The East

[nrv_football 81]

Who will make it out of the East? Riverheads the clear Favorite? 

[Gridiron60 2,555]

3 hours ago, nrv_football said:

Who will make it out of the East? Riverheads the clear Favorite? 

I think so but it will be interesting to see how the Riverheads & Central match up in game 1 of the regular season. I can’t wait to see how CCC & Forbes do in the game. Many are predicting Riverheads take 2A title this year. If they manhandle Central, it might be a valid prediction. 

[BandanaVTDavis4321 1,718]

Region B.  Stuarts Draft will be in the same ballpark at Central and Riverheads.  Based on what Central lost and what Draft returns and how good their JV was, it might be a better pick to have Draft above Central-Woodstock.  My sister lives up that way and her hubby follows the in's and out's on I-81.  He tells me Draft is going to be very, very good, as in...the best team they have had in a while.  Whether that plays out on paper?  Who knows.

Region A.  Poquoson and King William.  It's a 2 horse race.  Historic powerhouse (but not in the last 30ish years) Southampton enters/drops down to Class 2, Region A.  They might make some noise.   

Riverheads the favorite from the East, but not a shoe in by any means.  

[BandanaVTDavis4321 1,718]

In the East in Class 1.

Region A. Essex lost more seniors than at any point in the last decade.  Supposed to be step down, but maybe somebody challenges them like King and Queen, Colonial Beach, etc in 1A.  They will still be good enough to likely win 1A.

Region B. Sussex returns most of their team and gave Riverheads a decent battle.  Central of Lunenburg returns most of their starters.  Buffalo Gap from what I'm told (see the post above about I-81) loses a lot.  

Favorite from the East in Class 1- in my opinion.....Sussex, with Essex & Central Lunenburg in the mix.

[ImFromOutEast 14]

In 1A, everyone seems to pick Essex......well because they are Essex. But, they took a tremendous hit at graduation time. Probably a year away from being a serious state title contender, especially with enrollment shrinking. King & Queen also took a big personnel hiit as they had around 12 seniors on a 22-man football team. Their JV lost to Essex like 76-0 last year. Colonial Beach won just once last year. I'd say look out for West Point and Westmoreland.

In 1B, everything I'm hearing (which isn't much) is that Sussex is the prohibitive favorite. They play Essex in the season opener.

In 2A, I agree that it should be a two-horse race between King William and Poquoson. While not as good as their state champioinship team, I'll predict that KW will field a team that was better than the one that lost to Poquoson in the playoffs last season.

[ImFromOutEast 14]

While the small schools in Eastern Virginia have been far from state powerhouses when it comes to championships, I feel part of the issue is that interest in the sport out this way has been on a decline for the past decade or more, especially post-COVID. The quality competition just isn't there. When Essex won its state championship in 2009 they had around 60 kids on the varsity roster and that was without any freshman and a few sophomores. Now they are lucky to get 35 or so with declining enrollment. When they came back post-COVID I believe their JV team had only around 18. Look at Lancaster this past school year. State champs in basketball and track & field and their baseball team reached the state semifinals. But, their football team has been really rotten for years. Some programs out this way are fielding only varsity teams, while I'm hearing Mathews will not field a varsity or JV team this fall.

[sixcat 2,934]

Galax hasn't fielded a JV team since before COVID and will likely not have one again this season. They have gone from numbers regularly in the 40's a decade ago to numbers in the mid 20's the past few years. 

[1inStripes 933]

The dynamics of small school football tend to by cyclical.  Even historical programs like Appy and PV were somewhat shells of themselves at the end.  Joining together to create Union actually seemed to be a big benefit to both programs at the time.

[Hokiebird7 1,416]

1 minute ago, 1inStripes said:

The dynamics of small school football tend to by cyclical.  Even historical programs like Appy and PV were somewhat shells of themselves at the end.  Joining together to create Union actually seemed to be a big benefit to both programs at the time.

Just as giles and narrows SHOULD do.....but one end of the county throws a fit when it's brought up

[Queue 20]

So now I'm curious about the politics of Giles County:  Who throws the fits??

 

 

 

[BandanaVTDavis4321 1,718]

34 minutes ago, Queue said:

So now I'm curious about the politics of Giles County:  Who throws the fits??

 

 

 

Hint, it's the part of the county that is closest to Peterstown, WV. 

[Hokiebird7 1,416]

7 minutes ago, BandanaVTDavis4321 said:

Hint, it's the part of the county that is closest to Peterstown, WV. 

Great way to sum it up

[BandanaVTDavis4321 1,718]

Here's the other thing with dropping numbers for football for Class 1 schools.   From what I just read online, the overwhelming majority of metro areas gained a lot in population over the last 20 years.  There's a move (there's been a move) from rural areas to urban areas and suburban areas and it's still ongoing.  A class 1 school who use to have out 30-35 for 9-12 may now have 25, and that's only 10 players, but it's a 33%ish hit.  It's a major blow.  A Class 2 school that was getting 45 now gets 33 or 25.  That's 25%ish percent hit.  It's a big deal.  For the 1200 size school that was having out 65, they lose 10 or so, and it's not so big of a deal.

The above is just one factor.  It seems like most of the small schools (which are usually, not always, but usually) in rural areas are getting smaller.  The small class 2 school in the urban areas (for example, Thomas Jefferson of Richmond, just moved up to Class 3. There's exceptions, but it's happening across a large swoth of the country.  Finally, other factors play a role that aren't mentioned in the post like the whole CTE/Head Injury/Neurological injury risk, more technology to entertain kids instead of sports, some areas with large Hispanic (non US football, but soccer players) etc, economic factors in Appalachia, etc.  

Bottom line....I hate it.  I love Virginia small school High School Football.  Just my opinions above with maybe a few facts to support it.

[ImFromOutEast 14]

5 hours ago, BandanaVTDavis4321 said:

Here's the other thing with dropping numbers for football for Class 1 schools.   From what I just read online, the overwhelming majority of metro areas gained a lot in population over the last 20 years.  There's a move (there's been a move) from rural areas to urban areas and suburban areas and it's still ongoing.  A class 1 school who use to have out 30-35 for 9-12 may now have 25, and that's only 10 players, but it's a 33%ish hit.  It's a major blow.  A Class 2 school that was getting 45 now gets 33 or 25.  That's 25%ish percent hit.  It's a big deal.  For the 1200 size school that was having out 65, they lose 10 or so, and it's not so big of a deal.

The above is just one factor.  It seems like most of the small schools (which are usually, not always, but usually) in rural areas are getting smaller.  The small class 2 school in the urban areas (for example, Thomas Jefferson of Richmond, just moved up to Class 3. There's exceptions, but it's happening across a large swoth of the country.  Finally, other factors play a role that aren't mentioned in the post like the whole CTE/Head Injury/Neurological injury risk, more technology to entertain kids instead of sports, some areas with large Hispanic (non US football, but soccer players) etc, economic factors in Appalachia, etc.  

Bottom line....I hate it.  I love Virginia small school High School Football.  Just my opinions above with maybe a few facts to support it.

Some good thoughts and observations right there!

[Duke2015 451]

10 hours ago, 1inStripes said:

The dynamics of small school football tend to by cyclical.  Even historical programs like Appy and PV were somewhat shells of themselves at the end.  Joining together to create Union actually seemed to be a big benefit to both programs at the time.

Appalachia wasn’t gonna return the the glory days either the school kept getting smaller.  Sad thing is if the school was still open I’d say the football program wouldn’t have survived and yeah PV wasn’t far behind either