Hokie1Pokie

Tazewell has improved and I'm so happy for their program and town. I think they give Graham the second closest game of the remaining 9 after Union. The GMen better come to play because Tazewell is big up front and very fast. I got Graham winning it 44-24. The Graham team I watched against Bluefield is the best Graham team I've seen in week one regarding talent, ability to win and be dominate, since 2000ish. Graham turned over, penalties, etc against Bluefield and I'm not denying that. What I'm getting at is, if they don't have over 100 yds in penalties and crazy turnovers, I just don't see any team in the region getting closer than 17 points. I'm only basing this by comparing Graham to other Graham teams of the past. Lester's health is huge. He's a Div 1 athlete and he's better as a QB than Cam Allen was, and losing him is a season changer. But if he's healthy, and they don't turn over 5 times and have over 100 penalty yds in a game, I just think they will walk into the semi's and even then, a team like Radford, Appo, or Glenvar will have a huge task. I'm saying this Not to be disrespectful to any opponent. I'm basing it on watching years of Graham football and this team is dynamic. Tazewell is clearly better and will come to win, not just compete, but man oh man, Tazewell picked a tough year to return to glory or prominence with the team Graham has this year. Graham wins handily, but not a blowout, 44-24. I got the GMen beating Union by 17 and Richlands by 21. Only my thoughts, Go Graham, and P.S. for Coach Palmer, sorry you, your staff, and your kids had to suffer that absolute criminal act, a joke, a horrific effort of officiating Friday night. That's exactly what it was and I stand by the statement. Is it complaining, whining? Sure, whatever, so be it. It was an absolute joke and shi*show job by that crew who I hopes never works again at any level.

It will be interesting to see what the Devil's can do against Abingdon. I think it's close, but have Abingdon winning at home. Abingdon better be good up front and get ready for the "Cahoon" because that's a rough running back. Also, I just ain't feeling it. As much punches, straight rights, uppercuts and head butts the GC fans and program have taken on here, and only a couple of quick congrats in one or two single posts? Na brothers, that's a bit weak. It's crowtime. I'm a GMen diehard, and credit to GC fans on here for playing it pretty cool and not lashing out or talking smack with the win. It's a pretty good sign if a non GC fan has to serve the crow. Are you kidding me? Statements something to the effect of, "it will take 10-15 years to get GC back on track." LMAO. I think a few of you know who you are. Show some sack folks. They deserve a bit more than a quick, "congrats on your win." They took far to many punches for that quick of a comment. I think you know who you are. I'm sure the Abingdon guy is on pens and needles this week with the "love" he's showed for GC on here. On a serious note, a huge congrats to Jeremy (a good friend of mine), and for the kids, the fans, and that town. One more crow type thing. If GC has turned it around and they knock off Abingdon or Union and bust out at 6-4 this year, for the ones who hammered them on the coaching thing, and arguing it didn't matter who the coach was, you can't win there? For those people, you are going to be absolutely crow stuffed and tasting tennis shoe rubber for a while, if, and that's a big if, but if Houseright turns the thing around in one season. If the Devil's are 6-4, did they magically find talent this year that wasn't supposed to be there for a decade. Surely, it can't be the new coach, right? Devil fans, I suspect you guys are going to be rooted against, whether open or in secret, for the rest of the year, and especially in games against Abingdon and Union. Why? Crow tastes terrible man. You can't even season it up or deep fry it to make it taste good. It's gonna be a fun ride. If GC beats Abingdon and Richlands beats Union, there's gonna be some serious nervousness setting in down that way, lol.

Bada Bing. Not everyone expected GC to be down or like they were. Most did, but some didn't. Richlands will beat Radford at home.

