Plywood_King

Eh, the whole "cellar dweller" thing is a little unfair. Since '08 they've only finished in the bottom half of district standings twice (2010 in the SWD, and last year in the Hogo). Four out of the previous five seasons they've either won, or finished second in district standings. Plus we're just one year removed from them being the reigning Hogo Champs, with victories over both the Mountain and SWD Champions. Are they worldbeaters? No, but after a bad season, we seem pretty quick to forget that they've had a fairly respectable football team over the past few years.

The VHSL didnt force it, Marion requested to be moved back to the SWD, despite fighting so hard to get into the Hogo. Meanwhile, Marion's principal, is the 2A West chairman and was on the alignment committee. Sounds like somebody knows something about the new postseason format that we don't...

You have to play the sport to get recognized on one of these? That would explain why Marion only had five players on either team.

The Northwood Painters, Chil-hoe-ie, Sm-eye-th County, Why-th County, Rule Ruh-treet, Fort Chisel or Fort Chiswull, the Muriun Scarlet Hurrikins, and Glade Sprangs. Also, out of fairness, Paul Johnson calls his offense a "spread." However, I have no idea why the general populace of sportscasters can't understand that the triple option is a play, not an offensive philosophy. It's like calling an offset I-formation the "lead dive offense."

And 2014... And 2012... And 2011... And the 21 unanswered point second half comeback... And the fourth quarter comeback in 2012... And the 35 points in 90 seconds in 2011... And the 155 points that Marion has scored in the past four years... And the 48 points that Abingdon scored against Marion's starters during that time... And the 35 point average margin of victory for Marion the last two times Abingdon came to Marion... There are a lot of reasons that Abingdon might want payback over Marion.

This. Too much anger here over the past few years' results. It's going to take a real beating before Abingdon's backups start to see the field. Abingdon, by as many points as they want, and they're going to want a lot.

Out of fairness, the Hogoheegee doesn't run through the school districts of Rural Retreat or George Wythe, but that hasn't stopped them.

I'll gladly eat crow on this one. Outstanding effort, Rebs! I really didn't expect this one to be a close game, but PH proved that win or lose, they can hang in there with the best of them. Good job, guys.

They don't dress the majority of their JV, but still, the numbers are very, very low. Marion has four feeder elementary schools, and because all but one of them are County schools, their allegiances are to Sugar Grove, Atkins, etc. Because of that, the elementary schools, and even Middle School, puts forth no effort into building a sense of community for the kids before they get to high school. Any given Friday, if you go ask the kids in the student section what grade they're in, they're almost all seniors because it takes that long to build a sense of pride in the school. That, coupled with low rec department numbers in the mid-to-late '00s, has put Marion in the position it's in now. If you get to high school without ever playing the sport, it's rare that those kids will suddenly start playing, no matter how good the team is, although it does happen occasionally. Erin Garrison was an All-State player last year in his first season playing the sport. It's almost astonishing looking at Marion and Northwood's sidelines during the "War for Walker Mountain." With how much bigger Northwood is, both in numbers and physical size, you'd never believe that Marion had twice the students of the Panthers. But the smaller a school gets, the more pride comes built in. It's amazing how much more enthused the community around Marion has gotten for football season since the enrollment has dropped over the past few years, and looking at rec involvement, and the number of underclassmen that are on the team and playing, it's a pretty good sign that Marion's numbers will improve over the next few years.

Put simply, GW wins this one by a lot. Nothing against PH, but GW is just too big and physical. No one in the Hogo will stay within two scores of them this year.

Ridgeview wins this one, but closer than the experts will predict. Marion has yet to play a complete game this year; at times their offense has been on fire and their defense has let them down, and at times the defense has been stout and their offense has been anemic. Their backs (Ford and Marston) have started to catch fire since they've begun incorporating the I-formation, but the team has let close games get away from them in the fourth quarter all year, mainly because of inexperience and a lack of size. This is easily the smallest Marion team in recent memory, not to mention they have an entire stable of underclassmen skill position players. Marion doesn't play coalfield/plateau teams all that often, but they almost always tend to play "up" when they do--ask the folks in Big Stone Gap. I would guess that it will be close until the fourth, and Ridgeview pulls it out. Oh, and don't worry Tiger, you all should see a much better Marion team when you all cross Clinch next year ;)

I've heard that as well, but I'm not sure there's much that a coaching change can do to help them at the moment; just a dip in talent that should fix itself in a couple years. It is an awfully big coincidence that the drop off in victories coincided with a coaching change, though. But anyway, this game has the makings to be a trap game for the Rebs. Stuck between Rural Retreat and Marion, they could potentially sleepwalk a little in this one, and if Humphreys can't play, or isn't 100%, that could tip the scales a little closer toward Holston. Still, I think PH wins comfortably, but not the bloodletting that a lot of people might expect. I would take a stab at the score being in the neighborhood of 28-0.

