Week 2: Ridgeview vs who? Where?

[Wade_1 8]

I haven't seen anything on who Ridgeview plays and where is it? Will it be close?

[pakdastands 20]

They play Grundy at home, if im not mistaken, and no shouldnt be close

[rdh2443 9]

I will say this about Ridgeview, they are real good so far. To have lost so much, they have impressed me for sure. Obviously the season is early, but they are serious contenders. 

[Mountain Football 1,532]

Who did they play the first week?

[BandanaVTDavis4321 1,717]

1 hour ago, rdh2443 said:

I will say this about Ridgeview, they are real good so far. To have lost so much, they have impressed me for sure. Obviously the season is early, but they are serious contenders. 

Purely a guess here and I don't claim to know, but I suspect some of what Ridgeview is doing is "in the water," or might deal with the gene pool.  Ridgeview lost a bunch of talent obviously with that senior class and one would expect a drop off, and maybe there is a little drop off, but it doesn't seem like it's much, and Ridgeview is yet again in 2023, in contention to win the M7.  That tells me from an outsiders point of view, some of this is in the water.  Meaning...you have great DNA from the Clintwood and Haysi days of very good teams and very good football.  Ridgeview seems to just grow "good football players" like they do in Appalachia and Big Stone Gap.  Even with good historical football DNA, we still see some dropoffs with teams.  Giles was one of them.  Gate City.  Graham had an ugly 8ish year run.  I guess it happens some.

 

[SwvaOG 601]

They are on a run of really good athletes, IMHO.  I don’t know if it is sustainable or not.  The program doesn’t drive kids to want to play….they play because they love football.  If they can get top to bottom good coaching they would be on another level.  The S&C program is 1A at best and I don’t think staff is collectively passionate or motivated enough to be at the Graham staff level.  But, I’ll stand on this, no one is heads and shoulders better on the athlete front.

Now, this years success is another example of what drives me crazy.  There are about 5 kids that are just now starting that should, IMO, have started last year.  Those 4-5 kids were athletically better than some of the seniors last year.  I’ll close by saying it again, if the Graham staff coaches the RV team the last two years, they would have won a state title.

[Mountain Football 1,532]

37 minutes ago, SwvaOG said:

They are on a run of really good athletes, IMHO.  I don’t know if it is sustainable or not.  The program doesn’t drive kids to want to play….they play because they love football.  If they can get top to bottom good coaching they would be on another level.  The S&C program is 1A at best and I don’t think staff is collectively passionate or motivated enough to be at the Graham staff level.  But, I’ll stand on this, no one is heads and shoulders better on the athlete front.

Now, this years success is another example of what drives me crazy.  There are about 5 kids that are just now starting that should, IMO, have started last year.  Those 4-5 kids were athletically better than some of the seniors last year.  I’ll close by saying it again, if the Graham staff coaches the RV team the last two years, they would have won a state title.

I completely get your frustration with the RV coaching staff and the lack of adjustments. At some point some of the load of not winning has to be shouldered by the players as well. 2021 Graham beat RV with a one legged QB. Totally different coaching staff for RV in 2021. Graham was a one legged man in a butt whippin contest and still managed to come out on top. Obviously that didn't work out so well the next week. 2022 Graham was a different team. So much emphasis in this sport is placed on strength. The other side that very few talk about is mentality, mindset, or mental toughness. Graham had that. RV not so much. 2022 Graham's QB had a throwing hand that had swelled up due to a break and looked like a catcher's mitt on his throwing hand. The coaches and kids adjusted to an offense that enabled them to win. One of RV's fans hollered out during the game "tackle him he's only 100lbs" speaking of Clements. These kids took the comments that O'Quinn made in the newspaper earlier in the season and posted them in their lockers.  They wanted him bad. Body language says a lot. It was pretty obvious RV didn't want it as bad as Graham. 

[SwvaOG 601]

47 minutes ago, Mountain Football said:

I completely get your frustration with the RV coaching staff and the lack of adjustments. At some point some of the load of not winning has to be shouldered by the players as well. 2021 Graham beat RV with a one legged QB. Totally different coaching staff for RV in 2021. Graham was a one legged man in a butt whippin contest and still managed to come out on top. Obviously that didn't work out so well the next week. 2022 Graham was a different team. So much emphasis in this sport is placed on strength. The other side that very few talk about is mentality, mindset, or mental toughness. Graham had that. RV not so much. 2022 Graham's QB had a throwing hand that had swelled up due to a break and looked like a catcher's mitt on his throwing hand. The coaches and kids adjusted to an offense that enabled them to win. One of RV's fans hollered out during the game "tackle him he's only 100lbs" speaking of Clements. These kids took the comments that O'Quinn made in the newspaper earlier in the season and posted them in their lockers.  They wanted him bad. Body language says a lot. It was pretty obvious RV didn't want it as bad as Graham. 

I think you sum it up with "culture".  Either you have a good culture, or you don't.  If you don't, you're not winning the big prize.  I think they are a sleeping giant if they get the right leader in there.  

[Wolf1207 239]

16 minutes ago, SwvaOG said:

I think you sum it up with "culture".  Either you have a good culture, or you don't.  If you don't, you're not winning the big prize.  I think they are a sleeping giant if they get the right leader in there.  

I haven’t seen them play yet. So I don’t know what to expect but will be able to say more after tomorrow night. With regards to athletes, Haysi and Clintwood always had good athletes so that is not surprising. 
The schedule this year is fairly weak. I think taking Bluefield off the schedule was a terrible mistake. Playing them would tell you exactly where you stood going into the playoffs.

[IRISH-FAN18 323]

Ridgeview's passing game is no joke! Be interesting to see how Union & GC gameplans for that. I think only Graham could handle it if they meet in the playoffs. And with regards to Ridgeview's coaching staff, I know when Dewayne Stanley was defensive coach at Haysi, he definitely learned from James Colley, who was a master at making adjustments throughout the game.

[SwvaOG 601]

1 hour ago, IRISH-FAN18 said:

Ridgeview's passing game is no joke! Be interesting to see how Union & GC gameplans for that. I think only Graham could handle it if they meet in the playoffs. And with regards to Ridgeview's coaching staff, I know when Dewayne Stanley was defensive coach at Haysi, he definitely learned from James Colley, who was a master at making adjustments throughout the game.

Yeah, Colley is a coaching legend though.  Last year’s Region Championship along with the Bluefield game were glaring examples of being outcoached and not making adjustments.

It would be interesting to see what Colley would have done with all this fire power the last few years.  I feel like he and Mance would have been best suited to use it best. 

[Duke2015 451]

3 hours ago, IRISH-FAN18 said:

Ridgeview's passing game is no joke! Be interesting to see how Union & GC gameplans for that. I think only Graham could handle it if they meet in the playoffs. And with regards to Ridgeview's coaching staff, I know when Dewayne Stanley was defensive coach at Haysi, he definitely learned from James Colley, who was a master at making adjustments throughout the game.

Union and I can’t believe I’m saying this should have a great secondary this season but 3 of them are sophomores so they’ll be some mistakes 

[Wolf1207 239]

After watching the game tonight, I’ll say first prayers to the Hackney kid. But it was right in front of where I was sitting and he was crawling and screaming in pain.  
RV has a good team with a QB that is getting a lot better. His accuracy has increased by a lot. The pack has a decent core of receivers and what appears to be a solid running game.  The defense was lights out.  8-2 is the worse I can see this team going in the regular season and a 10-0 season is not an unrealistic hope.  Especially with only 2 games that are toss ups. At Union and last game at home with Gate City.