Fairlawncat

I understand that. I respect a parent's personal decision to get vaxd or not get vaxd based on risk vs benefit. Tons of factors in play from benefit, risk, religion, politics, personal choice, and a combination of all of those or none of those. I'm just saying that the only way the shutdowns are avoided and in my opinion, the season saved, is by kids getting vaxd. It will require that in my opinion for the season to be saved. Again, not saying whether they should or shouldn't be vax'd or this or that. That's a family's choice. But, I still believe we go beyond a few shutdowns. I think the High School Football season in Virginia will be cancelled by week 3, IF.....there isn't some massive push by High School Coaches and Families to get the vaccine. The Covid numbers are sky rocketing and they are now as worse as they have ever been and there's no indication another strain, one possibly even more deadly or contagious than Delta will not be coming along.

Man, did you watch that first series with Graham on offense? That kid from Abingdon was playing tight on the line of scrimmage with Bradshaw at the snap and wanted to bump him off his route. I give that kid kudos for his confidence and trying his best, but Good Lord, that lasted one play and boom, touchdown. His hips are so strong and his balance, cuts coming off the ball at the snap on a pass route are just way beyond what 99% of High School receivers do. The Notre Dame recruiting analyst that broke down his video talked about his skillset/route running ability at the snap/off the ball technique and man does he have it. Abingdon backed out of that tight one on one coverage in a hurry after that play. I presume the G-Men will get Bradshaw more touches throughout the season in the form of hitches, bubble screens, etc. With Bluefield Coaches there scouting every inch and play, I'm sure Graham didn't want to show Bluefield the other avenues they have of getting Bradshaw the ball. That kid needs to touch the ball I think, at least 1 time per series and maybe two. He's a freak after he catches it also.

Yep, and unfortunately, wait until the 10 days are up and 10 days after that, they possibly get to do it all over again when they get 1 or 2 more positives. Going to be like that all year, all across the state unless teams get vaccinated at 90% or more. If your a team like Union, Graham, Ridgeview, Central, and possibly Richlands who are favorites (especially Union and Graham) to win the Region, the difference in winning the region could possibly come down to which team has the most kids vaccinated, especially starters. It could also mean the difference late in the playoffs between teams like Appo, Stuarts Draft, Graham, Union, Buckingham, King William, Poquoson in those semi-final contests. The team that gets 90% or more of its kids vaxd may determine a trip to the state title or even a state title. Practice and discipline makes teams improve. One factor that rarely happens in history, but can at least appear to make a team improve in the form of moving to the next level/game and not have to forfeit is getting vaxd.

I watched Graham and Abingdon. Graham's offensive line and defensive lines impressed me. I thought both teams looked very good up front. Bradshaw is just a man amongst boys. Graham is really going to be tough to beat and I think Abingdon will. Abingdons OC/whoever calls the offense is gifted. They have a nice scheme and I think if they play teams of equal talent in their district, their offensive scheme is going to set them apart a little bit.

I have been told there are only a few kids on the team who haven't been vax'd. My info is clearly not accurate. As for the Bobcats or any High School Team, the kids really should think about their decisions to not be vax'd. Aside from personal choice, health beliefs and all of that, just looking at it from a football perspective, it literally can mean the difference as to whether your program shuts down with 1 or 2 positive results or whether the program carries on. The guidelines by the CDC are IF you have been vax'd and you have been exposed to someone who has Covid, you do not have to quarantine, you do not have to wait 10 days, you don't even have to go home, you can continue practicing, except you need to be tested in 3-5 days. During that 3-5 day wait, your program doesn't have to shut down. The only players that have to quarantine are the ones without the vax, so it's pretty clear on how having the vaccine can really determine a whole bunch, possibly the entire season or how far a team goes. IF this happens come playoff time, your season ends. So, from at least a football perspective and not a health or political perspective but simply a football point of view, there's a lot to be said for being vaccinated.

