The last few years the NEW 6 3-A has proven to be one of the best football conferences in the state.
This year seems to be no different. Now that the non-conference portion of the schedule is over let's look at the conference.
Fike - 5-1 Stung tonight by the Beddingfield passing attack Fike loses for the first time 34-28
Rocky Mount- Having played in the Eastern Finals last year everyone around the state is aware of the Gryphons.
Nash Central - Having lost their first game of the season to Tarboro, people are not paying attention to the Bulldogs. They have not lost since that opener.
Unlike Rocky Mount, which discovered the ineligible player problem in Nash County, Nash Central had to forfeit two games, but on the field it's 5-1.
SouthWest Edgecombe- Like Nash Central, the Cougars lost their first game and stand 4-1. You need to remember that SouthWest played its first game of the season at West Craven, which is still undefeated. West Craven had already played one game when it met the Cougars, so that was a LARGE advantage that night.
Southern Nash - The Firebirds are up one week and down the next. They have been up more than down at sport a 3-2 record.
Northern Nash - A couple of blowout losses in the first couple of games but the Knights continue to improved each week. The last two games went to the wire with a chance to beat Bertie at Bertie and last week's last-play victory over Southern Vance. Northern stands at 1-5.
The conference has an overall 24-10 record on the field as conference play cranks up next week. Northern is holding five of the ten losses.
Fike, Nash Central, Rocky Mount and SouthWest Edgecombe are 20-4 in games played on the field. This championship might not already be sewn up for the Gryphons.
Strength of schedule is very important when preparing for conference play. Looking back at the Gryphons' six opponents record to date..... East Forsyth, J.H. Rose and Hertford County have a combined 11-4 record in their games not involving the Gryphons.
Rose lost tonight at home to West Craven 29-6. West Craven is unbeaten in 3-A play and very well may challenge for the No. 1 seed in the 3-A eastern bracket when the playoffs roll around.
The other end of the spectrum are Southern Wayne, Wilson Hunt and Northern Vance. They are a combined 4-11 when playing some one other than the Gryphons.
That makes our overall record of the teams on our schedule a combined 15-15. That's not bad
even though a couple of teams were not very good in our six games so far.
You know one of the reasons that the conference started rotating the schedule was because the way the conference football has played out in the first three years of the league. Rocky Mount and SouthWest have pretty much played for the championship the first week of conference play.
That's why we are playing Northern Next week, not at the end of the season. They rotated every team up one game in the schedule cycle.
So what has that caused? Next week, SouthWest plays host to Fike and then SouthWest entertains the Gryphons. The Cougars get the two of the top NEW- 6 teams at their place the first two conference games.
The last time the Gryphons went to Pinetops, they got beat on a Monday night 21-16.
In fact, all three games with SouthWest during the regular season have been played on a Monday night. All have been decided by a touchdown margin or less difference every time, except their first NEW 6 tilt (24-7, RM).
The first two weeks will tell us a lot about who might be the conference champion or either we will have to wait until the first Friday night in November.
Fike's loss tonight drops a potential undefeated team out of the running for the No. 1 seeding at the end of year. That is, of course, assuming some one will stay unbeaten all year long.
Right now, the unbeaten teams looking for the No. 1 seed in the east are West Craven, Beddingfield, which beat Fike tonight, but which earlier this year lost to Nash Central. They got that lost back after Nash Central had to give up the game on the forfeit, Rocky Mount and Eastern Alamance.
If all those teams end up unbeaten, a drawing will be held between the four teams to determine the top four seeds.
As the conference play unfolds, all four of these teams should be the first scores you look for if you are worried about seedings for the playoffs.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Season's One-Third Over
If this was the NFL, the exhibition season ended tonight.
This is high school football, so the non-conference portion of the Gryphons' schedule is over.
I've told you all week we needed someone make us sweat in the second half and we got that from Northern Vance.
Just because I said we needed it, didn't mean I wanted it. But we got it anyway.
What the Gryphons got was a team that thought it could beat us and did everything in its power to make it happen. In the end, the test that we needed we got and we passed.
Here we were playing a team that we should have played in three weeks ago - playing in front of a mostly empty stadium. If there was 500 paying customers, then there was a huge crowd. Only about 100 made the trip from Rocky Mount, including the cheerleaders.
They were playing on a Thursday (that's JV night). The field was muddy (a soccer match was played on it the night before). The baseball coach at NV, who was the PA announcer, said that they had a big rain Tuesday morning, but even in drought conditions, that field stays wet. Most importantly, we found out tonight other teams don't lay down and die when we show up.
