How Many Titles Can The Vikings Win?

The Tarboro Vikings will be making their fifth straight Eastern Regional this Friday night when they host South Columbus.  Should they win they will play in their fifth straight  State Championship title game.  Having won three in a row and the way this teams defense has come around in the last month they very well may on their way to their fourth straight title.

We all know that streaks are made to be broken and should the Vikings win their fourth title in a row how many more can they win.  Must I remind you that the Vikes will be dropping down in classification next year and start playing in 1-A .  Their annual game with county rival North Edgecombe historically is won by Tarboro and hardly ever has the score been close.  We just might  now be approaching the middle of this streak of state championships.  Need I remind everyone however the Tarboro Viking need to concentrate on South Columbus this week or the streak could end.

ESPN is reporting that Monday Maryland will announce that they are joining the Big Ten.  If there is one team that I could care less about being in the ACC it is Maryland.  However if Rutgers joins the Big Ten too then the Big Ten has latched on to the DC/Maryland TV market and New York City.


Should both Florida State and Maryland pull out of the ACC who would replace them.  I bet Vanderbilt will be on the wish list.  If the ACC looks towards the Northeast to replace Maryland  and Rutgers goes to the Big Ten then U Conn is the biggest tomato still available and they would surely fit the ACC basketball criteria.

It was too late for me Friday night but Carolina played maybe their best basketball game of the year in beating Long Beach State as they head over to Hawaii.  State plays in the championship game in Puerto Rico this afternoon.

Thank goodness that Carolina played football on Thursday night and won.  Least one of the Big Four won.  this weekend.  Duke losing to Georgia Tech least we won't be stuck with a Duke-Florida State ACC Championship game.  It is either Miami or Georgia Tech who will play Florida State now. 

The last two weeks in a row the top teams in the BCS have lost and Notre Dame stands to move at the top of the list.  If the ACC wants the Fighting Irish to come on over and join the ACC full time they had better hope that Southern Cal beats the Irish this weekend and drops them out of the National Championship game.  Should the Irish get into the game they will have a big pay day and the thought of joining the ACC will wilt away for another ten years. 

Should the Irish lose next weekend and then not make  the BCS Championship game then  the higher ups in South Bend will receive a lot of pressure because they don't have that ACC Championship game to give them extra points.  Just think a Florida State- Notre Dame ACC championship game this year would feature two top ten teams and the winner would rise in the BCS and without being in a conference championship game Notre Dame can only hope everybody loses in conference championship games while they sit idle.

The Changing World Of College Football

The last two weeks I have witnessed Carolina give up 68 and today the Wolfpack 62.  I don't know how Carolina fans felt last week but I gave a sigh of relief when the game was over because I thought Clemson was going to score 100.

Despite giving up 68 Carolina loses by 18 and today the Pack by 14.  In fact with ten minutes to go in the game Clemson fans still had thoughts they could lose the game.  I am not quite sure whether Big Four football is that bad or college football is  no longer four yards and a cloud of dust.

I find this new college game very exciting to watch but there will have to be rule changes made  to save the game.  Clemson score 62 points and had two passes intercepted.  State had a pass picked off in the Enzone and a blocked field goal.  Between them today they ran nearly 190 plays.  Very seldom in the NFL both teams run 120 between them.  That equates out to over half another game played today and it did not go over time.

I know most of you will think since I like State I say this but Mike Glennon should be the top quarterback taken in next years NFL draft.  He is a better passer than Philip Rivers, more mobile and when on the run can throw it 60 yards on the money.  If he had receivers who could catch there is no telling what his passing numbers could have been this year.  It is very easy to see why Tom O'brien didn't want Mike Glennon to leave last year and told Russell Wilson to take a hike.

How can college football be saved?  My answer would be to eliminate the stopping the clock after a first downs  except inside of two minutes in the half and at the end of the game.  Stopping the clock is the reason there were 190 plays today.  Since college football has a 25 second clock they are going to run more plays every game just because of that but with no stopping the clock after first downs today  they would have only gotten maybe 150 plays in.  If you look back when today's game was at 150 plays the score was still 55-38.

If the National Championship game comes down to Oregon and Kansas State you just might see for the first time in history that the loser scores 40.   Boy won't that be an exciting game.  Funny thing about exciting games is a 17-10 game can be just as exciting at least in a 17-10 game it looks like 11 going against 11 while a game like today looked 11 against 8. 

 

Too Much Speed

Back in 1986 while I was doing Play by Play at Ahoskie High we played Lexington for the State Title at Lexington.  Ahoskie had a real fast team but when your fastest man is the fifth or sixth fastest when the game starts you  find it is hard to win. Lexington won 35-7 that night.

