Great City

Hard to believe Martinsville will not be competitive from the get go.

Not much to say. Our draw sucked. Would have liked to have seen us get an opening round win, but it is not in the cards. Will still be some great experience that will pay off down the road. Will expose our weaknesses, kids will play in front of an amazing crowd in a big arena, and will give us some humility.

Was told that he had told some of his assistants that VA High was his dream job.

Not sure it is about being "smarter". Pretty sure it is about seeing the writing on the wall. I was under the impression that VA High was his dream job. Guess their success this year makes it less likely they will have an opening.

Just wondering if it shows commitment, or speaks toward the inability to find assistants who would work with Akers? I have no inside information. Just wondering.

http://www.wcyb.com/sports/friday-night-huddle/unions-mitchell-announces-his-top-three-schools/652185153

We GC fans have enjoyed an ultra-successful football program for many years. Our basketball team has been pretty decent the last 20 years or so also. :) I can see how a lot of us would come across as arrogant....I would prefer "confident". :) There are only a handful of football programs in our area who have the same type of legacy we have........PV, Appy, Graham, Richlands, Union is working on it, and a few others. Of course we have gotten on some nerves and ruffled some feathers the last 50 years. To a lot of teams down our way, beating GC in any sport is looked at like it is a big deal. Battle just got their first ever home win against GC. Guess that was a big deal for them. (Just like GC beating V-High in baseball is a big deal..........for the same reasons.) Don't kid yourselves.....SOME of the posts on this board reek of jealousy and of the pleasure of GC literally stinking up the joint........which is fine. We have dished it out for many years. Is unfortunately time to "take our medicine". I was an Akers' supporter initially. Obviously it is not working out with him. The program is tracking backwards with him at the helm. Unfortunately............there is not an easy fix. Going to have to have a new HC. Going to have to create more interest in the program. Going to take some time.

Not a final. 3Q

Gate City 27 Battle 28

We dressed 27 kids tonight, and had 11 in street clothes on the sideline. (Not counting Webb who had knee surgery today). Plus, we lost Calhoun to an injury early in this game. Amazing. Smallest, good weather GC crowd I have ever seen at home.

Speculation is so much fun. :) I am not a "numbers" person, so all of this might not be accurate. All numbers are rounded. I looked up PV's record from 1992-1998. Believe that is when the Joneses were at PV. During that time PV was 82-12. They averaged 12 wins and 2 loses per season, with a winning percentage of 87%. 4 state championships. PV won 57% of the state championships possible during the Jones Era. Damn impressive. From 1999 until the school closed after the 2010 season, PV was 91-50. They averaged 8 wins and 4 loses per season, with a winning percentage of 65%. No state championships. For a championship rate of 0%. The numbers across 19 years say that the Joneses helped (obviously there were others on the teams) PV win, on average, 4 additional games per year. PV won state championships more than half of the time when there was Jones in the backfield. After the Joneses left, PV has not won a state championship, and has only appeared in one championship game. Again..........real quickly looked up some numbers. Could be some errors. Plus, I have got to do some real work today and do not have time to look deeper into the numbers. Again II......not taking anything away from PV. Great teams. Great program.

"Having success at a high school level and going on to have success at another level are two different things." Completely agree with you here. There are many, many players who have been great high school football players. A small percentage of them translate those abilities to the D1 level. An even smaller percentage can transition to the NFL and have success. Those players are ultra-rare. High school teams are very fortunate to have players like that. Those are the type of players who can almost single-handedly carry teams to championships. Jake Housewright almost carried us one year. Subtract him from that team and we would not have been nearly as good. Would not have won the games we won. Would be laughable of me to say we pretty much just plug and play kids at RB and LB. Special players come along rarely. To say they do not greatly influence the team's success just does not make sense. You seem to be saying that the Jones brothers were just run of the mill RBs at PV, and nothing special. Maybe I am not understanding. If so, I apologize. I am going to say this again......not taking anything away from PV. They earned their titles. They may have won the same amount of titles without the Jones brothers. Not debating that. Going back to my original point.......I was talking about the differences between schools with an average enrollment of 550 and schools with an average enrollment of 850....I believe that a great player's impact is more pronounced at a smaller school than it is at a larger school. I could be wrong. Happens a lot. I referenced the Jones brothers and wondered aloud....OK....I typed it......how other's teams' fortunes would have been different if they had 2 NFL caliber RBs on their rosters.

