Almost 1/3 Of The Way

Just about every  public high school team has played three games so far and we have hit the 30% of the season is over and we should be able to make some type of reasonable assumptions where every team stands.

Tarboro:  Must be loaded again as they have played three 3-A teams and are 3-0.  Defense looks suspect at this point but I believe the level of competition has plenty to do with that.  They have scored over 120 points in three games.  How far they go this year toward five playoffs games will rest in the hands of a defense that will improve as the schedule includes  schools in 2-A and 1-A.

SouthWest Edgecombe: 1-2. Both losses have come from Hunt and Southern Nash.  They just might have an answer for Tarboro  when conference time comes.

North Edgecombe:  They can play with any body in their level.  Over matched against County foes SWE and Tarboro.

Southern Nash:  They have reloaded nicely after having lost their entire running back corp from last year.  3-0 so far and look to challenge Hunt for conference title.

Rocky Mount:  3-0 (2-1)What a difference  a year makes in attitude alone.  The line is small on both sides of the ball and when Rocky Mount hits the meat of conference schedule will find it hard to win against power teams like Hunt, Nash Central, Southern Nash.  Can't stand for the injury bug to  dig any deeper than it already is.

Northern Nash:  1-2 Offense has improved over last year.  If there is one team that could move up toward the top it might be the Knights.  Most experts pegged the Knights 4th or 5th in preseason.  I could see third  if the cards fall their way.

Nash Central:  2-1  No shame what so ever in their lone loss coming from Tarboro.  Seems as if Nash Central is on door step again this year.  Lost twice to Hunt last year.   Tarboro is the same mold as Hunt in this way, one of those  teams that the Bulldogs must beat not just lose a close one.  It is step up time for them.

Rocky Mount Academy:  B W Holt's six years in Rocky Mount he averaged 38 points a game.  His first two games in eight man football the Eagles have scored 32.  The man can coach offense.  If the Eagles figure out how to slow down the other team they are going to be dangerous for somebody.  No longer an automatic win when you play RMA.

Fike:1-2  Sure can score points.  Their problem the other teams seems to be able to score more.

Hunt:  3-0 Not quite as good as last year but they are the team to beat.  Defense is suspect.

Get my first chance in the PA booth Thursday night as Rocky Mount jv's play their first home game.

Gurley Marches Into Georgia

Former Tarboro High football player Todd Gurley score on the second and third touches of the football in his college football career.  His first play an unimpressive two yard run but #2 Gurley  broke a tackle at the eight yard line and cruised in for a ten yard touchdown run.  Georgia's defense allowed Buffalo a touchdown and on the following kickoff Gurley went 100 yards to give Georgia a 14-3 lead.

Gurley saved the best for last as in the fourth quarter he broke three tackles on a run up the middle and once he broke free as they say"Katie Bar the Door" a 55 yard scamper which gave Gurley three touchdowns on the day.  Gurley ran only eight times from scrimmage but hit the century mark getting 100  yards.  Boy does he have big expectations to live up to now.

Larry Fedora has that big hill of expectations to overcome now as his Tar Heels romp over Elon 62-0.  It has been 17 years since the Heels scored that many points.

ECU gets the 2012 football season off on the right foot as they hammer App State 35-13.

Fans have no middle ground.  You are expected to be the best team ever and when you stumble all of a sudden you are now the worse ever.  N C State fans have gone from hoping to play for the conference championship  to ready to run Tom O'Brien out of town after State lost last night to Tennessee.

Expectations can be fun to wish but nobody knows for sure about any thing.  It will be three weeks or so before State fans will know whether last night loss was pitiful or not bad at all.  Just suppose Tennessee turns out to play for the SEC championship or maybe the National Championship.  Take five minutes away from that game last night and State played about as well as you could expect.  Plain and Simple Tennessee was a better football team and they were much better than State at every position.

The other end of the spectrum is North Carolina.  What did they learn today.  Who knows until we see what Elon does the next few week.  Suppose Elon doesn't win a game all year then today wasn't all that impressive. 

There is a middle ground some where in every game.  State isn't as bad a State fans think and Carolina is probably not as good as they looked today in Larry fedora's first game in Chapel Hill.