 The Tarboro Vikings came out running the Tarboro Tee and Northeastern looked as though they had never seen it in their life as Viking runners were running through the line untouched and proved to be no match for the Vikings.  Tarboro had over 400 yards rushing by the end of the third quarter.  Northeastern just didn't have any speed to stay with theVikings especially not knowing where the football was.  The Viking will Host South Columbus who was down 14-8 at the half at East Bladen but scored twice in the third quarter to secure their spot in the 2-A finals in Tarboro next Friday night.

The mark of a real good team regardless of what sport you play when the other team does something good  that you respond positively.  Tonight Cleveland scored early but for the undefeated Hunt Warriors no problem as they respond by score 21 straight points.  But like a good team Cleveland responded back and boy like I expected this one went right down to the last play as Hunt holds off Cleveland 33-28.  Cleveland's last play of the game was at the Hunt 10 yard line but the pass in the inzone was incomplete.  Hunt travels to NE Guilford next Friday night in the Eastern Final in 3-A.

Sure does look as if the N C State Wolfpack just might be for real this year.  For the second night in a row the Pack wins easily in a tournament in Puerto Rico.  U Mass never  really pressured the Pack especially in the second half and the Pack goes to 3-0.  They play for the tournament championship Sunday night at 6.30pm.  T J Warren who is just maybe the #3 player of the three Pack super freshmen just might be the best player on the entire roster.

Nice win last night for North Carolina .  After giving up 68 they hold UVA to 13 and in doing so Virginia can not win enough games to get bowl eligible so the ACC cannot have enough teams  to play in all the bowl games the ACC has contracts to be in.

N C State has extended Debbie Yow's contract by two years as Athletic of the Wolfpack.  There is no doubt Yow has brought on a demand from every coach that you win plus players do well in the class room.  She is pretty good at finding money under rocks too.

The Lady Gryphon basketball team will make their second straight appearance in the Holiday Tournament in Raleigh.  Tonight tournament officials have released the times of the games and the Lady Gryphons will play in the girls feature game on December 26th at 6.30 against Dudley High of Greensboro

It's Official

There is an old saying "Where there is smoke there is fire", rumors have been circulating for a couple of weeks now that Mickey Crouch had resigned as football coach at Northern Nash.  Today an advertisement for a head football coach is on the employment page at the Nash Rocky Mount web page. 

Don't know who will apply but in my opinion Chris Lee the former JV coach at Rocky Mount who is now at Louisburg would be high on my list if he applies.  As JV coach at Rocky Mount during the B W Holt era Lee lead the JV's to something like a 45-3 record and probably would have been the head coach at Rocky Mount had he not taken the Louisburg job in January before Holt left in June.

It's also official that J'Kyra Brown is a Pirate.  Yesterday was the day for athletes to have a signing day with their college of their choice and Brown  Rocky Mount's senior basketball player who has said all along she wanted to go to ECU and she will.

Oh by the way, Jacksonville who knocked Southern Nash out of the soccer playoffs beat Cardinal Gibbons 6-2 and will play for the state title Saturday.  Over the past five years or so Rocky Mount, Hunt and Southern Nash can all tell you about how good the soccer program is for the Jacksonville Cardinals.  They have all lost to them in the playoffs and in some cases more than once.

Hope you had a chance to see Tom Suitor and his "Extra Effort  Award.  Tarboro's Tyquan Lewis was the feature this week and Tom has been spending a lot of time in the area lately.  A couple of weeks ago he was at Hunt doing a feature on Josh Joyner.

There are only two teams left from the area as the third round of the football playoffs are upon us.  Hunt and Tarboro both get home games Friday night and they both will have their hands full.

Hunt will take on Cleveland  which I think is in their third year of existence and this is a dandy team.  Hunt for the second season in a row heads to the third round unbeaten.  Home field advantage will be key in both of these games.  Hunt  wins by a eye lash 28-24 over Cleveland and Tarboro will need more than forty to take down Northeastern 48-42.

Wanna-Be's

Before I can go much further tonight I must explain what a wanna-be is.  A wanna-be is someone that yearns for more than what they have.  They wish they were better than they are.

In the football world both Carolina and State are wanna-be's.  They both wish they could win 10 games every year and when they don't  they wish they had and then wonder why they didn't.  A wanna-be  most of the time is just above average but think they are better than that.  Carolina and State fit that description. About every five years they have really good teams but most of the time they are 8-4 but they slip to 5-7 once in a while.  They wanna be like Alabama play for National Championships.  They upset Florida State one week and lose to Virginia the next.

The basketball world N C State has fallen into that wanna-be category.  They wanna be just like Carolina and Duke.  Yes 50 years ago State was there but they have fallen back and yet everyone still thinks they are what they were 50 years ago. Ever since the Valvano fall from grace State has truly been a wanna-be.

