SwvaOG

I don’t get the vibe this is happening. Could be wrong though.

Would like to see who applies. There might there are some interesting names. I think Richlands surprises some people.

That is pretty spot on. I was lucky enough that I didn't mind lifting and loved lifting legs and back. I was a good track guy that was lucky enough to have a former Marine as my track coach so I was physically prepared when I went to the next level. The rigid schedule and feeling like you never had "real" time away from the program wore on me a bit. It prepared me for my post college military career rather well.

Yes Sir, and if you don't adjust or don't succeed you are just processed out and no one misses you a bit. That is their first experience of how the world doesn't worry one bit about you. Even more reason why coaching is a higher calling than a stipend. You should be a teacher and mentor to those in your charge. You should give a damn. This generation needs more mentors and positive influencers. Coaches are judged by more than wins/losses, they are/should be judged by their positive impact on their kids.

Except you can't quite quit the military so easily. Lol. I guess you could always tempt UCMJ application. I would love to see higher enlistment numbers for the region. It would server them well.

I don't think the local staffs do a particularly good job of preparing them for the reality of college and college sports. All too often the high-school football "stars" are given unearned breaks at their schools. It has always been that way. They aren't prepared on how to study and how to collaborate and utilize and incorporate multiple disparate data sources to produce cogent products and conclusions. As mentioned earlier, a lot of those professors "don't play" and couldn't give two cents that you play football. Now, throw in the football side. Let's do some 06:30 (am) lifts during the week of football season and have weekly meetings and mandatory study hall and, my favorite, 08:30 recall meetings Sunday morning (so you can't party too hard Saturday night). Oh, you want to go home this weekend to watch your old high school team and see your girlfriend? No, you are hosting recruits this weekend. Now, throw in the fact that your very best may not even move the needle or catch the coach's eye because 10 others can do it as well or even better than you. You better have a "team-first" attitude to even be looked at. Here is the ultimate kicker about college football. Daddy. Don't. Matter. Your local cachet or hook-ups, etc., don't carry water at all. That is why, the staffs that don't fall into the daddy ball/nepotism/favorite ideology and adopt a "play the most talented" mindset, prepare their players the best. Another major injustice some of the local staffs do is not adopt a consistent and quality S&C program. Every recruiting visit will have a stop at the gym and you will meet the trainers and S&C coach. His voice will be horse and gravely and have a crew-cut and will say the following: "Your son will spend more time with me and my staff than the football coaches." And it is true. A final issue is that, unfortunately, a lot of our local kids are socially isolated here. They aren't used to being surrounded by a majority of kids that don't sound, look, act or think the same. It can be a shock and, all the while, their boys from back home (and their parents) are saying "You gonna be home this weekend? Let's go out, There's a party at Skeeter's". They will miss family events for the first time. Did I mention that they will devote 5x more hours to football than they ever did in high school and devote 5x more hours to studying than they ever did in high school and their old friend's will always be in their ear to come back home and hang out.

The RV crew reminiscing about their Haysi football days gets old as well. My pet peeve is complete lack of preparation and just winging it. You should know about the other teams and who their star players are and what they want to do or are good at.

They recruited the oldest pretty hard, actually harder than any other school. I was told point blank they don’t like to recruit local players because their wash out rate is much higher than kids outside the region and they specifically don’t recruit local skill players. I would say he is mostly correct. Coach and I spoke at length during the visit and I learned a lot about him. I liked him well enough. He liked it there but that school is at a disadvantage. Kids still want to be kids and have some fun in college and the campus doesn’t other much in the way of entertainment. As for the scholarships, I was disappointed in what they offered, specifically for how hard he was recruited. I wish him the best of luck.

I specifically asked Snake this question last year and his response, verbal and non- verbal, said he wasn’t interested in a return.

Agree; however, the S&C program is not good and some of the position groups are wholly under-developed in terms of fundamentals. Under this coaching staff's penchant for playing favorites and refusal to utilize their athletes properly they won't reach their full potential, just like last year's class. As for the TE. If that was my player, he'd have 50 catches and 700 yards by now. I'd post his big butt up on those OLBs all day long. I'd isolate him on your smallest backer and let him tackle that 250lbs a couple of times. If your safety wanted some, I'd hook him up as well. When I wasn't throwing to him, I'd use him as an H-back and fullback. And I'd make sure to tell him on the first play of the game knock the hell outta the biggest DL you can find. Let 'em know you're there and not right in the head.

Me thinks there are more options than the board may realize and they are pretty good options if it all comes together. There are some good people over there that are working to get this right. I caveat that with the usual beware small town politics.