We were given a supreme effort by a team with a slippery QB and a wide receiver who had the ability to make catches even when we had him covered.
The defense held them to seven points and a dropped punt snap supplied the other three points for them. They scored their 10 points in a two-minute span. The first half, the Gryphons' defense played as if they were suppose to fall down every time we touched them. However, the Vikings did not buy into that idea.
Here is a telling stat from this game which tells me why I am happy with this game.
In the first half, Rocky Mount had the ball four times. We had one touchdown, on field goal, a lost fumble and a dropped punt snap.
In the second half, we had a 86-yard scoring drive, a field goal, a one-play touchdown and we ran out the clock.
We had eight possessions and scored on five and ran out the clock on another. We did about as good as any other game. The Vikings did a great job of keeping the ball from us.
Junior running back Marquavis Alston is rounding into shape after his ankle injury at J.H. Rose . He now has 260 yards on 17 carries over the last two games.
QB Collins Cuthrell continues to throw long passes with accuracy and Keith Strickland continues to catch long passes.
The defense came to play in the second half and the Vikings' quarterback Americus Williams did a good job of eluding our pressure all night until the very end.
Bottom line tonight - we needed to see how we would play with the game on the line and we played the second half the way we played the first five games of the season - full-throttle.
The Gryphons passed a major exam - 26-10 over Northern Vance.
There is good news to pass along to you. As we signed off the air tonight, we reported that Nash Central and Bunn were tied 20-20 and heading into overtime.
In the third overtime, Nash Central scores first and makes a two-point conversion and Bunn scores on their first play, but misses the two-pointer, so the Bulldogs win 34-32.
I know everyone thinks that we should have put 50 on the board and because we didn't we didn't play well. We didn't play well in the first half because for the first time this year ,we were not spitting nails getting off the bus, but NV was.
We survived a challenge which will make us a better team as we head to conference play next week against Northern.
This is high school football, so the non-conference portion of the Gryphons' schedule is over.
I've told you all week we needed someone make us sweat in the second half and we got that from Northern Vance.
Just because I said we needed it, didn't mean I wanted it. But we got it anyway.
What the Gryphons got was a team that thought it could beat us and did everything in its power to make it happen. In the end, the test that we needed we got and we passed.
Here we were playing a team that we should have played in three weeks ago - playing in front of a mostly empty stadium. If there was 500 paying customers, then there was a huge crowd. Only about 100 made the trip from Rocky Mount, including the cheerleaders.
They were playing on a Thursday (that's JV night). The field was muddy (a soccer match was played on it the night before). The baseball coach at NV, who was the PA announcer, said that they had a big rain Tuesday morning, but even in drought conditions, that field stays wet. Most importantly, we found out tonight other teams don't lay down and die when we show up.
We were given a supreme effort by a team with a slippery QB and a wide receiver who had the ability to make catches even when we had him covered.
The defense held them to seven points and a dropped punt snap supplied the other three points for them. They scored their 10 points in a two-minute span. The first half, the Gryphons' defense played as if they were suppose to fall down every time we touched them. However, the Vikings did not buy into that idea.
Here is a telling stat from this game which tells me why I am happy with this game.
In the first half, Rocky Mount had the ball four times. We had one touchdown, on field goal, a lost fumble and a dropped punt snap.
In the second half, we had a 86-yard scoring drive, a field goal, a one-play touchdown and we ran out the clock.
We had eight possessions and scored on five and ran out the clock on another. We did about as good as any other game. The Vikings did a great job of keeping the ball from us.
Junior running back Marquavis Alston is rounding into shape after his ankle injury at J.H. Rose . He now has 260 yards on 17 carries over the last two games.
QB Collins Cuthrell continues to throw long passes with accuracy and Keith Strickland continues to catch long passes.
The defense came to play in the second half and the Vikings' quarterback Americus Williams did a good job of eluding our pressure all night until the very end.
Bottom line tonight - we needed to see how we would play with the game on the line and we played the second half the way we played the first five games of the season - full-throttle.
The Gryphons passed a major exam - 26-10 over Northern Vance.
There is good news to pass along to you. As we signed off the air tonight, we reported that Nash Central and Bunn were tied 20-20 and heading into overtime.
In the third overtime, Nash Central scores first and makes a two-point conversion and Bunn scores on their first play, but misses the two-pointer, so the Bulldogs win 34-32.
I know everyone thinks that we should have put 50 on the board and because we didn't we didn't play well. We didn't play well in the first half because for the first time this year ,we were not spitting nails getting off the bus, but NV was.
We survived a challenge which will make us a better team as we head to conference play next week against Northern.
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