MavsRock

JAMES MONROE 31 BLUEFIELD 24 WOODROW WILSON 28, NITRO 24 (OT)

This is certainly a very interesting match up. IMO James Monroe will win this game if they avoid turnovers and special team breakdowns. There are alot of similarities to 2002 with this matchup. We've got a veteran undefeated JM team solidly in the playoffs, and a young Bluefield team who is close on getting into the playoffs if they don't win. In both games in 2002, the team who lost the turnover battle lost the game. Bluefield made every mistake in the book and lost 30-7 in the season, and then JM repaid the favor with 4 turnovers compared to Bluefield's 0 in the 3-0 playoff loss ( Oh, by the way, lets hope that little bit of history doesn't repeat itself this year ). If James Monroe stays fundamentally sound, and stays fairly ballanced on offense, Bluefield will struggle against James Monroe's rushing attack. One big difference from 2002 until now, and it was made very evident in the Princeton, and even more so in the Herbert Hoover game, is the Bluefield really gets hammered by good running teams. The young team Bluefield had in 2002 didn't come close to allowing a 300 yard rusher, and forced teams to the air, that hasn't always been necessary for there opponents this year. Ironically, one of the best passing teams the Bluefield has played, Mount View, did one of it's worst jobs defensively of he season. I look for James Monroe to try and control the clock, and keep Bluefield's offense off of the field. If the Mavs do that, and simply prevent big plays from Bluefield, I look for them to win by 10-15 points, because I think Bluefield will have a lot of difficulty rushing the ball in this one. If JM turns the ball over, blows coverages, does stupid penalties, and simply lets Bluefield hang around, they'll be lucky if I don't personally come down there and put the fear of God in them, because I'm not watching another game like I saw up there 2 years ago. Hopefully the Mavericks play their A game, and I'll be in a very good mood after the game Friday night.

Who would've thought that the last WVU-VA Tech game would be between 2 undefeated teams. I believe this will be a classic, and regret that I have to work Saturday, but you'd better believe I'll record this one. West Virginia 31, Virginia Tech 24 2OT!!!!

James Monroe 37 Wyoming East 12-Don't look for James Monroe to repeat the mistakes that nearly caused an upset at East last year. W.E. is a very hated team by James Monroe, and the Mav's would love nothing more than to humiliate them tommorrow, and have the better athletes to do it with. Look for a very physical game. Graham 25 Bluefield 17-I haven't seem any major changes in these 2 teams since the start of the season, the only thing that has become obvious is Bluefield's turnover problem, which they had best get corrected before playing what has to be an angry Graham team after last week. Nitro 35, Princeton 21-I have several friends from Princeton that will be sore if I'm right, but I really believe the Princeton will struggle defensively tommorrow night. It will be a huge win if Princeton can somehow pull it off. Richlands 37 Tazewell 0-When I see someone score on Tazewell, I'll start predicting people to do that. After having seen Tazewell's offense, or lack thereof, I'll be surprised if Richland's recent trend stops this week. Narrows 28, Grayson Co. 13-Narrows continues to make gradual improvements.

James Monroe 51 Summers Co. 12-Will JM's freshman play in the second quarter, or just the second half? Time will tell. Richlands 17 Graham 14-Richalands gives up it's first points in a very hard hitting game Bluefield 42 Oak Hill 28-Bluefield's a much better team, at least offensively, but hasn't won in Oak Hill in a long time, and they can ill afford an upset right now. Giles 26, William Campbell 21-Giles wins close one on the road. Princeton 28, George Washington 14-Princeton has a good game after having to sweat it out last week a little. Beckley 28 Cabell Midland 8-More great defense from the flying eagles. South Charleston 38 Greenbrier East 10-More bad news bears in Lewisburg.

I found out from my cousin who's a Junior at Giles that Ricky Cook probably won't play against Narrows tomorrow due to some type of foot or ankle injury. Does this mean that Narrows stands a chance? Probably not. I still see Giles winnig this one by at least 20-30 points, and I'll be more than impressed if they keep it closer than that. This will be disturbing news for Giles if Cook's injury is a recurring problem later in the year. The last time they played without him was a season-opening 21-6 loss at against a very average Blacksburg team last year. I really believe that Giles realies on him more than any other team realies on one player in this area right now, much more so than James Monroe with Andrew Robertson, or even Graham on Ahmad Bradshaw 2 years ago

James Monroe 56, Pikeview 18- Pikeview's air attack light's it up against James Monroe. Only problem is that's after the Mavs build a 56-6 lead, and the freshmen are playing on D Giles 49, Narrows 8-Let's see, Giles went to Christiansburg and took them to the shed, meanwhile, Narrows could barely get it done against Craig. I won't say much else. Bluefield 33, Grundy 6-The Golden Wave is rapidly becoming one of the biggest disappointments this season. Princeton 31, South Charleston 20- Princeton's powerfull offense may get slowed down, but not enough this week. Beckley 42, Greenbrier East 0- Obviously, Beckley got tired of losing after last year, real tired. Wyoming East 32, Summers Co. 19- Wyoming East get's another week to feel good about themselves before judgement day in Lindside on September 30.

