price this evening. Coach Price said that Signal Mountain will be a Class A school, playing only a JV and/or 9th grade schedule next year. He already has line up 8 games for next fall.

 

And guess who one of his new assistants will be?

 

Former Red Bank and Soddy Daisy head coach....Tom Weathers!

 

A pretty good start to a coaching staff I guess.

[SCtribe]

Wow, thats a pretty good assistant. This team will be a power within 4 years maybe even 3. If they are 1A I guess that would put them in the region with South Pitt, Lookout Valley, Temple etc. Right?

[zonepirate]

Wow, thats a pretty good assistant. This team will be a power within 4 years maybe even 3. If they are 1A I guess that would put them in the region with South Pitt, Lookout Valley, Temple etc. Right?

 

 

Yes, but with their future enrollment they won't stay 1A long. They will only play a JV schedule next year. They are expecting 450 students in middle school this year and are only planning on having grades 6-11 in 2008 and add the 12 grade in 2009. Max school capacity is 1250 kids 6-12 so they should make 2A in short order when they start moving kids up through the lower grades. That would put them in with Tyner, Jasper, Seq Co, Bledsoe and Boyd

[Indian]

I hope it's not another Walker Valley type situation where they have a significantly higher enrollment than their classification should allow, after the first year (WV played AA in basketball, baseball, softball, 3A football with about 1200 students for a year or two, had big success in all of them, not so much since moving to AAA and 4A). There have been some suggestions on here the same thing happened with Stone in Crossville but I'm less familiar with that situation. The TSSAA hasn't done a good job on enrollment projections for new schools in the past few years, maybe they will get it right on this one.

[SCtribe]

Will they wait until the next reallignment year comes along or will the TSSAA automatically move them up the following year if their enrollment is to high for 1A? How does the TSSAA handle this?

[catsbackr]

Signal Mountain will be 1-A until 2010. The TSSAA won't move them until the next realignment year comes.

[SCtribe]

Thats what I was thinking. This is good news for Signal Mt. Within 3 years Signal Mt. could have enough enrollment numbers to be bumped up to 3A (Hypothetically). That means for one year they will have a huge advantage over other 1A teams who constantly stay within the requirements of 1A. I hope the enrollment over there doesnt get to big. I'd say the ritsy people up on the mountain will try to keep it down for as long as they can by enforcing zone laws...that is unless they play football. /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

[zonepirate]

Signal Mountain will be 1-A until 2010. The TSSAA won't move them until the next realignment year comes.

 

 

I assume they will play a varsity schedule in 2009? That will really make the region crowded. We only have 3 non-region games as it is. We scrimmaged the Signal Mtn Jr High in the summer of 2006 so I know they have some good young athletes. With the coaching staff they are bring in and the 2A enrollment hopefully they will provide competition comparable to the 2A non-region game we would have to drop (Tyner or Boyd) to add another region game.

[Indian]

There has been talk of some in the county wanting students bused up to the mountain to increase diversity at the new school, that would probably increase numbers if it happens. I want to say I read there will be about 350 this fall in 9-11, and I'd guess freshmen will be a large portion of that since most wouldn't want to change schools after completing ninth grade. Unless they go by projected enrollment in future years, they'll be 1A for a couple of years with maybe 125-150 freshmen coming in each school year, well over the usual cutoff.

 

I've also seen discussion of the multiplier being tossed out, that would probably put another start-up in 1A, Chattanooga Christian, and Boyd-Buchanan might choose to go back to 1A. With that many teams there would probably be two Chattanooga area regions in 1A.