I am definitely not saying PV could not have won those titles without the Jones brothers. Just saying that they certainly did not hurt. :) Not really sure you can say, with a straight face, that the RB position was "plug and play at PV". I quickly googled the Jones brothers. Looks like Thomas held (maybe still holds) the records for most rushing yards in a season, was UVA's all-time leading rusher, and had the 4th highest rushing total in ACC history. Julius was no slouch either. He held the single game rushing record (262 yards) at ND, and held school records for KO return yards, and all-purpose yards. Did not even mention their NFL careers. Not sure how many other backs at PV went on to have that success. Did not say their playoff competition was "soft". Just said that it was "softer" than if they had played in a higher classification. Only made that comment because someone that posted before me talked about it. I also said........."Again...........not taking anything away from PV. They competed in their correct classification, and earned their titles." Does anyone know the Jones brother's stats for their championship games?

"PV would play schools with 400-700 enrollment numbers, GC played schools with enrollments around 700-1000 while at that time having a larger enrollment. The difference isn't that dramatic." Don't know if I would say that PV faced "much" softer competition in the playoffs, but without a doubt it was softer. Not sure how that can be argued. Not taking anything away from PV. They had a great program. I would say that the difference between schools with 400-700 kids, and schools with 700-1000 kids is substantial. If you average those numbers, you get a group of schools with 550 kids, and a group of schools with 850 kids.....a difference of 300 kids. Assuming 50:50 males to females, you have 150 additional males that could be on a sports team. Gives all of your teams more kids, gives you back ups to help you deal with injuries, gives you people to practice against, etc... IMHO....the biggest difference in those two groups of schools, is that one kid has a much greater impact at a smaller school than he/she would at a larger school. Take the Jones brothers from PV. I BELIEVE PV won 4 state championships while having an NFL-caliber running back in the backfield. That is half of their total championships. If you remove them from those teams, does PV still win the championship? Maybe they do, but without a doubt it would have been harder. Wonder how many championships Clintwood would have if they would of had the Jones brothers? How about Appalachia? They also would have made a huge difference in AA. Can you imagine GC, Richlands, Graham having 8 years of the Jones brothers? Granted the Jones brothers are an extreme example. Any school in VA would have benefited from having them on the team. The effect is the same for not as gifted athletes. Just using the Jones brothers as an example. Again...........not taking anything away from PV. They competed in their correct classification, and earned their titles.

Definitely go to the Arby's if you can. Lots of good basketball.

I'm a little biased, but believe Mac is the best player since Talford. As mentioned above....Stacy could flat out shoot the ball, but Mac is a much better all around player. Mac can play very good defense. Does he do it all the time........nope. Is part of that by design of the coaching staff...........yep. Mac's game improved dramatically from his sophomore to junior year. If we see just a little improvement this year, we are going to have a special team....assuming we stay injury free. Not saying we are going to win a state title, or even win a few games at the Arby's Classic. We are still missing a true big man.....unless George has improved and put on some muscle.

And it looks like we have lost #53 (broken ankle) for the year, and probably #52 (high ankle sprain).

Yep..........the circus is going to begin again. Get to GC early for the games. Real early.

Sometimes Backdraft BBQ is set up over near the visitors side. The BBQ is pretty good. Other than that, standard concession stand stuff.

I am not sure if some of you guys realize how little control the AD has at GC. The AD, at least at GC, has almost no control over the day to day activities of each sport All of that is on the individual coaches He is an easy target because I do not believe many people would describe him as warm and fuzzy. He can also be not very politically correct. If you are going to blame him for the woes of the football team, then you need to praise him for the success of the other programs. Akers was hired by a committee. Having some knowledge of the process, I believe the committee made the best choice they could have made. (No. I was not involved,) However, it is now painfully obvious that Akers cannot remain the HC at GC. (Without a major attitude change, he will not be successful as a HC at any school). We GC fans have high expectations. That is also pretty obvious. ? Would we give a coach 5 years to rebuild our program? Of course we would...if we see the coach making progress. Does not necessarily have to be progress in the win column. We want to see more kids coming out for the team, some progress each week, and a general excitement about the program. Unfortunately we are seeing the opposite. Akers is finished at GC. Just a matter of when.

No apology necessary, but I appreciate your words. You have explained yourself. No worries.

Think you took my post the wrong way. I have previously posted that Akers is finished at GC. Is just a matter of time. He is not respected by the kids, and has alienated fellow coaches, and administration.

Not sure what in my post makes you think I am in denial. Would love to hear it.

I was at the game. Saw several GC kids playing their asses off. Also saw a bunch of our starters on the sidelines not dressed out. Looks like we lost another one for the year with a serious knee injury Truth is....they man handled us on both lines all night.....and we just do not have the overall talent to compete right now. Was the worst tackling performance I have ever seen from GC. When you are so thin that your punter has to play on the d-line, you are in trouble Believe we had over 300 yards passing. Not sure why we continued to try that fullback dive, or the sweeps. Only chance we had to keep this game respectable was to go to a full spread, shotgun snap, and throw quick 5-7 yard passes with the occasional long throw and screen mixed in.