Easy schedule ain't gonna do it in November.

[S10SQUAREBODY4LIFE]

When you're surrounded by good teams, why schedule teams that aren't going to benefit you play wise,  and ppt? Step up, embrace the challenge. 

[Unchained]

I'll just point out 2 things. First Union is the smallest school in the M7. Second, we are the only one who schedules Graham every year.

[tornado99]

I think with scheduling, most teams are better off if they can follow Proverb 27:17. Iron sharpens iron. Few teams have a legitimate shot to win it all and benefit simply by making it to November. To build a program, positive reinforcement and having fun (by winning) makes some of the talented kids walking the hall to come out and play. (Similar to Feed the Cats. You win by getting more cats on your team than running them off or just out working them.)

On the flip side, those who have championship potential should schedule as such. They are sharpened by other championship level teams. This becomes much more possible at the lower classes. With few exceptions, I’d bet the majority of those 5-5 teams that win championships such as Appalachia sustained the losses from different rivals with much higher enrollments (Powell Valley, Clintwood, etc.)

I think Richlands, along with coaching and talent changes became a victim of their own success. When they were on the climb the criticism was often that they played an easy schedule. When they increased the difficulty along with the decrease in talent and coaching changes, the result has been devastating. Now, I think they benefit from the slightly easier schedule. 5-5, 6-4, is a big improvement and more likely to encourage kids to play. Having Union still on the schedule and/or Ridgeview probably does more to hurt each team until proven otherwise. 
 

Just my thoughts.

[Hokies1977]

If I’m scheduling games I’m doing it with playoff seeding in mind.
 

For a team like Ridgeview (just using them as an example) I would schedule every out of district game with a 1A team on the level of Rural Retreat, Chilhowie, Honaker, etc. 

 

You’re going to get tested in the regular season by Abingdon, Union & GC. You’re going to beat Lee, Central & John Battle and even though those teams are usually a points drain they will cancel out with the other teams. 
 

Beating a 1a team that is going to win 6-8 games is a great points haul. Hopefully you luck up and beat 2/3 of your harder games and now you’re sitting somewhere in the #1 - #3 spot in the playoff and hosting games. 
 

I get the old adage of “schedule better competition because it makes you better” but if you lose to Graham in week 2 and then you have to travel to them in the first round of the playoffs what good is that doing you?

[Wolf1207]

Playing a tougher schedule is great, but if you are Ridgeview it’s hard because no one wants to make the drive to the ridge. So you have to go searching for games. For the foreseeable future, there will probably be at least 1 or 2 KY schools on the schedule. 

[BigWinners]

Could RV agree to just go on the road some years and not set up home/homes? Just curious if that would make it easier to get games. 

[Jags52]

4 minutes ago, BigWinners said:

Could RV agree to just go on the road some years and not set up home/homes? Just curious if that would make it easier to get games. 

Maybe but those football gates fund the rest of your athletic for the year if you lose one you will run out of money when spring rolls around 

[Wolf1207]

1 hour ago, BigWinners said:

Could RV agree to just go on the road some years and not set up home/homes? Just curious if that would make it easier to get games. 

They did upgrade the schedule a bit this year. Paintsville does seem to be on the upswing and Honaker does to. Unfortunately, Tennessee and WVa are a bit too long to get the games they need. 
Id like to see the swd and M7 go into a scheduling agreement like the NFL. Play your district games and maybe 2 or 3 against the other district. That’d still leave one game for rivalries like Beaver Graham and the VT game.  

[BigWinners]

1 hour ago, Wolf1207 said:

They did upgrade the schedule a bit this year. Paintsville does seem to be on the upswing and Honaker does to. Unfortunately, Tennessee and WVa are a bit too long to get the games they need. 
Id like to see the swd and M7 go into a scheduling agreement like the NFL. Play your district games and maybe 2 or 3 against the other district. That’d still leave one game for rivalries like Beaver Graham and the VT game.  

I wasn’t trying to take shots at RVs schedule, I think Honaker should prob be on the schedule for RV in most years and Southern Gap could provide a good 2A challenge if that’s gonna be a potential game. I was just wondering if it could be worth giving away a very mediocre or bad 1A team home gate to potentially be willing to travel and play a more competitive game instead of having Perry or Paintsville come to RV as I can’t imagine either game provides a huge gate. Financially it would really hurt but it feels like RV does very well in home games in the M7 so maybe they could sustain the blow. 

