battleftbl

Congrats to Haysi... Ready to cheer on the Tigers next week. Need to get us a big SWVA board cheering section!

Gate City Dow 28-10 in 3rd quarter

lol, I doubt she would've changed the date for you, but it never hurts to ask. I asked my wife to hold off on delivering our son for a few days....told her if she waited until after August 1st, that we could redshirt him in the 8th grade. She didn't care much about the idea though. lol Congrats and good luck to you two.

Mance and Wright have a very good relationship. I'm betting the house that they talk this week about how Battle prepared for and played Giles last year. I can tell you that they didn't use a football during practice to simulate the singlewing. Neither did we at Appalachia back when we played Bath County. The last thing you want to do is "ball watch". Read your keys, play your assignments and trust your teammates to do the same. Other than that, Richlands will win this game on the line of scrimmage.

I personally thought that Auburn may have been the slowest team I've seen all season.....and Burton was fortunate to get out of there alive. For the talent that Burton has this year, Jimbo has done a heck of a job getting to this point.....and especially beating Clintwood. I still cant figure that out. With that said.....I've picked against Haysi in the Honaker and Galax games. I'm not going to mess up the reverse psychology that seems to be working. Burton by 7. lol

Also, our SWVA Touchdown club Blue/Gray game will be played in June this year. If anyone has any players to suggest, just PM me their names and school.

Just watching the film..... One of the things that impresses me about Peoples is what he does when he doesn't have the ball in his hands. The kid gives everything he has. I don't know how many *star* athletes are willing to get in there and block the way he does. He blocks as hard as he runs.

Peoples is a very good back, runs with power. But he's not on the level of a Jones. I've just sit and watched Peoples get ran down In the open field and have to break tackles that either Jones boy would've never had to break. I cant think of ever seeing anyone run down a Jones boy once they hit the 3rd level. I personally had a perfect pursuit angle on Julius his SR year... Got to where I should've made a tackle and Julius was 10-15 yards down field. Coach Turner told me that It would've been a great play against 99.9% of halfbacks in SWVA. lol That's not taking anything away from Peoples....he's a very good HB. Haysi has their hands full this week.

What the heck...me picking against Haysi during the Honaker week worked well for them. Weak schedule....overrated... all that garbage I said before... here it is again. Galax 49 Haysi 21

It's supposed to rain most of the evening. Game temperatures will be in the 40's. Cold, wet and muddy doesn't do any good for Herron's injury so I'm betting they hold him out tonight. I believe Battle will have 3-4 kids back which still leaves them without 4 or 5. Here are the truths..... Battle has a hard time stopping the run. Gate City's backs have shown to be fumble prone although not lately. I think Battle can score enough to win this game....but IMHO will need a little help in the turnover department. Hoping the Devils are looking past Thanksgiving and are in the Christmas kind of mood tonight. We'll take all of the gifts they want to throw at us.

A lot of factors. We took our kids up there a few years ago during our first playoff trip. The bus ride up there isn't an easy one...... The locker room is a decent little walk from the field and your path goes right infront of the Gretna locker room where you can all but be assured you'll have a large group of Hawks outside to start the trash talking early. You'll enter their stadium infront of their state championship signs...which can be a little intimidating in itself for kids who've never made it out of the first round. It's a little rough up there.... an administrator advised us to keep our kids together walking to and from the locker room. I hope VHS goes up there and competes...but I just cant see VHS staying focused on the task at hand with all of the extra curricular stuff.

Giles was highly praised last year also....but they weren't physical and didn't really stack up against Battle's athletes either. They may be better than last year...but I cant imagine that they're untouchable by any means.

So I've seen John Battle playing Marion.... I've seen John Battle playing Gate City. VApreps has the first, Roanoke Times has the 2nd option. Helper has now edited his pairings and they're similar to this bracket so I'm assuming that this is it? http://blogs.roanoke.com/hssports/2013/11/09/vhsl-football-pairings-updated-saturday/

Just as I said how proud I am of those kids stepping up...... Freshman HB Wesley Burke scores another TD for Battle. Union up 42-25 now

41-19 Union over Battle. Like I said... Battle has about 8 starters out tonight and for them to be in a 22-19 game with Union in the 3rd quarter speaks volumns about the type of kids they have up there and also the coaching staff to have those younger kids prepared. This one may end up being a little lopsided but I'm proud of those kids and the effort they've given tonight.

Battle fighting hard. Closed it to 22-19 but Union has added 2 TD's since. 34-19 right now.

I'd like to apologize to Haysi...... They may have played a weak schedule but all that did was fool people (including me) as far as how good they are. Never in a million years expected this

Battle is playing this game without 7-8 starters. HB Carter Harlow is the homerun threat in the backfield as well as a defensive leader. He left the ball game with an injury also. Reguardless of what happens the rest of the way, I'm proud of those kids for going into this thing and punching Union in the mouth. No pity party....they went in expecting to win this thing, reguardless of who or who wasn't playing tonight.