Hold up now. I agree with most of what your saying, but to be clear, I never stated it was "all" on the officials, I never hinted anything regarding outcome about the PA Announcer. The PA Announcer thing was a friendly jab and had no relevance to the outcome of the game and he is among the best in the Eastern US, not just SWVA, and I mean that. As for the officials and four or five big 50/50 calls that went 5 for 5 in favor of Bluefield, yes, I am saying it had "some", not all, not most, but some part in the outcome and I stand by it. Its the worst officiated Graham and Bluefield I've seen since the intentional cheating by George and Bill from back in the 80s and 90s. As for the game, I saw two incredibly good 2A or AA teams with lots of nerves and lots of athletes, and neither team will be touched until they reach the state semi's. I think Bluefield goes to LB and wins by 10.

LOL, you do a good job dude. The subtle hints or subtle suggestions are SMART and every home announcer worth a grain of salt does it, or at least most do whether intentional or not, and I think they should do it, and that crew last night were all ears, lol. You do great work brother. Now as for the way Tazewell is playing, yes....we are going to need the subtle suggestions because the Bulldogs seem legit this year. As for Graham and Bluefield, Bluefield is the better team. Graham had chance after chance and couldn't capitalize. Also, Bluefield had chances to put it away earlier and didn't capitalize.

Graham got robbed a bit by the officials. 2 touchdowns, long TDs called back, had to be over 100 in penalties, and the Graham player taking the ball away from the Bluefield player and the officiating crew gave them the ball back on the return. He possessed the ball before the Bluefield player was out, but it was right on the Bluefield sidelines. Graham wasn't winning that one with that crew, which is typical for when Bluefield is the home team. Noticeably, the Bluefield stadium announcer (still love ya Blue. Researcher) helped out the officials with the usual subtle hints of suggestion on where to spot the ball, and he gave outstanding explanations of why a call was made in favor of Bluefield, but remained incredibly silent on why a call wasn't made in favor of Graham, lol. BR, people actually do notice this. 11 thousand people aren't stupid. They get the attempt at giving the official subtle suggestions by saying, "the pass was overthrown and incomplete," which is an attempt to get the crew to think about that pass interference flag against Bluefield by considering whether the pass was catchable or more important, whether You thought it was catchable. As for the decleating penalty, horrible call. The player wasn't decleated. He had his left foot in contact with the ground from the time he was hit until the time he went to the ground. On the first Bluefield run of the game for a score, they missed a clear, very clear takedown which would be a hold in any state anytime other then last night. So yes, I think the officiating was pathetically poor last night. When you have a game with about 4-5 major 50/50 type penalties that can be considered going either way, Bluefield went 5 for 5 and the received the benefit of the calls over Graham. That's the noticeable part. It's kind of like 2 Hoops teams playing the same intensity of defense and one shoots 40 free throws and the other shoots 8. It just doesn't look that good. All in all, credit Bluefield for doing just enough to win. They are a solid big play team and defensively, they are solid. Those two teams are pretty close though. I was concerned before the game whether Graham was good enough to beat Bluefield. Graham was good enough. I think Graham would be good enough to beat Bluefield 4 out of 10 times, maybe 3 of 10. That's a good sign for Graham for the rest of the season. Bluefield will very easily once again play for a state title. I think they are a slightly better team then Graham, but playing with a normal officiating crew somewhere at least 10 miles from the WV border, and Graham might have actually come out on top last night. But on the majority of nights if they played 10 times with a crew that's not easily suggestible or biased, Bluefield wins 6 out of 10. My thoughts are that both teams are slightly better than last year.

Graham. Will not lose again this year in regular season. Will play for the state title again. I'm basing this in what I saw against the Bluefield.

They are. Buckingham Co returns 20 of 22 starters, has athletes all over the field, and has a new coach in his second year. Buckingham will likely be the team out of the east to represent for the state title. They were supposed to be very good and the coach they got has a history of success and took over for a guy who ran their program into the ground for 3 years.

Gate City is much better and it's directly related to their offensive line. Their OL is going to create problems for opponents. From tackle to tackle on the OL, they are legit, but.....if you run, run, run and play defense and don't turnover, you shorten the game and that's typical GC.

