Week 9 - Oak Ridge at Karns

[SweetScience]

1 minute ago, BarneySox2007 said:

Not sure what Bishop had in yardage last night but this game gave him some good exposure being on tv. I think it also showed other teams Karns is the real deal and what can happen if your placing all bets on Bishop to run on every play.

Yeah, they did a great job using him as a decoy @ times. Obviously with our defensive game plan, we weren’t expecting that. 

[KnoxVil]

33 minutes ago, SweetScience said:

I understand what you’re saying, but Oak Ridge will always have talent, frankly because a lot of it comes from 1 small area of the city. I could go into specifics, but I think you know what I mean without having to do that haha. Actually, the city is slowly coming around in terms of the median age range. The school has actually grown the past few years, to be honest (we may find ourselves in 6A again soon, unfortunately, BTW.) It’s a cycle with things like that. 
 

BTW, we may not have things to attract the young families with kids, but in all reality you don’t really have to because OR still holds a very strategic place in that area because of the location of the city. I mean, West Knoxville is a simple hop & skip away and right over the hill. You can live right there within easy driving distance without having to deal with the hustle and bustle of West Knoxville, so it does have its advantages there. As far as the age range, it can only go down from here, as the older crowd continues to die off. It’s still a wonderful place to raise a family. And as you said, the academics speak for themselves.
 

High school football in TN is just a completely different animal these days. Back in the older days, you didn’t have kids transferring back and forth from school to school like you do now, and frankly OR is at a big disadvantage when it comes to that because of our location, not to mention our extremely high tuition, which is much higher than other schools. The West kids who transferred in this year is a rarity @ OR. Yeah, we get our occasional transfer like Middleton and the West kids, but if you do it, you have to live in OR city, whereas in some places like Powell, you don’t have to because of how the zoning alignments are in Knox County now. Not saying y’all are recruiting BTW, just giving an example. 

Deep down you are saying that however.

[SweetScience]

28 minutes ago, KnoxVil said:

Deep down you are saying that however.

I guess it could be construed that way if you read the last part. Still, there’s zero reason to be 2-6 right now. I’m not even saying we should be competing for championships every year, but we should annually be an 8-2, 9-3, 10-2 type team every year with the consistently good talent we put on the field. There’s no reason anybody has mentioned as to why that shouldn’t be and can’t be the case. Anything else is just excuses, in my opinion.

Edited October 15, 2021 by SweetScience

[HTV]

1 hour ago, SweetScience said:

I understand what you’re saying, but Oak Ridge will always have talent, frankly because a lot of it comes from 1 small area of the city. I could go into specifics, but I think you know what I mean without having to do that haha. Actually, the city is slowly coming around in terms of the median age range. The school has actually grown the past few years, to be honest (we may find ourselves in 6A again soon, unfortunately, BTW.) It’s a cycle with things like that. 
 

BTW, we may not have things to attract the young families with kids, but in all reality you don’t really have to because OR still holds a very strategic place in that area because of the location of the city. I mean, West Knoxville is a simple hop & skip away and right over the hill. You can live right there within easy driving distance without having to deal with the hustle and bustle of West Knoxville, so it does have its advantages there. As far as the age range, it can only go down from here, as the older crowd continues to die off. It’s still a wonderful place to raise a family. And as you said, the academics speak for themselves.
 

High school football in TN is just a completely different animal these days. Back in the older days, you didn’t have kids transferring back and forth from school to school like you do now, and frankly OR is at a big disadvantage when it comes to that because of our location, not to mention our extremely high tuition, which is much higher than other schools. The West kids who transferred in this year is a rarity @ OR. Yeah, we get our occasional transfer like Middleton and the West kids, but if you do it, you have to live in OR city, whereas in some places like Powell, you don’t have to because of how the zoning alignments are in Knox County now. Not saying y’all are recruiting BTW, just giving an example. 

Is not Oak Ridge still like Maryville and Alcoa are in that if you live out of zone you can pay tuition and attend an Oak Ridge City school?  And as long as a student starts the 9th grade at a high school they are eligible to play sports by TSSAA rules, no matter what school zone they live in, be it open zone tuition or a transfer within a system.  