Wow, that's a lot of kids for DB

No offense to DB, but Lord Botetourt might chew them all to pieces. LB is also closer to 1100 students now while DB lists around 1800

FC usually does have 40+ kids out and has had around 50 at times. FC is just very, very weird. It's kind of like what was talked about on here, just hard to put your finger on regarding coaching changes and why they aren't better. They have had some good teams and have had some major college talent like the RB that played at Virginia (Daniel Hamm) and Thomas who played at Tennessee and the kid at VMI recently. They have often/regularly have 40-45 plus kids out, yet just a revolving door of coaches. One person on here said the community/people are a bit difficult to work with. Sounds like they are a bit fickle, clannish, etc, and this would have to explain the turnover because the location is nice. Easy to Blacksburg or C-Ville, easy to Charlotte, Easy to West Va, New River close, lots of land/good property, and usually, a lot of kids with interest in football. It's just weird. On paper, it looks great and appears to be a a place where there is little to no coaching turnover with all of the above, but again, there is something up with their people. Be it expectations or something just off.

Here's what frustrates me pretty dang good. Lets say 100% of all kids in Virginia on every team were either vaccinated or they have had the virus in the past or possibly both, had the virus and the vax. The thing is that people can still have the darn virus and what do parents do, they will get their kids tested even if they are just a touch sick in many cases. Why do they do that? Because you can bet someone in the family hasn't been vax'd and there is worry the healthy kid who has had the vax, but has Covid would give it to the family member. (I'm not knocking someone's decision to be vax'd or not be vax'd) Now, I know that most people likely still wouldn't do this and they wouldn't want to mess up the team, but it only takes ONE. It takes ONE test, on single parent or whatever to get that test and boom, you have exactly what you have at Galax One kid positive and one entire program shut down. So, what I'm sayin is, we are needing 60 to 100 parents that are affiliated with a team to go 100%. They can't be 99%. They have to be 100% spot on in compliance with "not getting tested" and the odds of that happening in any program are ZERO.

At Radford, we had all but 7 vaxd on our team as of a week ago. 2 of the 7 who weren't vaxd had already had the virus in the past, so that basically means we have 5 left. That's a pretty good ratio of total kids vax or having had the virus compared to not.

I personally don't feel it's a political thing at the local level. Maybe it is, but I don't see it. I think it's just poor decision making in the form of, "I'm worried about legal action if I don't respond aggressively." School officials are going far beyond what the CDC is recommending and this was my worry about this season. It only takes a few to do so, then others will follow in line because they will want to be in "common practice" with what other school boards/officials/health depts did when the situation happens to them.

CDC says exposure doesn't require quarantine if you have had the vax. You can kiss, hug, have sex with someone who has a raging bout of Covid (if they feel up to it) and if you have been vaxd, you do not need to quarantine. You would need to be tested in 3-5 days. That's it. Nothing more according to CDC.

MT FAN 91, unfortunately, everyone is not going to stay safe and healthy. The virus is going to do what it is going to do from point A to Z and anything we do to slow down the path from A to Z is simply that, it's just slowing down the inevitable. The infections rate, sick rate, death rate will be the same and we can spread it out over a 2-3 year period, or get it over with and reach Herd immunity by about 8 out of 10 people in the country either being vaccinated or having had the virus. The virus is obviously to contagious and to easy to transmit. If our vaccine actually killed the virus/protected completely against transmission, that would put it to a halt and interrupt the A to Z path quickly. But from what I've read, and it's clear with our kids at Radford, you can be vaccinated and still contract the virus and not only that, you can spread the dang thing while simply having a runny nose. All 3 kids at Radford who contracted it had been vaccinated. I'm not a health person, but the more I read about this thing, I'm really beginning to wonder if Sweden got it right. That is, protect the elderly and vulnerable as much as possible, stay apart from each other best you can, where a mask if you want to, but continue to go to work and go to school because this virus is going from A to Z and we can get there slowly or in its natural course and to end it, get as many people vaxd as possible and unfortunately at the same time, the more people who contract also help reach that Herd threshold. That's really all I think we can do.