Yep, preseason not accurate. The accuracy increases as more data is entered (teams playing teams and those teams playing other teams), etc. Any study or statistic is stronger or less prone to error by having more data (sample size). Its very accurate, but in preseason it's of little value. For example, it has no idea how solid Tazewell or Richlands has looked in the preseason scrimmages. The eyeball test tells most of us Tazewell is going to be better than 3-7. Late last year, it did have East Rockingham beating Goochland and if I'm not mistaken it had Poquoson beating Goochland in their region championship the week before. It had Appo over Radford and projected East Rockingham beating Graham. I suspect the out of state projections like Graham vs whoever South Dakota is mostly fun and the accuracy and reliability on these projections is probably much lower because there isn't as much data, not as much sample size to go into their algorithm for a projection

From a GMen perspective, 2004 over Graham was big. Richlands opened the season with a loss to Gate City, and beat Tazewell and Abingdon, but it felt like it was going to be same same for Richlands. They would be competitive, pretty good, 7-3ish, but lose some of the big ones like GC and Graham. Richlands beat Graham handily that year and things became obvious that it wasn't just one win. You could sense that Richlands had arrived as a football program and they had. They lost in the semi's to Salem that year. It was the turning point for Graham and Richlands. Graham had taken over the district since the late 80s, and Richlands had the great run in 92-93 and Grundy did also, but Graham was best football program in that stretch. I think 2004 was the last time Coach Carlock coached against Richlands, and of course, after the 2004 season, Graham would go on to have it's worst 10-12 years of football arguably in it's history. Before 2004, Graham had had their way with Richlands for most years dating back to the early 80s. So for me, that 2004 win for the Blues really turned the tables and Richlands was the team to beat not just in Tazewell County, but the entire region.

Nothing but love for the Devil's from my crib in Bluefield. I miss the days of riding along in the old Ford Bronco down to GC to see the legendary Glenn Carlock vs Harry Fry. Larry, the poster in this thread made the comments due to what you represent, or he identifies you with what he hates and that is Gate City. Gate City has been shi* kicking Abingdon for decades and that bothers him. He's getting his licks while he can since GC is down for the first time in history. Your wasting your time with rationale and reason. You can't argue with someone who hates you for who you are. It doesn't matter what solid or good point you make. You aren't going to make them see, so don't try brother. Good luck to GC and a good friend of mine, Jeremy Houseright.

Graham 16, Bluefield 13. Graham will have more total yards in the game than Bluefield. Bluefield turns it over three times to Graham's 1 time.

I can still hear Larry Hypes yelling, "How bout them Dogs." Tazewell going 7-3 this year and they start out 1-0 with a 17 point win over Virginia.

Dude, relax. No need for that namecalling stuff. Larry never implied that the two assistants who are not from GC could not coach. You read into that what you wanted to read or see.

Tazewell by at least two touchdowns and I'm sticking with my early August pick of the Dogs going 7-3 this year.

Dude, Richlands ain't gotta be your first love to have some claim in all time big hits. Guys, the hit by Wicks was huge, but you can't leave out Richlands and big hits without the name, Johnny Knuckles. That is one of the baddest dudes pound for pound I ever watched play.

Dang skippy?! I love Bonanza, or should I say, "loved." I had no idea there were any of those still around. I thought all of them were gone by 1987, yet 32 years later, they still exist, or at least one does. Next thing you know, there will be a Robertos Pizza hiding out in Max Meadows.

8 on D, 7 on O. 15 total starters. Ray might as well be considered a returning starter with what he did at Mt. View. He's a stud. If you count him as a returning starters, it's 9 on D and 8 on O.

Cam never was recruited as a Div 1 QB and Cam was a stud, but there are some fans for whatever reason that have the idea or thought that because he played QB in High School and he was a Div 1 recruit, then the thought occurs that he was a High School Div 1 QB. I've spoke with at least 10 people in the area, and some of them even Graham fans, that have mentioned Cam and Div 1, QB and Purdue in the same breath and this concept somehow has warped into the belief that, Graham lost a D1 QB going to Purdue. That's partially true, but not really true in the concept people are believing. Defensive back, and elite, but as a High School QB, the best in 2A Virginia last year, but not even within the realm of Div 1.