And you mentioned Darel Middleton, he is no longer at West Virginia.  He played in 3 games and made 1 tackle total in the 3.  He's now out of college eligibility.  

[SweetScience]

8 minutes ago, HTV said:

Is not Oak Ridge still like Maryville and Alcoa are in that if you live out of zone you can pay tuition and attend an Oak Ridge City school?  And as long as a student starts the 9th grade at a high school they are eligible to play sports by TSSAA rules, no matter what school zone they live in, be it open zone tuition or a transfer within a system.  

And you mentioned Darel Middleton, he is no longer at West Virginia.  He played in 3 games and made 1 tackle total in the 3.  He's now out of college eligibility.  

Yeah, I’m sure it is, but what I’m saying is that it probably doesn’t happen nearly as often as it does at those other schools. Last I checked, OR was nearly $7,000 dollars, where Alcoa last I checked was $500 and Maryville was near $2000, if I’m not mistaken? I don’t know a lot of people who are gonna pay 7 grand to send their kid somewhere. So you can see where we’d be at a little disadvantage there.

Not surprising about Middleton, BTW. 

Edited October 15, 2021 by SweetScience

[HTV]

3 minutes ago, SweetScience said:

Yeah, I’m sure it is, but what I’m saying is that it probably doesn’t happen nearly as often as it does at those other schools. Last I checked, OR was nearly $7,000 dollars, where Alcoa last I checked was $500 and Maryville was near $2000, if I’m not mistaken? So you can see where we’d be at a little disadvantage there.

Not surprising about Middleton, BTW. 

Looks like you are close for out of county residents.  About half that for Anderson County residents.  

Microsoft Word - Tuition_Rates (ortn.edu)

 

[osunut2]

30 minutes ago, SweetScience said:

I guess it could be construed that way if you read the last part. Still, there’s zero reason to be 2-6 right now. I’m not even saying we should be competing for championships every year, but we should annually be an 8-2, 9-3, 10-2 type team every year with the consistently good talent we put on the field. There’s no reason anybody has mentioned as to why that shouldn’t be and can’t be the case. Anything else is just excuses, in my opinion.

Boy, this topic really deserves its own thread. There is so much onion to peel. For the record, I really enjoy working in Oak Ridge, and I have a tremendous amount of appreciation for both the town and the high school's academic and athletic accomplishments.

I think those W-L records are tremendous goals that OR should strive for annually. Heck, if you look at their history, that's where they've consistently been. But it's also possible that given the changing landscape in the Knox area, plus the presence of another nearby, academically strong public high school (HVA), that may not be as realistic of a goal as it once was going forward.

I could share a lot here, but I'll try to keep this focused. I've been involved in some market research with three area chambers of commerce in the past few years (Oak Ridge, Farragut, and Knoxville). I'll be blunt - Oak Ridge is getting killed in two key areas: infrastructure and real estate. Both issues, particularly the real estate one, is stifling a ton of potential growth in Oak Ridge, especially when you consider the current real estate market. My family moved from West Knoxville (Cedar Bluff area) last summer. We'd been looking to move to Oak Ridge for years, but what ultimately kept us from making a move there was the incredible lack of real estate opportunities. We'd been looking for multiple years, and it was laughable what we could buy in OR vs. Karns, Hardin Valley, and even Farragut (we ended up in Farragut). Oak Ridge has said for years that they understand this issue, but they have done almost nothing to address it head-on. To their credit, they are slowly making infrastructure changes/upgrades, which I hope leads to other opportunities (like future real estate development).

To put it in real terms, I work in a group of roughly 50 engineers. 80% are early in their careers (<10 years experience) and many have children. Most of the group lives in West Knox County. We actually have more that live in Clinton, Harriman, and Oliver Springs than compared to OR. There is no reason why more of these engineers (and their families) shouldn't live in OR, but if you ask, many of them would have the same complaint that I do.