One of the biggest problem being a wanna-be is when you think you have a chance to be good you over valve how good you really are and when you don't become as good as you thought you should be  the whole year is a failure.  State football and to some degree Carolina fit that mould this year.

Then there is basketball.  State who prays every night that basketball will return to it's glorious past finds a smooth talking coach who has street cred and every good basketball player  that use to go to Carolina and Duke seem to be going to State now.  Here we go again Pack fans are talking National Championship.

There is no doubt that I am giddy to the prospects of this years basketball team and their first game gives us no reason to be nervous but let's settle down here now.  Here is my expectations this year.  I sure would like to finish this year with single digit losses.  I am tire of having records 16-12, 19-12 24-12.  I am ready for a 27-8 season.  If the Pack is to step that far this year then next year I might be one of those who thinks the Final Four or bust.

Remember the Pack is still a wanna-be.  Yes we were impressive in our opening game against Miami of Ohio.  For me the season starts Thursday at 5pm when the Pack begins play in Puerto Rico against Penn St.  The next  step from being a wanna-be to becoming who we think we are is winning the games you are suppose to win.  If you win all those games single digit loss season will take care of itself.

College Basketball Before Thanksgiving.

Sure would like to see college basketball wait at least until after Thanksgiving to crank up but the all mighty ESPN continues to throw money on the table to get games like tonight.  Duke Plays Kentucky in the Georgia Dome.  What on earth are they doing playing there?  ESPN has found somebody that will finance tonight game and it will be call something and ESPN will carry it.

The Big Three ACC schools from the Triangle are all highly rated in the early season and after a week Carolina has played twice and looked ok but not great.  State had the biggest blowout but who can tell from one game.  Duke looked better in their opener than I thought they would but who knows where any of them are heading in just the first week.

It looks to me that Carolina has Duke's problem from last year , greedy guards.  They want to do all the scoring and the best players are not getting the ball enough.  Duke in the first game looked more like they enjoyed playing with each other which at times last year that didn't seem to happen.  State looked as if the preseason rankings might be right but they hit the court at 5pm Wednesday in San Juan against Penn St.  We will need to see how State plays after the first bump in the road.

Looked on the NCHSAA website tonight checking on football jobs opened and SouthWest Edgecombe officially started looking for their new coach to replace Raymond Cobb.  Whole lot of rumors floating about Northern Nash but the Nash/Rocky Mount and NCHSAA websites have nothing so at this point only rumors.

The Steelers just maybe lost a big whack in their season last night when Bem Rothlesburger went down with a shoulder injury.  Might be back next week or out a month who knows.  They play Baltimore Sunday.

Do you realize that Duke here on November 13th is still alive to with the Coastal Division of the ACC and if they beat Georgia Tech this week who put 68 on Carolina and beat Miami next week they just might meet Florida State in the ACC Championship game.  If it happens I'll take FSU by 40.

Vikings Just Might Have Their Hands Full

Everyone in Tarboro was looking forward to a repeat game with the J A Holmes Aces or better known to everyone as the Edenton Aces.  Gomer would say it like this "Surprise Surprise"  Northeastern will be the team that Tarboro faces as they just might have a hand full.

Northeastern will come to Tarboro 11-2 having finished second to Edenton who they lost to during the regular season 28-21 but exacted revenge Friday beating Holmes 40-8.  So far this year the Eagles have scored 633 point  in their 13 games for a 48.6 scoring average.  Twice this year they have put at least sixty on the boards and twice over 70.  Sure looks like offensively they can match Tarboro point for point. Remember that playoff game in Edenton last year it took some Todd Gurley heroics in the fourth quarter to pull that one out in the last thirty seconds.

The Vikings on the other hand have average 42 points a game but they have given up about  16 per contest.  Between them they have played no one that we can look at to compare scores.  Tarboro played Nash Central and won while Hertford County played Nash Central and won and Northeastern beat HC.  That is about as close as you will get to like foes.

Hunt will also be at home Friday hosting Cleveland.  This will not be easy for the Warriors either as Cleveland dominated D H Conley last week while Hunt beat Cardinal Gibbons who's starting QB didn't play with an injury.

High school basketball is just around the corner  as the defending State 3-A champs open up in that Knightdale Tournament that they were in last year the Friday after Thanksgiving.  The Gryphons won that giving everyone notice about their potential last year.  The Lady Gryphons will also play there but if you remember their first game was against  Millbrook who was a loaded 4-A school and they were only able to finish in third place.

I guess everyone has seen about the quarterback for Davidson Country Day that passed for 817 yards in the Private school championship game Friday night.  Davidson beat Harrell's Academy 108-80.  Yes Carolina football somebody did play worse than you this past weekend.  I would have hated to be on the kickoff team for either team having to sprint down a make a tackle on a kickoff.  I would have been worn out just from that.