Friday Night Football In Jeopardy

I am seeing on Facebook and Twitter from Gryphon football players that Friday night's football game with Hertford County has been cancelled.  Nash County schools are out for another day today and I am not sure Thursday will be a school day either.  Just as soon as I can find out whether this game is off or postponed I'll let you know.

It's getting down to the end of the New York Penn League season and Nash Central's Xavier Macklin batting average is hovering around 232.  His playing time has gone down since his batting average has been sliding. Expect him in winter ball in Florida.

I see on the Washington Redskins website that Shaun Draughn is still a Redskin.  He also has a number change  to #38.  I would think that is a good sign for Shaun  as I can see no reason to change his number and then cut him.

.  Finally we can get to see something on the sports on TV that is not related to and NCAA investigation.  Thursday night starts the 2011 college football season.  The folks in Chapel Hill should thank their lucky stars for the Miami Hurricanes.  Miami has wiped all of Carolina investigation clean off the news.  Just about everyone of our division one teams in our area play before the weekend is over.

Most folks would tell you that the Southeastern conference is the conference that would cheat at all cost.  It is easy to point to the Cam Newton investigation at Auburn as Auburn has a national championship under it's belt and now waits on any sanctions by the NCAA.  There is one thing the Southeastern conference does better than the ACC.  When they cheat they win.  Georgia Tech, Carolina  and Miami have no trophies to show for any of the sanctions heading their way.

No Power-No School-No Practice

It makes perfect sense in the world of safety that if school closes early because of snow then the basketball game that night should be postponed.  This week both Nash and Edgecombe Counties face their second day of no school because of no power to many of our area schools.  Technically school is closed because of Hurricane Irene.

School being closed all sports teams are shelved so far this week so all sports practices are closed too.  This will really put preparation for any Friday night football game  or even a Thursday JV game in serious jeopardy.  Football is a sport where you can watch what the other team does and then tell your team what to look for.  Most other fall sports are do the best you can in Tennis, Volleyball, Cross Country and soccer.

There are very serious questions whether there will be any Nash County Schools before Thursday and at Tarboro High whether there will be any school in that building for a while because of the wind damage and flooding. Hurricane Irene is giving us results much like Floyd did in 1999 when most teams only played an eight game schedule due to three Friday nights being cancelled because of flooding.

Thre is a little bit of good news for Tarboro's Shaun Draughn.  So far in the training camp of the Washington Redskins he has worked his way up to the #5 running back where a couple of weeks ago he was #8.  The question for him, How many backs will Mike Shanahan keep on the opening day roster.

Shaun did not get a carry last weekend against the Ravens. Today is the next to last cut day and depending on how the Redskins thinking is going  as to how many backs they will carry on their roster.  Final NFL cuts start coming as soon as the teams play their final preseason game which for many will be Thursday night.  Shaun is right on the edge.

There is a tremendous  amount of people still without power and I pray for each of you that life will get back to normal soon.

Newton Not The Panthers Answer

I don't know whether you had the same experience from Hurricane Irene as me. I did not hear one clap of thunder or bolt of lightening.  I don't ever recall that before in a Hurricane. I think schools will be lucky if they are all with power by Wednesday which will mess with a lot of tennis,soccer, cross country and volley ball  schedules.


Let's get back to sports:

All of the experts are saying Cam Newton made a big step backwards in the Panthers lost to the lowly Cincinnati Bengals.  Quite frankly I have not seen  Newton take a step forward in any game so far so if you haven't gone forward then you must be going backwards.

Most mobile quarterbacks that love to run are not very accurate in the pocket because they are nervous and don't stay in the pocket long enough for receivers to get that step needed to get open.  I think this in one of the things that drove Tom O'Brien nuts with Russell Wilson.  Another second in the pocket he had all kinds of receivers open .  He had every body talking about that 15 yard run he made but  O'Brien saw on the tape the 50 yard touchdown pass that was never made.

Newton has not shown that he can pin point the ball to a receiver with a defender hanging on.  The good ones in the NFL can. Brady, P Manning, Philip Rivers, Rogers.  What do those four do that others don't they stay in the pocket and wait.  It takes nerves of steel to do it and an accurate arm which they all have.  Newton does not.

Who can tell anything from three exhibition games.  New England's good,  Indy without Manning  will not make the playoffs and even if he plays rather early he has not practiced and there is no way he can be sharp. I pick Houston to win that division last year and I am coming back to them again.  Panthers have a chance to win five games regardless of who their quarterback is.  They have taken a quarterback two years in  a row.  Next year will probably be three in a row.  The best quarterback of all time for the Panthers is Jake Delhomme who they traded for.  The Panthers should have gone with a defensive player in first round and traded for Carson Palmer?


Sunday ended the regular season for the Futures Tour.  Cousin Lauren Doughtie finished 29th in the final standings which qualifies her for the Tour Championship in two week.  Last year she finished 95th so her last two months she has had a really good finish to the season.  There is no way it could  happen but the Top Ten players on the Futures Tour automatically qualify for the LPGA Tour next season.  My personal goal for Lauren is she makes top ten after next season.