Oak Ridge 2014

[GladiatorJ]

Apparently I'm not. That's quite a statement you made and I would love to know your answer.

Not sure why it's quite a statement. Different coaches have different styles. Lots of coaches are successful lots of different ways. The style of football Maryville uses to win is not the same style of football that OR uses to win. Not that hard to understand.

[OR nole]

I would love to have a Jalen Hurd at Oak Ridge. Teams with players like that have a much greater chance of success. True. We do not have a player like that. It is not as if the Cats lack talent. Just lack the burner. There is something to be said for building an offense around the personnel available. I'm not quite ready to give up the dream yet. I think some people will be surprised how good the defense will be. The Cats will score more than enough points to make a big run. I still think they are one year away, but you never can tell.

[catswild]

Not sure why it's quite a statement. Different coaches have different styles. Lots of coaches are successful lots of different ways. The style of football Maryville uses to win is not the same style of football that OR uses to win. Not that hard to understand.

Your explanation makes perfect sense and I agree with you. I may have just misunderstood what you were saying the first time you said it.

[catswild]

I would love to have a Jalen Hurd at Oak Ridge. Teams with players like that have a much greater chance of success. True. We do not have a player like that. It is not as if the Cats lack talent. Just lack the burner. There is something to be said for building an offense around the personnel available. I'm not quite ready to give up the dream yet. I think some people will be surprised how good the defense will be. The Cats will score more than enough points to make a big run. I still think they are one year away, but you never can tell.

I haven't given up at all and your comment about building an offense around the personnel on hand is spot on. Looking ahead I think the best year may be 2016. That's when the current freshmen will be seniors and the current 7th graders will be sophomores.

[SweetScience]

if our team is strong and cannot block it doesn't matter if we have Hurd or Carl Lewis or whoever. Don't get me wrong speed is great, but lack of it at an elite level can be overcome at this level with great conditioning, excellent strength programs which will get you the blocking you need, and excellent coaching. Someone brought up West's speed earlier. West lost to a team with less speed then them in the finals, in my opinion in Henry County. Their is more to winning football then kids who can all run 4.4 40's. Anybody remember Leonard Scott from UT? How far did his elite speed get him in his career at UT?

[catswild]

if our team is strong and cannot block it doesn't matter if we have Hurd or Carl Lewis or whoever. Don't get me wrong speed is great, but lack of it at an elite level can be overcome at this level with great conditioning, excellent strength programs which will get you the blocking you need, and excellent coaching. Someone brought up West's speed earlier. West lost to a team with less speed then them in the finals, in my opinion in Henry County. Their is more to winning football then kids who can all run 4.4 40's. Anybody remember Leonard Scott from UT? How far did his elite speed get him in his career at UT?

We will never agree on this issue. Sure, you can find some guys who have great speed but were busts as football players. But why do Saban, Meyer, Jones, Spurrier, Malzahn, Fisher, Shaw, Peterson, Briles, Miles, Stoops, Strong, Richt, Swinney, .......and the list goes on...why do these guys ALL recruit the fastest guys in the nation? Do they not remember Leonard Scott?

[bladerunner]

if our team is strong and cannot block it doesn't matter if we have Hurd or Carl Lewis or whoever. Don't get me wrong speed is great, but lack of it at an elite level can be overcome at this level with great conditioning, excellent strength programs which will get you the blocking you need, and excellent coaching. Someone brought up West's speed earlier. West lost to a team with less speed then them in the finals, in my opinion in Henry County. Their is more to winning football then kids who can all run 4.4 40's. Anybody remember Leonard Scott from UT? How far did his elite speed get him in his career at UT?