If you do that they would still be reliant upon local "in-house" assistants. Not saying it is a bad idea at all, just that to get a clean sweep you would need a HC and 2-3 of his hand-picked assistants to be a package. That is incredibly hard to do in high school sports. I think in this scenario you can count anyone not in the SWD footprint as being an outsider.

Don't know the score or the winner but I firmly predict Marion will run the ball frequently.

I I've said this all year. Region 2D is down this year but I've not followed the other regions enough to say 2D can't win it all. Union has been the best team in 2D this year and I feel like they would have been the third best team last year. The individual talent is down, especially in the class of '24. The class of '25 and '26 are shaping up to be good classes.

They had a two year run with basically zero key injuries and it looks like it caught up with them this year. They will have to out-scheme the Bulldogs to win. We will see if they can do that. I'm not big on Tazewell defensively and I'm not big on RV's offensive scheme. Maybe this will be the game they decide to try to get all the playmakers involved. After watching this team last couple of seasons, I can't figure out the reasoning behind their usage rates for certain kids. It seems like once a defense adjusts to stop a play, they stop using that kid as much. They don't counter. Hell, maybe the staff just like certain kids better and play favorites. That would explain some of the decision making last two seasons.

Something tells me they have a good idea of who it is going to be already.

What about Brandon Breeding? He did a great job with the track program this past year. Obviously has the Blue blood in his veins.

Gents: all good and valid points and material. We need to protect the kids and our beloved sport. I’m shocked that some overarching organization hasn’t been established to govern the safety and establish guidelines for teaching and coaching youth football. Liam: great point about the insurance.

Usually the concussions are from the head hitting the ground. I don't think people realize that "getting your bell rung" is often a mild concussion. If a 10 year old hits an 8 year old, wraps him up and drives his hips on the tackle and there is no helmet-to-helmet (basically a text book tackle). The 8 year old has a good chance of having the back of his helmet smack the field with enough force to move the brain inside the cranium.

I suffered my first concussion doing Oklahoma drill in little league, I was 11 and completely trucked the kid trying to tackle me. My second one came my freshman year doing bull in the ring, going against my older brother who was a senior. I tackled him but he was an All-State fullback and he knocked the living shit out of me. My form was fine but physics came into play. The point being that proper tackling didn't play into either of these scenarios. I probably didn't need to suffer the first concussion. And, listen, my older brother was one of the baddest dudes to ever suit up in this region. Absolutely fearless and played with ill-intent and is, to this day, still talked about by the old-heads. I have no idea how many concussions he suffered but he is now 55 and his mental acuity has greatly diminished over the past 8-10 years. Forgets what he is doing all the time, developed a brutal stuttering habit in the past 3-5 years or so. I'm 100% certain football played a part in that and he suffers from CTE. Not arguing the point for or against Marion but I've always said that there is no benefit for kids under 11 to play tackle football other than their dad's ego and glory.

This is the trend outside of this area. In the south you are seeing a proliferation of competitive flag football and Under Armor sponsors big tournaments and the participation numbers are high. This is the counter to kids leaving football for soccer and other "safer" sports. The push is for less contact early on and I'm sure the science backs it up. I've always said that an improperly ran little league will only drive kids away. Throw in the fact that the majority of little leagues in the area are coached by dad's who kids are skill position players and the focus on safe and proper fundamentals has decreased because the focus is on "scheme plays to get my little Johnny four TDs". When I coached we had to be certified and attended training classes through multiple organizations. There is zero focus on that in the local youth leagues from what I've witnessed. To make matters worse a lot of the youth coaches never played and don't understand the mental side of the game. They run kids off. "Let's see if he is tough enough to stick it out." Football is a fast, physical and intimidating game to young kids, many of who haven't grown into their bodies. Coaches need to teach and mentor those kids and work to keep them in the fold. If I could, I'd pass a law tomorrow that requires all youth coaches to be trained and certified and only allow credentialed personnel on the field.

It isn’t at Union’s level. They finally consolidated into one league two years ago. Strictly Daddy ball coached with no common offense or defense or continuity between seasons. The high school staff isn’t involved at all and I can’t say that I’ve seen open competition….positions seems to be pre-selected. That seems to be the going thing at these smaller schools. It is slowly going in the right direction with the consolidated league, though.

RV can game plan a win here but I’ve yet to see them out scheme an equal team. RV wins IF: Honaker is healthy, Q’Quin is healthy and they scheme short to intermediate routes for their slot #10 and they decide that this is the week to use Scanlon as a Gronklike TE.

A lot of us were. I’ve been pretty consistent with my thoughts about the events and it’s playing out like I warned about.

That offensive scheme isn’t enough to beat the better teams.