Union did home and home with Letcher County for several years but I don’t ever remember them bringing a great amount of fans to BSG but I could be wrong there. 

[Union_Fan]

22 minutes ago, BigWinners said:

I wasn’t trying to take shots at RVs schedule, I think Honaker should prob be on the schedule for RV in most years and Southern Gap could provide a good 2A challenge if that’s gonna be a potential game. I was just wondering if it could be worth giving away a very mediocre or bad 1A team home gate to potentially be willing to travel and play a more competitive game instead of having Perry or Paintsville come to RV as I can’t imagine either game provides a huge gate. Financially it would really hurt but it feels like RV does very well in home games in the M7 so maybe they could sustain the blow. 

Union did home and home with Letcher County for several years but I don’t ever remember them bringing a great amount of fans to BSG but I could be wrong there. 

Outside of playoffs, Lee, GC, Clintwood/Ridgeview and Richlands are the only teams that have consistently brought large crowds. Since doing the home/home, Graham was brought a good crowd.

If Lee was the 8th game, instead of the 1st, they probably wouldn't.

Burton, Abingdon, Central, Battle have brought very few people. The limited series teams in the past; Letcher, Sullivan North, TW, Virginia High, Middlesboro, Paintsville, Marion, Crockett, Mo West, Lebanon, SH last year, Boone this year brought almost nobody.

Fans don't travel like they used to. A lot won't even come to the home games. 

The only thing about giving up a home game, unless there's a gate sharing agreement, would be losing the 1-2000 tickets the home team brings. That ain't a drop in the bucket.

[goose111874]

1 hour ago, Union_Fan said:

Outside of playoffs, Lee, GC, Clintwood/Ridgeview and Richlands are the only teams that have consistently brought large crowds. Since doing the home/home, Graham was brought a good crowd.

If Lee was the 8th game, instead of the 1st, they probably wouldn't.

Burton, Abingdon, Central, Battle have brought very few people. The limited series teams in the past; Letcher, Sullivan North, TW, Virginia High, Middlesboro, Paintsville, Marion, Crockett, Mo West, Lebanon, SH last year, Boone this year brought almost nobody.

Fans don't travel like they used to. A lot won't even come to the home games. 

The only thing about giving up a home game, unless there's a gate sharing agreement, would be losing the 1-2000 tickets the home team brings. That ain't a drop in the bucket.

If everyone would get rid of nfhs more folks would come out 

[BigWinners]

2 hours ago, Union_Fan said:

Outside of playoffs, Lee, GC, Clintwood/Ridgeview and Richlands are the only teams that have consistently brought large crowds. Since doing the home/home, Graham was brought a good crowd.

If Lee was the 8th game, instead of the 1st, they probably wouldn't.

Burton, Abingdon, Central, Battle have brought very few people. The limited series teams in the past; Letcher, Sullivan North, TW, Virginia High, Middlesboro, Paintsville, Marion, Crockett, Mo West, Lebanon, SH last year, Boone this year brought almost nobody.

Fans don't travel like they used to. A lot won't even come to the home games. 

The only thing about giving up a home game, unless there's a gate sharing agreement, would be losing the 1-2000 tickets the home team brings. That ain't a drop in the bucket.

I was assuming if RV was willing to not pursue a home game back that they would try and negotiate a gate share. 
 

Unrelated but why aren’t neutral site games a thing? Seems like a huge neutral site game that has a split gate would be at least as profitable as a home game against a bad opponent. 

[Union_Fan]

5 minutes ago, goose111874 said:

If everyone would get rid of nfhs more folks would come out 

I can't speak for other schools, but I don't think NFHS has impacted Union's home attendance. Not really noticed a difference traveling either.

Now, super cold or pouring rain games, probably.

If teams start switching to HUDL, NFHS will collapse. We'll see if attendance changes at that point.

[Union_Fan]

13 minutes ago, BigWinners said:

I was assuming if RV was willing to not pursue a home game back that they would try and negotiate a gate share. 
 

Unrelated but why aren’t neutral site games a thing? Seems like a huge neutral site game that has a split gate would be at least as profitable as a home game against a bad opponent. 