I will ans that Sweet. It got Leonard Scott Nowhere.. And we have had many conv about a kid that we used to have that was fast as heck.. But it did not matter 

[SweetScience]

I will ans that Sweet. It got Leonard Scott Nowhere.. And we have had many conv about a kid that we used to have that was fast as heck.. But it did not matter 

Perfect example. He was the fastest kid we have probably ever had at the RB position, if not ever. Wasn't that great of a back, at all. Like i said without blocking it matters zero who is back there. I'm more concerned if we are gonna be able to block then i am if we have a guy with breakaway speed, personally. And this isn't the SEC we are talking about Catswild. It's HS football @ OR. Look at Anderson County last year. Campbell County, Farragut, but we lost to every one of them. Why is that? Simply because they blocked us and were stronger then us up front and executed better then us. The case can easily be made that we had superior speed to every one of those teams. I would definitely venture to say we had better speed then the 2 teams i first mentioned. It all starts up front and without a great line a back that runs a 3.8 40 wont have any room to run. Lets fix what we can actually fix right now and that's our OL.

Edited March 7, 2014 by SweetScience

[catswild]

Perfect example. He was the fastest kid we have probably ever had at the RB position, if not ever. Wasn't that great of a back, at all. Like i said without blocking it matters zero who is back there. I'm more concerned if we are gonna be able to block then i am if we have a guy with breakaway speed, personally. And this isn't the SEC we are talking about Catswild. It's HS football @ OR. Look at Anderson County last year. Campbell County, Farragut, but we lost to every one of them. Why is that? Simply because they blocked us and were stronger then us up front and executed better then us. The case can easily be made that we had superior speed to every one of those teams. I would definitely venture to say we had better speed then the 2 teams i first mentioned. It all starts up front and without a great line a back that runs a 3.8 40 wont have any room to run. Lets fix what we can actually fix right now and that's our OL.

 

LEONARD SCOTT...LEONARD SCOTT...LEONARD SCOTT!!!!!!!  Thanks for telling me that OR isn't in the SEC...I didn't know that. What I do know is this....Anderson County had a back that went the distance against us...and so did Farragut!!!!

Edited March 7, 2014 by catswild

[catswild]

Perfect example. He was the fastest kid we have probably ever had at the RB position, if not ever. Wasn't that great of a back, at all. Like i said without blocking it matters zero who is back there. I'm more concerned if we are gonna be able to block then i am if we have a guy with breakaway speed, personally. And this isn't the SEC we are talking about Catswild. It's HS football @ OR. Look at Anderson County last year. Campbell County, Farragut, but we lost to every one of them. Why is that? Simply because they blocked us and were stronger then us up front and executed better then us. The case can easily be made that we had superior speed to every one of those teams. I would definitely venture to say we had better speed then the 2 teams i first mentioned. It all starts up front and without a great line a back that runs a 3.8 40 wont have any room to run. Lets fix what we can actually fix right now and that's our OL.

We do agree on fixing the OL though....COMMON GROUND!!!!!!!!!!

[GladiatorJ]

LEONARD SCOTT...LEONARD SCOTT...LEONARD SCOTT!!!!!!!  Thanks for telling me that OR isn't in the SEC...I didn't know that. What I do know is this....Anderson County had a back that went the distance against us...and so did Farragut!!!!

That's not because their back had breakaway speed...it was because the entire team they were playing against was SLOW!!

[SweetScience]

Yeah AC did have a guy that went the distance, but he also got ran down pretty easily by Brandon Bonds the 2nd time he got loose or may have been the 1st. The long TD he had everybody was up on the line of scrimmage and once he got past that first wave their was nobody else there.(over pursuit big time) I could've waltzed into the endzone on that one. Let me use some clarification here..I understand speed is a very integral and important part of having a good football team. This whole time i have been exclusively talking about our speed or lack thereof @ the RB position not anywhere else. I do understand we for example need to have speed on the defensive side of the ball. I understand we need speed at the wideout position etc I just think the lack of speed at the RB position at all levels can be overcome if a guy has great vision, creat cutting ability, toughness etc. Look at the Cowboys of the 90's. They won a few SB's with a RB with average to above average speed. Tennessee had some very very good teams with Travis Henry as the feature back. He was far from what i would call fast. Teams can and do still become great without a burner at the RB position. And catswild if you think Prevo for Maryville had breakaway speed then you would be very wrong. He was far from a burner. Good speed yes, but far from breakaway so to say.

Edited March 7, 2014 by SweetScience