James Monroe's Defense again looked impressive, Keeping a fairly quick Oak Hill team in chaeck. Offensively, the Mavs were very lackluster in the first half, with about a 35-45 yd Robertson run on Jm's first play of their second possesion being the only score at the break. James Monroe quickly grabbed the momemtum as Heath Mullens ran the opening half kickoff to within the 5 yad line, and Robertson ran the ball in 3 plays later. On the next possesion, Oak Hill payed the price for putting 12 men in the box when Jason Jackson tossed a 40 yd td to a wide open Ben Preston. Andrew Robertson rapped up the scoring with a short run in the 4th quarter. Defensively we looked real good, but offensively, our line struggled a bit, and that has to be improved before James Monroe plays better competition later in the year.

James Monroe 32 Oak Hill 0, The Red Devils have scored twice in 2 games against mediocre Single A squads. That's not good news going to play a so far dominant Maverick defense. Giles 27 Christiansburg 26, A very power Blue Demons squad nearly lost to Giles last year. If Giles can quit turning the ball over, they should be able to keep them under control a little better this time. Princeton 24, Hunington 21, Princeton has an opportunity to prove that they're for real, and that last week wasn't just a bad off night for Bluefield. Shady Spring 30, Summers 27, Summers must've used last week's post as motivation against Liberty, I was real surprised how close that was. After how Shady's performed thus far, it's easy to see they're rebuilding, but they may have just enough pride to knock off their arch rival. Craig County 33, Narrows 26, Craig has shown some signs of improvement, now they've got a chance to pull a pretty big upset. Iager 24 Wyoming East 8, 1999 just seems to get farther and farther away in for Kevin Grogg Parkersburg 28, Beckley 10, Woodrow's improved, but not that much, yet. Spring Valley 23 Greenbrier East 12, It's hard to believe East has been this bad for this long.

start placing my predictions early in the week. I just happened to notice that I missed a great trash talking session with someone who's trying to make his whole program look bad. I spoke with alot of Weir fans at that game, and they were a pretty classy bunch, and it's hard for me to say that for a team who was putting JM through judgement day. All I can say is that Jack Crow and Zach Cooper aren't coming back, and Sperrlaza can't win the title by himself, that's not to say that Weir isn't a very powerfull team this year, but if JM and Weir play eachother this year, I don't think that Weir will have it quite so easily. You have to remember that due to some embarrassing off the field issues, JM was starting several sophomores, and even freshman in the secondary. Don't look for anything like that to happen this year. Whoever this "Weir fan" is, if you pay attention to my predictions, you'll notice that I haven't been to far off on most of my predictions so far. Heck, I wouldn't mind seeing James Monroe in the playoffs this year. It'll be interesting to see if Weir's coaches can top the brillant pass play that they called with about 2:30 to go at Bluefield last November . And you call our offense ridiculous

James Monroe 37, Shady Spring 14- This game could stay close for a while, of course I thought that last year before JM led 40-7 at the half. Shady should give the Mavs a fight playing at home, but probably won't have an answer for Robertson, Jackson and Mullens. Princeton 25, Bluefield 14- They were + 4 in the turnover column and still found a way to lose to Graham last week. I really believe that Princeton's larger, and somewhat more experienced team will give Bluefield alot of trouble Friday. Giles 14, Blacksburg 10-Giles is due in this rivalry, and isn't likely to repeat the embarrassing 31-13 home loss they had to this squad 2 years ago. Narrows 18 East Montgomery 16-Narrows finds just enough offense to bounce back from the 43-7 thrashing from James Monroe @ home last week. Mount View 24 Man 18-Mount View survives surprisingly close game. Liberty 35, Summers Co 0-From reeading some early reports baefore last week, I thought Summers may have a descent team this year. Sorry, my bad.