I'm guessing attendance is bad for neutral site games. I remember 30 + years ago you never heard of benefit games. Every team was at a jamboree somewhere.

Even 10 years ago there were a lot of jamborees. Union participated in the one at Burton or Va High for several years. Now, most teams are in a home/home benefit game. Has to be an attendance/money issue involving lack of travel.

[redtiger]

9 hours ago, Unchained said:

I'll just point out 2 things. First Union is the smallest school in the M7. Second, we are the only one who schedules Graham every year.

By current admin # U is the 2nd largest school in the M7 behind only Abingdon. 

In terms of schedule U was let down by Tazewell and Boone, both are pretty bad and that couldn't have been completely expected.

[goose111874]

1 hour ago, Union_Fan said:

I can't speak for other schools, but I don't think NFHS has impacted Union's home attendance. Not really noticed a difference traveling either.

Now, super cold or pouring rain games, probably.

If teams start switching to HUDL, NFHS will collapse. We'll see if attendance changes at that point.

I know a few old timers who have stopped coming because of it 

[BigWinners]

1 hour ago, redtiger said:

By current admin # U is the 2nd largest school in the M7 behind only Abingdon. 

In terms of schedule U was let down by Tazewell and Boone, both are pretty bad and that couldn't have been completely expected.

Union is def bigger than RV, Lee goes back and forth and with Wise hemorrhaging people, Union may have passed them. I’m not sure about Battle and GC is probably a tick smaller now but it’s likely very close. 

[Union_Fan]

9 hours ago, redtiger said:

By current admin # U is the 2nd largest school in the M7 behind only Abingdon. 

In terms of schedule U was let down by Tazewell and Boone, both are pretty bad and that couldn't have been completely expected.

Is there a newer one than this?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18tXskxsDUTfyw6i7ke4cQWmzVWtAOoSW/view?usp=sharing

 

[Unchained]

17 minutes ago, Union_Fan said:

Is there a newer one than this?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18tXskxsDUTfyw6i7ke4cQWmzVWtAOoSW/view?usp=sharing

 

This is what I was looking at

[Gridiron60]

53 minutes ago, Unchained said:

This is what I was looking at

Not sure what Red Tiger is looking at but if that one is most recent which not sure it is since it says 2022 but Union does not have largest enrollment behind Abingdon in this document.

[Gridiron60]

Go to the DOE site and it allows you to build your own table. It shows Central largest, Gate City, Union, & Ridgeview smallest. I had to set the parameters. If I knew how to copy & paste the table I would. I used 2025-25 school year grades 9-12. 
 

https://p1pe.doe.virginia.gov/apex/f?p=180:1:::::p_session_id,p_application_name:-555136098462298922,fallmembership

SWD 2024-2025 Grades 9-12 

VH 638

Marion 564

Richlands 557

Tazewell 507

Graham 494

Lebanon 458 

 

It’s a pretty neat tool. 

 

 

[tornado99]

19 hours ago, Unchained said:

I'll just point out 2 things. First Union is the smallest school in the M7. Second, we are the only one who schedules Graham every year.

 

10 hours ago, redtiger said:

By current admin # U is the 2nd largest school in the M7 behind only Abingdon. 

In terms of schedule U was let down by Tazewell and Boone, both are pretty bad and that couldn't have been completely expected.

This change is likely consistent with some of the small towns in the area with increasing population, even with fewer people. 
Union has expanded its borders to annex part of Lee County and the parts of Wise with football players. 
(Just kidding, Bears. I couldn’t resist.)

[Unchained]

7 minutes ago, tornado99 said:

 

This change is likely consistent with some of the small towns in the area with increasing population, even with fewer people. 
Union has expanded its borders to annex part of Lee County and the parts of Wise with football players. 
(Just kidding, Bears. I couldn’t resist.)

We tried to get some kids from Honaker and Big Creek, but ya'll beat us to it:)

[redtiger]

https://www.vhsl.org/alignment/

I was using the Alignment Table on the VHSL website, which apparently is out of date, my mistake. Unions enrollment has taken a significant dip recently

 

[tornado99]

13 minutes ago, Unchained said:

We tried to get some kids from Honaker and Big Creek, but ya'll beat us to it:)

They said you could not afford the travel per diem with the new school expense.