Let's put it this way...... Union doesn't have Travis or Kris Clark, Travis Turner, Thomas Jones, Julius Jones walking through that door. Gate City doesn't have Josh Shoemaker, Chad Beasley or Jake Houseright walking through that door. Lee High doesn't have Eric Saterfield walking through that door. Graham doesn't have Ahmad Bradshaw walking through that door. Those are a given...but even if you take those big stars out of the discussion..... the "role" players today aren't as big/fast either. Kid's today are also smaller in stature compared to the 90's for the most part. Yes Robbins has an ego a country mile wide....yes he loves to talk just to hear himself speak and always was, always will be an ass...... but I've been around about every coach in this area and I'd say 90% of them would agree with this. One of those Appalachia, Gate City or Powell Valley teams from the 90's would wipe SWVA teams of today off the map. I will speak on this because I was there and I know...... at Appalachia, a school with 300 kids in it..... Unless you benched 300lbs, you didn't start on the Offensive or Defensive Line. Another thing was that unless you benched 200lbs, you couldn't get on the field for special teams. As stated above, bench numbers are known to not be as important when related to football but it was a good measuring stick and gave kids another reason to live in the weight room. This is real numbers I'm talking here.... In 1997 10 starters on offense benched over 300 lbs. 2 Starters, Travis Clark a 195lbs Halfback and Josh Fleenor a 235lb FB that benched 400lbs. Clark ran a 4.4 in the 40 also. Any wonders why he ran for over 6000 yards in his career? Any wonders why that class won 3 state championships in 4 years? Those max days in the weight room in 1997 was unbelievable. I was a 14 at the time...but will never forget the atmosphere in there.

Here is my opinion on this...... Clintwood is overrated compared to years past. They've played 3 teams all year.... an upset at Union, lost to Haysi and a big loss to Honaker. I don't think Clintwood would beat Union again if they played 9 more times but did when it counted. I mention that to get to this...... Haysi has 1 good win IMO and it was against Clintwood. We'll see how right I am...but IMO Haysi is a paper champion...and Honaker will beat them by 3-4 Touchdowns. Honaker has a solid ball team...not as good as last year IMHO though. If I'm right on this...it's more of a sign of Haysi being a little overrated than it is Honaker being this dominant. When it comes to SWVA.....Ft. Chiswell is our best bet at a State title this season.

I once wrecked a four-wheeler during my sophomore year of high school....... I tore up the back of my calf and missed a few weeks. The wreck wasn't the worst part of it though..... it was sitting in Tom Turners office waiting on him to arrive. I don't remember the entire conversation...just that I was advised that I could ride all the 4 wheelers I wanted to....as long as it wasn't during weight lifting periods, 2 a days or football season. Funny to look back on those things now....but 2 years to ride a 4 wheeler sucked. lol To be fair though....these kids 1st love has always been competing on their bikes. While I was at Battle, we always worried that this could happen but our entire staff knew that they loved it. On top of that, they never allowed it to take them away from football. They're great kids and I really hate how their SR seasons have ended.

Goes back to what I've been saying on here all along...... Battle is really hurting on the defensive line. They play very well against finesse/spread teams because of the athletes they have at Linebacker and in the secondary. Against Power teams such as Honaker and Gate City, they just cant get stops. 5 lineman were lost to graduation last year and just couldn't be replaced. In the last 3 ball games..... Battle has given up 1000 yards rushing. They're so athletic and play so hard that they almost overcome the lack of a line though. For example...Honaker ran for 400 yards and barely got out of there with the win. Battle gave up close to 300 yards rushing to Wise Central and won the game.... Tonight Gate City ran for around 400 yards and if you take away an Interception in the end zone, this ball game is a 6 point game. Battle just has to get back to work and get ready for Lee High next week. Both teams came out of this without any injuries also. Good luck to both the rest of the way.

Will be a great ball game. Battle lost a heck of a linebacker in the Blaylock kid and hopefully the open week allowed them to find a replacement for him. I've heard that Chapman is getting back to full strength which would be a major boost. I watched the Gate City/Union game a few weeks ago and told everyone that I wouldn't be surprised if Gate City won out. Gate City pushed Union around up front and even though it fell apart in the 2nd half, they've built on it ever since. Battle has the advantage at the skill positions with their speed, Gate City has the advantage upfront. I don't think either advantage is huge though and turnovers/penalties will decide this one. Battle doesn't make many mistakes and really makes other teams pay for theirs. Battle will score on the devils but if Gate City plays smart football with no turnovers, it could look like a repeat of the Honaker game for the Trojans defense just because of a lack of size up front. That group goes 100% all the time. They shut Honaker down for the entire first half but size and a lack of depth just got the best of them in the 2nd half. On the flip side... I've seen Gate city coaches and players fall apart when hit with adversity. The last 2 weeks have gone smoothly but how will they respond after a mistake or 2 in a tight ball game? That's a question that's no one can answer at this point. It's all easy when you're up a few scores and things are going good because winning cures everything. Like I said earlier, Gate City was playing great football in the 1st half against Union, but as soon as Union took the momentum, players were arguing, ignoring coaches, coaches arguing, fans fighting in the bleachers and it all went down hill from there. Have they moved past this or will it flare up again if things take a turn for the worse? I do think that Battle will pull this one out but it's going to be a very close ball game. In the end, hope both teams come out healthy as both have a chance to cause some trouble in the playoffs. Going to be a great atmosphere on Battle hill this Friday night.

The game last night rivals the Richlands/Union game for the game of the year so far in SWVA IMO. My only complaint is that Honaker waited until the pre game prayer was started to run through the sign... And the band played during the moment of silence. It was so well timed that I'm fairly certain it was planned. Other than that, hats off to Honaker. A Battle- Richlsnds game would be fun to see. Wright and Mance have a good relationship and I wouldn't be surprised if this became a regular season game in a few years.

Great ball game... Honaker just wore down the Trojsn defense with their big line. I said the 1 area of concern was the Defensive front of Battle .. John battle was 1 completion away from being in FG range at the end of the game but Honaker came ups with a game saving INT. I felt all night like whoever had the last possession would win. Credit to Honaker's kids for stepping up. Another classic between these two. Good luck to both as the season continues. Both have a shot to make a lot if noise in the playoffs.