Radford only had 3 kids on the team test positive. I was told 1 of those 3 was a false positive, and here we are, one year later, with the vaccine, better knowledge of how to treat, and CDC recommending that we do not have to quarantine simply due to an exposure if vaccinated, and what do we do? 10 day-program shutdown. It was exactly why I made the post questioning our season and worried about an overreaction from school districts. Well, the season hasn't even started yet and here we go. Scrimmage one with Grayson cancelled. This season, regardless of who gets to watch the game in person will be worse than the spring in my opinion regarding teams competing, cancels, players out, teams halting seasons and not participating, etc. The thing is, it doesn't have to be this way. Sad. I'm just now reading where Galax only had 1 kid positive. I don't care if it was a nudist gathering free for all of 5,000 people, 1 kid positive is unfortunate, but an overreaction for just putting the program on hold/shut down for 10 days? Absolutely it is, and this is where the danger rests in our season. Over reactions. It's absolutely absurd that Galax and Radford did this. Now think about these onezies and twozies with positive infections? Teams are going to have one or two kids positive throughout the season at least more than a few times. That's a given. Are we going to shut down each time? I hate to be a negative nancy, but I want football, and I'm standing by that post a week ago. I don't think Virginia will have a high school football season this year when all is said and done. It will start or get started, but I give it no more than 2-3 weeks tops. Now, if the programs would go by the CDC recommendations, we would have a season, but you can already see even before the season has started, the deviation or overreaction of some programs.

It's clear we are not having a normal season and the district titles, region titles, and state titles will all be devalued because it's clear that many of the teams will not be at or near 100 percent or even participating for several key points in the season. For example, Buckingham not competing last season and a red hot talented King William team cancelling the playoffs last spring. The same is going to happen this year and it just frustrates me.

Exactly Hokiebird. I am glad ours has never stepped onto the field. I live close enough to Giles County and have heard the issues or "issue"you guys are dealing with. I think enough people have caught on to the point that he realizes his behavior must change or it will only being more heat. Maybe not, I don't know. But, I know the word is out far and wide and no longer contained between Ripplemead and Narrows.

I heard yesterday from one of our assistants here at Radford the the Fort does have a JV team this year. They are scheduled to come to our place on September 9th for the JV contest. So, unless something has changed in the last 2 weeks since we nailed down our JV schedule, the Fort does have a JV team. FC had out 54 kids grades 9-12 and is now up to 57 kids 9-12 from what I was told by one of our assistants who has a background in Wythe County.

Bryan Driskell, the guy breaking down Bradshaw's film, is kind of like the Will Stewart of Notre Dame except Driskell is even bigger. He's a football analyst, author, and publisher for Sports Illustrated and Notre Dame's Sports Illustrated Page which is Irish Maven. He played college football as a QB. So, what I'm getting at is, the guy who is breaking down Bradshaw's film is not a fly by night typical fan. He's up on the list of football analytical prowess. Watching the media clip, Driskell points out that Bradshaw is the must "get" of the entire class and pretty much is saying Bradshaw is the best recruit (his opinion). So, he's going far beyond of addressing the question of whether Bradshaw can play at Notre Dame. He's pretty much stating Bradshaw can play at ND before all the other guys recruited in the same class can play at Notre Dame. The media clip is pretty good in that Driskell breaks down Bradshaw's technique including the positives and some negatives. My take on Bradshaw and the thing that stands out to me is "pad" speed. There are guys we know that have great track speeds and on the field, in the game, in pads, they just don't appear like speed burners. There are guys we know who are fast, but not world class fast in track, yet on the field, in pads, in the game, they seem to play at alarming speed levels and never seem to get caught, yet they seem to easily catch up when in pursuit of others. This is Bradshaw to me. Another guy like that we had here at Radford was Dana Palmer in the 80's. Fast in the 40 and 100, but not blazing, but on the field, he just always seemed the fastest. Cary Perkins from Grundy High is another one I watched many years ago in High School and some in college at Emory and Henry who just seemed to play "fast" even though his track scores weren't alarmingly fast, when in pads and on the field, he just ran by other people. Sean Eaves of Giles and Jerome Trussell of Blacksburg also come to mind.

