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Losing Decade


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With the start of the third decade of the 21st Century I started doing a little number crunching. My beloved Gate City Blue Devils has their first losing decade since the 1950's. That in itself is incredible, but the 2010's were not kind to the Devils! The decade began with a bang with their 5th State Title ( a 27-17 win over Grenta) and posted a 12-2 record. Then proceeded to go 6-5, 2-8, 8-5 rebounded in 2014 for a 10-3 record but then the bottom fell out the rest of the decade winning just 14 games in the next 5 seasons 3-7, 5-6, 1-9, 1-9 and finally this past season going 4-7. They made playoff appearances in 2010, 2011, 2013,2014, 2016 and 2019, but have not won a playoff game since 2014. Football more than any other sport is cyclical and I think that we as fans can take a losing decade every 50 years! What I also discovered was that Gate City has two decades that they won 100 games (1970's and 2000's) and 98 wins in the 1990's. They also have had winning streaks of 22 games (from 8/29/03 till 10-15-04) 26 (from 10-24-69 till 11-12-71) 30 ( 10-5-73 till 11-21-75) the longest losing streak in school history is 13 games in the 1952 and 1953 season. The longest losing streak since then has been 10 in a row (from 10/30/16 till 10-27-17). Losing decades don't happen often but they do happen. Here's to a brighter future, but the past hasn't been too bad either! 

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Since 2009 GC has played the toughest schedule in the state. Playing Bluefield, Harlan, or a 5A TN school on the non conference slate has been brutal. Additionally, historically weak conference opponents have improved & / or experienced unprecedented runs of success (The Wright years at Battle, the Amburgy / Jimmy King success from 14-17 at Abingdon, the recent Central teams come to mind). No excuses, but a lot of those Ls came from teams that it would have taken all-time great GC teams to compete with. 

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11 hours ago, Burrell’s Pearls said:

Harry Fry ain’t walking through that door.

GC is a basketball town (nothing wrong with that at all) now. 

Football isn't dead there yet, so put the shovel away! 

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3 hours ago, SXSW said:

Football isn't dead there yet, so put the shovel away! 

It’s on life support and the plug is being pulled when it comes to competing for regional titles or more. Folks were celebrating this year’s senior laden team and it won what 4 games? 
 

GC should just accept being the kings of roundball and move on. 

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1 hour ago, Burrell’s Pearls said:

It’s on life support and the plug is being pulled when it comes to competing for regional titles or more. Folks were celebrating this year’s senior laden team and it won what 4 games? 
 

GC should just accept being the kings of roundball and move on. 

I will give our current coaching staff some time before we pull the plug. LoL! Trolls gonna Troll though and that's all you are doing..27 is your number of the day, just remember that number!

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On 12/17/2019 at 9:56 AM, Burrell’s Pearls said:

It’s on life support and the plug is being pulled when it comes to competing for regional titles or more. Folks were celebrating this year’s senior laden team and it won what 4 games? 
 

GC should just accept being the kings of roundball and move on. 

Drastic over exaggeration on both points. This years GC team played like a old school GC team, they werent that talented but the effort and attitude were there, and Central may have something to say about GC being roundball kings...

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1 hour ago, redtiger said:

Drastic over exaggeration on both points. This years GC team played like a old school GC team, they werent that talented but ht effort and attitude were there, and Central may have something to say about GC being roundball kings...

GC has never lost to Central. I’ll have to see it to believe it. If Central does win it’ll be a one year deal. With what GC and Union had in JV last year, it’ll be a long time before Central wins in boys b-ball again. They better enjoy this year.

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On 12/16/2019 at 3:34 PM, SXSW said:

With the start of the third decade of the 21st Century I started doing a little number crunching. My beloved Gate City Blue Devils has their first losing decade since the 1950's. That in itself is incredible, but the 2010's were not kind to the Devils! The decade began with a bang with their 5th State Title ( a 27-17 win over Grenta) and posted a 12-2 record. Then proceeded to go 6-5, 2-8, 8-5 rebounded in 2014 for a 10-3 record but then the bottom fell out the rest of the decade winning just 14 games in the next 5 seasons 3-7, 5-6, 1-9, 1-9 and finally this past season going 4-7. They made playoff appearances in 2010, 2011, 2013,2014, 2016 and 2019, but have not won a playoff game since 2014. Football more than any other sport is cyclical and I think that we as fans can take a losing decade every 50 years! What I also discovered was that Gate City has two decades that they won 100 games (1970's and 2000's) and 98 wins in the 1990's. They also have had winning streaks of 22 games (from 8/29/03 till 10-15-04) 26 (from 10-24-69 till 11-12-71) 30 ( 10-5-73 till 11-21-75) the longest losing streak in school history is 13 games in the 1952 and 1953 season. The longest losing streak since then has been 10 in a row (from 10/30/16 till 10-27-17). Losing decades don't happen often but they do happen. Here's to a brighter future, but the past hasn't been too bad either! 

Not sure about football being the more cyclical than any other sport, I'd have to disagree about that.

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