Walker and Clinch Mountains don't sound like fun in a hurricane. Means a lot, coming from the guy who had planned on being in Rural Retreat at Community Stadium tonight ;)

The game ends in a zero-to-zero tie. There are no winners, and everyone in the stadium loses just for being there. No one will be awarded any points, and may God have mercy on our souls. Seriously though, it could really go either way. I think that they're just about even in talent, and I believe that Marion may have the edge in coaching, but their inexperience could bite them. I'm leaning toward the Dawgs, but that could change by Friday.

A casual fan who just woke up from the end of last year's regular season would be absolutely shocked by that bottom five.

The short answer, yes. The long answer, no. The general impression that I get from most folks involved in the football program, is that they weren't high on the idea of moving to the Hogo. Why would you want to move to a district that you will get no respect for playing in, and that you have had very little success playing against in the years leading up to the switch? In the two years prior to the switch, Marion finished second in the SWD, but would have finished (at best) 4th and 2nd if they had been playing in the Hogo. In the three years before joining, they went 7-6 in the SWD, and 6-5 against Hogo teams, so it's not like they were looking for a major boost in football success by making the switch. I know, that a lot of folks in the Hogo don't want to hear it because it's been played like a trumpet, but Marion is in the Hogo (at this point) for travel purposes. When the Smyth County School Board is so deep in the hole financially that their employees haven't gotten a raise in a decade, they are not going to be happy if your athletic department blows an opportunity to join a district where your longest trip is the same length as your shortest trip in the SWD, which is a shame, because in the long run it causes the success of the athletes to suffer. Sure, I'd guess that it has caused an increase in gate revenue, but I'm not sure that it's worth athletes being looked over in recruiting, because the perception is that their numbers are skewed by playing weak competition. Bearing all that in mind, I will say that yes, it has hurt Marion as a whole when it comes to the postseason, but not in football. Its easy to look at volleyball and baseball, which Marion has been very successful in the past couple of years, and see that they left playoffs one or two rounds in, and that it was probably due to the fact that they had been playing 1A teams for months. But in football, Marion plays their district games first, and the last two years wrapped up the season with Union, VA High, and Abingdon. At the end of the day, it's tough to say that Marion's lack of solid competition caused them to get booted by Richlands, when Marion had routed Union four weeks earlier, and beaten Abingdon two weeks before. The fact of the matter is that Marion just wasn't motivated to play Richlands, or Chatham for that matter, and they played poorly because they didn't come to play, not because they hadn't seen anything like them before.

I absolutely hate the "give 'em all a trophy" society that we live in, but the other extreme can be just as, if not more disgusting.

Let's be honest, win or lose, the highlight of Marion's season has come and past: https://twitter.com/iceshadowss/status/645073756629504000 (Sorry, not extraordinarily tech savvy. Not sure how to embed tweets.)

I really don't know who to pick in this one, but this would be a HUGE victory for Abingdon. Even though all of us deep(er) SWVA teams know how big the victory over Richlands last year and the win over Gate City was this year, the perception is what the perception is. Hanging with, or even beating, top 2A talent isn't the same as beating a 3A team in the eyes of your peers. It would really help the Falcons' image in the 3A West if they could pick up a victory here.

My understanding is that they are still running the double wing. Eric Doane will be their go-to, but their double wing has always been predicated on power running, and I'm not sure if that is going to fit their personnel this year. I know that last year, when they really had a head of steam, they would run the super power as much as ten times in a row, and get 7 or 8 yards per pop. I don't know if they will stick with the 40 defense this year or move a different set, though. GW and RR were the only teams that weren't dismantled by graduation. Chilhowie was hit hard, but after last season, there's nowhere to go but up.

As a whole, the Hogo should be really down this year. George Wythe and Rural Retreat are the only two teams that showed much of anything positive in the preseason. I'm not sure how Northwood did, but that's nothing unusual, it's always tough to find info on the Panthers. Based on the talent coming back, they should be really athletic, but not much size, which is not conducive to their offensive strategy. If I were to venture a guess, GW will be the team to beat, Rural Retreat and Chilhowie will have improved, and everyone else is going to have taken about three steps back, or worse.

I enjoyed the "We Still Hate You" chant from the Abingdon student section after Abingdon allowed 21 unanswered points, and Marion was taking a knee. Say what you want about the Falcons, they're still plucky in defeat. \rim-shot

Beat Northwood, you say?

Yeah, they might just skip football in Smyth County this year. I would imagine that Marion will easily win the County championship, but I would cap their wins around "6," and expect somewhere between a 4-6 and 6-4 record. I hope I'm wrong, but man, graduation was not a friend this year.