The Biggest concern I have is whether one single positive results requires the entire team in quarantine again. If this is the rule, then I would almost wish the season cancelled. With the vaccine, knowledge of how to treat the virus compared to a year ago, lower hospital and lethality rates, I just pray they don't start the quarantine thing for one positive test on the team. Even with the vaccine and the overwhelming majority of kids being vaccinated for High School Football, It's a given and not a matter of if, but a matter of when it happens for many teams regarding a positive test. I don't know if the VHSL and VA Dept of Health have put out any guidelines for this issue. It's an issue that will surely raise it's head for at least one or more local schools, and many schools across VA and WV.

The way I understand is ....the vax doesn't guarantee you will not get Covid or the Delta variant, it will only decrease the chances of getting it, BUT the vax dramatically decreases the chances of getting critically sick if you do catch it. This makes sense to me for example, Hawaii has a bunch of people who have been vaccinated, yet Delta Covid is running hard through Hawaii for unvax and vax people, but the amount of people being critically ill is very, very low for those who have the vax. I believe what your doc is saying about natural immunity from Covid. My Doc echoed something similar a while back. My concern for natural immunity and the vax is....how long does immunity last? I don't know the answer on it.

It's a dang mess regarding info in today's time. We got the federal government who largely tells the truth, but occasionally it fibs also, and we have Russian and Chinese bots out there literally spreading disinformation and causing chaos, and then you have both sides of our political pundits sharpening their knives to get out their agendas. When it's all said and done, it's tough to know who to believe. I guess that's the way the Chinese Government and the folks at the Kremlin would want it. A large part of television media is skewed one way politically and many of these outlets don't hide it anymore. Now, when one of these outlets is delivering information to someone in their 50s and up who still largely get news from TV media, they are less likely to trust those media (even if the information this time is truthful and legitimate.) I think that is also playing a part. Either way, my wife and I are undergoing the needle Monday morning. I'm not worried about the vax making me sick. I hate needles! I worry about the process of getting injected.

My wife and I never got the shot. We had Covid before the vax became available and they told us we had to wait 90 days after Covid symptoms were gone in order to get the Vaccine. During that time, our Doc told us that having Covid might be as powerful in immunity as having the Vax. We held off on the shot and have held off ever since. We do have proof of Covid positive and we have proof of Covid Antibodies. We both had the antibody test 2 months after we got sick just for piece of mind. I think, not sure, but just reading online, that we can reach herd immunity not just by having the vaccine, but having had the virus and not having the shot helps to get to herd immunity. So, if it boils down to gaining entry by having proof of vaccine, I hope they take into consideration proof of having had Covid/or a positive antibody test showing immunity. The danger is not knowing how long the vaccine lasts and whether we need a booster and also not knowing how long natural immunity lasts after Covid. I got a feelin this Covid Thing is going to turn into a flu shot type deal where they develop a shot each year based on what type of strain is predicted to hit us. I don't like shots thought Scare of needles, so if Covid Shot becomes an annual thing, I hope somebody out there is sharp enough to combine the thing with my flu shot. That keeps me from getting 2 needles.

I hope so. I read were the State of Virginia had about 1700 new infections yesterday and the very same day last year in Virginia, there were about 1050 new infections. The state of Virginia is projected to have well over 2000 new cases daily by the middle-late August of this year which would actually be Double the amount of new infections at the same time last year.

If I were a betting man, I would wager the Virginia and West Virginia football season will at least go back to no attendance other than family, etc. I also think there is a high likelihood of the season being completely cancelled. Covid is rocketing again. I don't do the political stuff of whether they should play, shouldn't play or all that stuff. I just think that going by the past numbers for Covid and the decisions made based on those numbers by those in charge, then the current season just doesn't look good. The argument to play will rest in knowing there is a bunch of seniors in the United States that could potentially not have had any football for their junior or senior years, or a limited junior year and possibly no senior year. Colleges better be up on their eval of talent because they will have less data to evaluate players. It's going to be an interesting week in SWVA and across the country. Here in Myrtle Beach, the county (Shorty) is back up to 200 new infections per day. It's rolling through the M.Beach metro area like a hurricane sized machine.

I think Bluefield, VA, is one of the few towns that had grown since 1990 and until 2010, but a major drop in estimation by about 10 percent from 2010-present.