Do to the fact that I work close to Princeton, and won't get off in enough time to get to the James Monroe-Shady Spring game until late in the 2nd quarter, when the game may be over if JM plays like they did last week, I've decided to watch the Princeton-Bluefield grudge match. I love this kind of game, 2 teams that absolutly hate eachother with a pure passion. I expect Princeton to take this one in the area of 25-14 in a very physical game. Princeton IMO is just too large (much larger than Graham by the way) on the interior line for this inexperienced Bluefield team to contend with it. As far as the talk about Steptoe and Carter bullrushing through defenses, traditionally, that's exactly what kind of offense Princeton is geared to stop. Bluefield usually, particularly 2 years ago, just goes around it, but with a green, second string QB, that's going to be a tricky task. Anything can happen in this kind of rivalry, but the better team usually wins this kind of hate match, and at this point in the season, I just think that's Princeton.

I hate to hear that. I'll remember him in my prayers this week.

We did alot better than I thought we would Friday. Our O-line looked horrible in preseason, and suddenly looked like a wrecking ball. The last of passing offense still concerns me, as well as confusion in the secondary. Witt is doing some things right. I didn't really notice it until recently, but he doesn't use too many players on both sides of the ball, like Jackson was notorious for doing. 70 kids go out for the team, and maybe 15 of them were starters, that's real smart. Witt only uses 3 or 4 boys on both sides right now, and he's expressed a desire to lower that number. Alot of HS coaches make that mistake, and it could pay off greatly for JM late in the season in hard games on the road@ Bluefield and Greenbrier East, and, more importantly, the playoffs.

Suffice to say James Monroe's offensive line has improved greatly from what they were doing the preseason. Narrows only had 2 turnovers, and most of James Monroe's scoring came on drives of 50+yards. Andrew Robertson and Jason Jackson were almost unstoppable from the start as Narrows fell behind 21-0 after 1 quarter. JM only through twice, one pass from Jackson that was dropped at the 10 yard line by corey Miller, and another pass from Freshman Taylor Robertson that was dropped by Ben Preston. Taylor later took matters into his own hands on the next series, scoring a 33yrd td run on the first rush of his high school career. The big area of concern was a lot of confusion in the JM defensive back field which allowed some big plays, and this must be resolved, as it cost the Mavs dearly at the end of last year.

James Monroe 27, Narrows 13- Having seen these 2 teams in scrimmages, this score may be optomistic for both offenses. Graham 19, Bluefield 16-Lack of experience hand the game to Graham in the form of Bluefield turnovers. Giles 14, Blacksburg 10-Blacksburg gets nasty early season surprise from a very large Giles D. Riverside 27, Beckley 6-The beginning of the end for John Lilly there. George Wythe 24, Tazewell 6-Sorry Tazewell, GW doesn't usually have as many turnovers as Narrows. Mount View 47, Chapmanville 6, or Mount View 24, Chapmanville 22, depends on which Mount View team decides to show up this week. Princeton 48, Pikeview 6-If Bluefield does lose to Graham, cheer up, Princeton may catchwhatever disease Pikeview has had for so long. That's assuming they've gotten over what they caught from Greenbrier East and Beckley last season.

Against James Monroe they did OK defensively. JM Starters scored twice on longruns by Robertson. Ofeensively, they definetly have some work to do. That having been said, they did look alot better than they have the last couple of seasons.

The QB, Underwood wastheonly bright spot on the narrows offense. Almost any drive they had was assisted by penalties, and there was a thorough lack of speed. Defensively # 47, and McCrosky, I forget his #, caused alot of problems for Tazewell. Overall, I was very disappointed with a Narrows team that returns most of its key players from last year's playoff team. Unless these 2 teams commit several turnovers, and forget to show up on defense, the Green Wave can forget about beating James Monroe or Giles. The really scary part for Narrows is I don't remember seeing Tazewell complete 1 pass, which isn't really a good thing for Tazewell either, butthey've got enough talent to get back to the playoffsthis year. As for Narrows' first game, it's been painfully obvious this week that James Monroe has some work to do, especially on offence. However, considering the fact the Giles first team offense only scored once on the Mavs, and Narrows O looked as bad as it did, JM probably won't have to score a whole lot this week. That by no means is stating that this will be a 6-3 game, you never know what you'll get the first time out.

The games between Bluefield & Graham both have the potential to be great games. Look for many ofthe games that Bluefield hasto be decided by 1 score or less. I honestly believe the game between James Monroe & Bluefield couldbe a good game, with major playoff implications for both teams. Early on, noe major rival gameI expect to be close is Narrows and Giles. Giles has spanked the Green Wave pretty bad the last couple of years, but Narrows has alot of people coming back, and Giles lost a lot of people outside of Cook. With these 2 schools possibly consolodating in the next couple of years, expect emotions to run high in that game.