I'm not saying the dam is going to burst, but it has to be eroding given all of the current factors working against the city. And until the city does something to change course, I think things are going to get bumpier before they improve.

And yes, I know exactly the area you are talking about. You guys have had an incredible luxury with all of that talent year in and year out. There isn't a suburb in West Knox County that has that consistent level of home-grown talent.

[SweetScience]

41 minutes ago, HTV said:

Looks like you are close for out of county residents.  About half that for Anderson County residents.  

Microsoft Word - Tuition_Rates (ortn.edu)

 

Anderson County plays good ball, so most kids are gonna play there that are in that area. They probably benefit more than either OR and Clinton as far as transfers go.

[MidTennFootball]

The times Ive seen OR play, they lack an identity on offense. Honestly feels like they are trying to put a square peg in a round hole instead of adapting to the personnel they have

[SweetScience]

21 minutes ago, MidTennFootball said:

The times Ive seen OR play, they lack an identity on offense. Honestly feels like they are trying to put a square peg in a round hole instead of adapting to the personnel they have

Absolutely. And we consistently (Since JG has been back anyway) have mediocre offensive line play, and to be a good football team with an above average offense, you just have to be able to run block, especially in High School, and especially when you annually have mediocre passing talent at the QB position -  and we haven’t had that but maybe a few years since JG return. To be honest, when Blade was @ OR not even 8-9 years ago, we had really good OL’s, so why can’t we now? I know why, because if your butt wasn’t in the weight room paying your dues, your a$& wasn’t playing, it was that simple. We don’t have that accountability right now.

Honestly, when Blade was here, we could’ve probably won at least 1 title if we had been in 5A at the time, but we were a school with 5A numbers playing up in 6A at the time. He wasn’t the most personable guy or player friendly guy by any means, but neither is Nick Saban or Bill Belichik, but they sure get the job done.

Edited October 15, 2021 by SweetScience

[eers]

2 hours ago, SweetScience said:

Absolutely. And we consistently (Since JG has been back anyway) have mediocre offensive line play, and to be a good football team with an above average offense, you just have to be able to run block, especially in High School, and especially when you annually have mediocre passing talent at the QB position -  and we haven’t had that but maybe a few years since JG return. To be honest, when Blade was @ OR not even 8-9 years ago, we had really good OL’s, so why can’t we now? I know why, because if your butt wasn’t in the weight room paying your dues, your a$& wasn’t playing, it was that simple. We don’t have that accountability right now.

Honestly, when Blade was here, we could’ve probably won at least 1 title if we had been in 5A at the time, but we were a school with 5A numbers playing up in 6A at the time. He wasn’t the most personable guy or player friendly guy by any means, but neither is Nick Saban or Bill Belichik, but they sure get the job done.

Yeah, I think there a lot of people that don’t like Blade, but he’s a pretty solid coach. There’s no reason OR should be where they are right now and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change until some changes happen. 

[STILLNUM1]

4 hours ago, SweetScience said:

Absolutely. And we consistently (Since JG has been back anyway) have mediocre offensive line play, and to be a good football team with an above average offense, you just have to be able to run block, especially in High School, and especially when you annually have mediocre passing talent at the QB position -  and we haven’t had that but maybe a few years since JG return. To be honest, when Blade was @ OR not even 8-9 years ago, we had really good OL’s, so why can’t we now? I know why, because if your butt wasn’t in the weight room paying your dues, your a$& wasn’t playing, it was that simple. We don’t have that accountability right now.

Honestly, when Blade was here, we could’ve probably won at least 1 title if we had been in 5A at the time, but we were a school with 5A numbers playing up in 6A at the time. He wasn’t the most personable guy or player friendly guy by any means, but neither is Nick Saban or Bill Belichik, but they sure get the job done.

All true.We have had multiple teams up to 4 talented enough to win it all just since Blade.If we had the depth now we did just under Blade and we would roll in 5A.Our guys worked yr around and it looked like it.Look how close we have come in last 7 years without being all in.We could have a monster fast with right people