Knoxville West @ Powell

[RunninRebels]

Shattuck is fine! Ambulance was precautionary.

[osunut2]

Shattuck is fine! Ambulance was precautionary.

Awesome news!

[rodnation1]

Shattuck is fine! Ambulance was precautionary.

what happen to the BIG GUY?

[pepvol]

Congrats to Powell , let's bring some Gold Footballs back to the East !

[FootballDad]

CONGRATULATIONS to the Panthers!! So proud of you guys. I wish last years team could have made it this far, but I am very happy for this years class of seniors as well. From John Tarlton fields to Cookeville baby, what a journey. Hope you win it all

[PowellPantherFan]

Panther D was incredible. Mobley played his butt off. What a great win for the Panthers. I thought that Powell defensive front just had an unbelievable game. 90 and 54 both played well at defensive tackle. 22 and 2 had some big, BIG hits on the QB for West. It was a great all around effort. All that talk from the West faithful....looks like it was your boys who were shocked. Sure looked like they didn't know what to do with that defense from Powell. Great job, boys. Lets go finish what you started when you were 8 years old.

[powellbaldeagle]

Shattuck is fine! Ambulance was precautionary.

 

Great news! Glad he is fine.

[osunut2]

All that talk from the West faithful....looks like it was your boys who were shocked. Sure looked like they didn't know what to do with that defense from Powell.

Just another day at the office for Powell. They have had a TON of billboard material the past month or so from people in the Knoxville area saying that they just aren't good enough. Leading up to the West game, I actually didn't think there were very many West fans trashing Powell. Most of that garbage came from other followers. Hopefully those same people will give them credit where credit is due, including the Knoxville media, who completely focused on West's defense and their takeaways all week, while ignoring the fact that Powell's defense put up nearly identical numbers during the regular season.

 

Let's hope that all of East TN can get behind Knoxville's representative in the 5A title game against a very very tough Henry County team.

[PowellPantherFan]

Any info on what Henry County is running offensively and defensively OSU?

[osunut2]

Any info on what Henry County is running offensively and defensively OSU?

I haven't seen their exact stats/depth chart just yet, but here is why I do know about the Patriots.

 

HC has a very powerful offense. They have a very good senior tailback in Shaquille Allen (5-9 230) who has rushed for about 1,500 yards this season, along side a great dual-threat QB in Najee Ray, who has thrown for about 750 yards and rushed for almost 1,400 yards this year. Ray reminds me of former Panther Kier Houston - not a huge guy (5-11 160), but he has a good arm and he can really move. What really makes this team so potent on offense is their offensive line, led by Vandy commit Andrew Jelks at tackle (6-6 260).

 

HC also sports a dominant defense. They only give up about 10 points per game, and haven't give up more than 17 in a game all season (against Beech back in August).

 

The knock on the Patriots is that they haven't played a very tough schedule (similar to Powell), but this team is the real deal. They've blown every opponent out, except for an excellent Ridgeway team (24-14 win 2 weeks ago). At the beginning of the season, HC was my preseason pick to win the title, and they have definitely lived up to their billing. Neither the Patriots nor the Panthers have ever won a state title, so this will be a great opportunity for both teams.

[PhatCat]

I was very disappointed in Coach Scott Cummings' comments in the Knoxville News Sentinel. He gave no credit at all to Powell for hitting his team right in the mouth. The Panthers defense completely man-handeled West the entire game and all Cummings could come up with was "they were barking at us trying to draw us off sides". Even he said he knew it sounded like he was whining! Wow....your team had a great season, playing in arguably the toughest region in high school football, and you are going to come up with that crappy excuse for the newspaper? Somebody needs to get Cummings a PR person....this is not the first time he has opened his mouth and crap came out. Give credit where credit is due!

 

Congratulations to the West players on a very successful season!

[PowellFan]

"Our kids kept telling us that their kids were barking out noises to draw us off all night," Cummings said. "I know that sounds like us whining. But there's no way after 14 games that we're that bad to have that many false starts all of a sudden."

 

Well they did have that many...Honestly west didnt look mentally prepared the first half of the game.