Really hard to tell right now. JM went through some really bizarre off the field issues at the end of last season that ended the season with a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. Hopefully, their better for it, and can use that as motivation for the this year. As for the controversial single wing, from what I've been hearing from a couple of Mav players, it's not going to be used much this year. I really haven't got much faith in it anymore. After a total of 8 points against Bluefield in 2 games, and 2 playoff losses of 46-20, and 63-22, not to mention the near upset loss to Liberty, 12-10, and only leading Narrows @ home 7-6 at the end of 3 quarters, Witt has understandably been getting some pressure. I don't care who you are, or what the scheme is, eventually, you're going to run into someone that you have to pass on to move the ball. Simply put, James Monroe hasn't been able to do that recently, especially last season. I know I've speculated for a long time time the Mavs' lack of pass coverage is a direct result of not having to practice against the pass during the week. It's nice to hear from the crowd at Weir. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a second meeting. I know you guys had a rough ending too. Hopefully next time both teams are playing with there A game. I have little doubt that Weir was at least 2 TDs better than JM, but I imagine the game would've been much closer if it were played under normal circumstances. I'll know a lot more after I watch a practice or 2 next month.

There's justsomething fundamentally wrongwith this picture when I see Pike view on James Monroe and Princeton's schedules. Now I know there's no good excuse for JM and Princeton to not to play eachother. There are alot of Maverick players that would love the chance to bust Ryan Wickline's wining mouth if those to teams play eachother in the next 3 years. In other news, we're all looking forward to the big college opener between USC and Concord U.

Hope our Mountaineers are enjoying there vacation in Jacksonville, not that they really deserve it. A valid arguement could be made that they've been on a vaction all year long, especially the last 2 games. I've got a feeling that Florida State may administer the punishment for there sins. You could pay me to go see that game, but it would have to be a lot. MAYBE this game will be closer than the last 2 bowl games that WVU forgot to show up for, but I wouldn't count on it. If the Mountaineers find a way to upset FSU, I'll be more than a little surprised. But given the dissapointing season both teams have had, it may be a matter of who wants it least.

James Monroe has ran an unbalanced line in the single wing the last 2 years, and ran it when they would run the wing-T sometimes previous to that. Not to try to insult you, but I've seen several teams figure out how to sompletely stop the single wing, the proof-Giles 6, Powell Valley 41, and James Monroe 22, Weir 63, and James Monroe and Giles were 10 wins teams.

you wouldn't have the priviledge of hearing from me until Christmas, don't fear, hear I am. No I wasn't real happy about Bluefield winning state (as painful as that is to say), but it wasn't some kind of a low point in my life. Anyway, I will congradulate Bluefield's team on winning the big game. They were obviously the better team up there, and deserved to win that game. That must have benn the football gods' way of giving penance to Bluefield fans who went to Wheeling in 99, 02, and '03, especially 99. Bluefield did beat a real good team, Wayne just made WAY to many mistakes. Even without the turnovers I still believe Bluefield would've won by around 20 points, but it is what it is. Bluefield's team worked hard in every game, and earned this title. See ya in 2005.

As I was lokking at rosters in the playoff manual, I noticed 2 glaring things about Wayne 1. Their was a lot of small writing to conserve printing space. 2. Their was nothing small about the # of players, or the size of their linemen, who by the way, don't play both ways. You hardly ever see a 2-prong team around here, much less at the AA level. I've come to a basic conclusion, for Bluefield to win, they have to jump out early. If this game stays close, or Wayne jumps ahead, I think the smaller iron man lines of Bluefield are in extreme danger of being worn down in the second half, and the advantage goes to Wayne This fresh line is made much more dangerous by the fact that Wayne has 6 RBs between 500 and 712 yards rushing on the year, and that doesn't count the QB. I also think the Bluefield will have to establish some ball control, something their quick strike offense isn't good at oftentimes. As far as experience, I don't think it's an issue, Wayne has 21 seniors, and we know that nearly every starter for Bluefield is as well. Similar to Bluefield, Wayne has done pretty much everything in the past 5 years but win the title. Keep in mind that this team beat Poca by 10 points late last season. Before I even hear it from Bluefield, remember that I had you guys picked to win last week, and last year against Poca as well. That being said, I think Wayne win win this game by 5-15 points, something like 26-14. We'll just see how it goes. Remember that Wayne hasn't even had a close game this year, and at this point, scheduling strength can't be singled out as the reason why. It should be a hard hitting game. By the way, I heard that 106.3 is supposed to reair the last few minutes of the Bluefield-Weir game tonight around 6:45. Just thought I'd pass that along.