SouthWest Game

During the first three years of the NEW 6 Conference, the winner of the Rocky Mount-SouthWest Edgecombe football game has been the conference champion.

When the conference was formed almost four years ago, no one expected either SouthWest or Rocky Mount to dominate the league.

Raymond Cobb was just arriving in Pinetops from cross-county rival North Edgecombe and generally speaking, Cougar football had been average at best for the previous 10 years.

B.W. Holt had just shocked the Big East 4-A Conference by winning its last football championship, but the wave of super power football was just taking hold.

So scheduling the Cougars and Gryphons in the first game of the season in conference play made sense.

Historically speaking ,Fike and Rocky Mount are traditional rivals from out of the past and with the other three county schools as bitter rivals, it made sense that the team from down N.C. 43 play Rocky Mount in the first game.

But who knew that Cobb could transform the Cougars overnight into a beast in football?

In 2005 in Rocky Mount, the Gryphons came away with a 24-7 victory. They meet again in the playoffs and if I remember correctly, the Cougars showed their first signs of not cowering down to the Gryphons as RM won 21-7.

2006 brought an overflow crowd to Pinetops as SouthWest gave the Gryphons their first league loss, 21-16. The Cougars would make it all the way to the third round undefeated and lose to Eastern Alamance in overtime ,while Rocky Mount was fallling to Western Alamance 41-37 that same night.

Last year was a classic, as if to say that 2006 was not as Brian Goodwin had to save the day for the Gryphons with a forced fumble late in the game to save a 15-12 Gryphon win.

Since Holt has been in Rocky Mount, he has averaged nearly 40 points per game, but against Raymond Cobb only 19 points per game.

So what is Cobb's secret ???

Ball Control!!!

Cobb, at both North Edgecombe and now at SouthWest, runs the football. If we saw one thing against Northern Vance is they kept the ball away from us and it almost worked.

It also helps that during his Cougar tenure that SouthWest has been very good on defense.

If Rocky Mount can be ahead 14-0 or 21-0 like they have in most of their games, the Cougars will not be able to chew up the clock by four yards and a pile of mud like Cobb loves to do.

The Achilles heel for SouthWest is because they are a running team, they don't pass and when they have to pass they are not great at it.

Being behind and I think in their case we have to have more than a 14 point lead to make them start passing.

You see Cobb has gotten two state championships under his belt and five visits to the championship game by ramming the ball down your throat. He doesn't even know how to teach a quarterback how to throw the ball, only how to hand off to the running back.(Only joshing, Raymond)

So the conference decided to rotate the games played to eliminate RM and SouthWest from having to play the first game and what has this change done? It has created the best game in the conference season now the second week instead of the first.

I really think that if Rocky Mount scores 21 or more it will win. History tells us that the Gryphons will have to fight tooth and nail to get it.

The first three years of this conference, the winner of this game has gone undefeated during the regular season. Each will carry a blemish into this game next Friday night.

Odds are that the winner will be the conference CHAMPION.