Which goes back to that "running the football thing" as a first option and then the pass, not the other way around. Hours of work and reps in practice in pass protection versus run blocking, and not that there's no run blocking, but the emphasis is pass protection over run blocking. Coach Mance is also a fantastic coach and a future Hall of Famer and I submit to you he's in the legendary status for SWVA. His innovation has made Richlands a SWVA and statewide powerhouse. But, there can still be some critique and I love Coach Mance, he's a great guy personally. But, the focus on pass first as an option over running first as an option has served Richlands well in SWVA, but when the athletes show up on defense (Bluefield as an example, or Turner Ashby, or Appomattox in a game Richlands should have won a few years ago), and the pass isn't open and they are forced to run, it creates a problem. The OL who has had most of its reps in pass protection can't simply shift to a solid run blocking line in one week. The thing is, Richlands has had some huge, massive and super strong and physically tough bruts on it's line over the years and they could have had the ability to be incredibly good at run blocking as a first option. For Graham having the opportunity to beat the Blues 4 times and maybe even 5 times in a row, it's very impressive for the reason Ryan mentioned, and that's the fact that Richlands owned Graham 15 out of 16 times. That's a credit to Coach Mance and the Blues program which has been solid and still is solid. It also means Graham has turned it around and kind of back to it's old form pre 2004ish where they were a regular contended and threat to win the Region and on some years, be good enough to flirt with a state title. I got the Blues at 8-2 this year. I think they beat Abingdon, beat Union, and beat Radford at home. I think they lose to Bluefield and Graham.

All of the Div players Bluefield has are just that, Div 1 future players. But, because they have some Div 1 players doesn't automatically mean their Offensive Line is full of them. It's not. Their question mark is exactly what Graham's is, and that's the offensive line. This is why I think and have had the opinion that Graham and Bluefield will be tight and Graham may win. Graham's D will present some problems for Bluefield OL and that game likely is coming down to turnovers.

On point one, the best receiver in Tazewell County plays QB for Graham. On point two, the drop-off at Graham at QB will be little to any, if any by game three or four. Cam was a super talent and player, but actually not a once in a generation player. He's a Div 1 player and solid, but he's not out of this world or something Tazewell County sees every 30 years. Cam was a Div 1 Defense Recruit, not a QB recruit. The biggest difference for Graham will be exactly what was discussed on this board in December last year, and that's the question mark from guard to guard on the OL. Those three spots are the question early on. You mentioned Richlands and Moir and want to hear an unpopular opinion? Moir wasn't a great passer and Richlands and Mance have left 1 to 2 more state titles on the field because of the lack of focus on running the football with some of those incredible offensive lines over the last 2 decades. I remember when the discussion among fans was how good or not good Richlands OL was blowing train width size holes in the opponents DL and early on, the question was who looks best at RB and whether he can get 1000 or 1200+ yds this year. That schema, thought, paradigm is gone and the question has been for a long time how well the Blues can throw it and how they completed passes in the 7 on 7s. That's a problem. It's one of the huge reasons Richlands has left one or two more titles on the field. Richlands, your not going to be explosively fast and your not the 1980s wide open 49ers or Oregon. Run the ball first and consider the past second. Only my opinion.....and since you asked for controversial ones, there ya go.

Throughout most of the 1980s, Tabb, Bruton, Gloucester, York, and Poqouson all played each other two times per regular season. This means, a team like Tabb played only 6 teams in the ten game regular season, with 4 of the 6 teams being played twice. Playing a team twice has precedence for decades. With Blands cancellation, the 10 teams that had them on the schedule may need to make some adjustments with their bye weeks, but most of those ten should be able to pick up another game, even if it means playing a team twice. This would be more likely for teams in Blands district.

You can also play a team two times if you want ten games.