Let's face it as long as the ACC stays away from allowing Non qualifiers to play and the SEC does the ACC teams will always be at a disadvantage when ever they play any team from the SEC.  We as fans have to decide what we want.  Do we want to win at all cost or do we want to set the academic standards and make all ACC teams live by them.  There is no middle ground but fans want both and academic excellence and winning football most of the time don't go together.

Better Conditioned Gryphons Comeback

Hertford County rushed for nearly 200 yards the first 20 minutes of the game and took advantage of a 50 yard td pass and looked as if they were going to dominate the smaller Gryphons. Insert Mason Hines with a 89 yard kickoff return to get the score to 14-10 Bears and then something happened that told the tale of this game.

HC had two players go down with cramps late in the second quarter and by my count at games end had another six times players go down.  Results HC fails to get a first down in the second half and Rocky Mount get a hugh 4th and seven run from Mason Hines and the Gryphons beat Hertford County 17-14.

Rocky Mount had field position the entire second half  and did nothing until they decided to go for it on fourth and seven from HC 47 which by the way had been Rocky Mount's worse starting position in the second half when they started at own 41.  Mason Hines was hit in the back field broke way and sprinted 12 yards for a Gryphon first down and from that point on the Gryphons drove for the winning td on a Hines two yard run with 8:17 to play.

By night's end Hertford County would rush for 233 in the game and pass for 76 yards but only 79 total yards came in second half.  Hines got 89 yards to lead the Gryphon rushing attack which totaled only 154 for the game and another 39 yards on passes.

Even though HC line on both sides of the ball were much bigger than the Gryphons the Gryphons come back to win 17-14.

Tarboro has found out the past several years that after they go through the first few games of the season and play all 3-A schools that they look as if they don't have any defense what so ever.  Then they get to conference they settle in and start holding teams down on offense and of course their offense can score on anybody.   Northern Nash puts 35 on the board against the Vikings and still lose 47-35.  I know there are not many coaches that will say  this was   a good loss but for the Knight's I think this shows what this team can do.

Roanoke Rapids the last two weeks has feasted on 1-A level competition scoring 114 points.  Friday night they hosted Nash Central and a chance  to see if they are really as good as their scoring has been.  The answer is no as Nash Central takes down RR 33-7.

Thursday night Hunt had a test from SouthWest Edgecombe breaking open a tied game in the fourth quarter to win 28-14 over the Cougars.  Southern Nash  ripped Bunn 37-14.

Here is a Big East score from Friday night that you might find interesting Beddingfield 49 Fike 48. wow

Power Of The Dollar Bill

It is coming up on another Friday night and time for high school football,, Wait a minute no so tomorrow night as the national college football season kicks off on one of the many ESPN networks Friday night and the Wolfpack will be front and center.

Remember not that long ago when ECU played a Friday night home game on TV early in the state playoffs and high school coaches got so mad with ECU many of them banned the Pirate coaches from coming on their campus to recruit.  Those days are long gone.  The poor little high school can't compete with the money ESPN throws on the table to colleges so the ACC is on their only Friday night game this year.  The power of the all mighty dollars is so big that if ESPN told the ACC or any other league that they would pay to show a live game at 5am on a Tuesday morning someone would do it.  Have you forgotten  already that ESPN has that 24 hours of basketball so why not football too?

Yes it is high school time and Southern Nash hits the field Thursday night so here is this week's games.  I have been perfectly wrong one week and perfectly right the next but what does it add up to?  I still don't know how good or bad some of our teams are.

Southern Nash at Bunn:  Here we are with another compare score game as Bunn  is trying hard to get in the Big East with their third straight Big East game .  This is Bunn's first home game and I think the Firebirds give the Wildcats their third straight loss.  Southern Nash 28 Bunn 14

SouthWest Edgecombe is also preparing for a long holiday weekend as they Travel to Hunt tonight.  Hunt for many years has always played on Thursday when ever they had a home game on this weekend.  Hunt and SWE look a lot alike  but by the end of the game Hunt wins 28-20

The only game this week featuring two Twin County teams will go in Death Vally as Northern host Tarboro.  Tarboro seems to be same old Vikings which means real good.  Northern almost stunned the Vikes two years ago at Northern and probably should have won the game.  I doubt that happens this year  Tarboro 35 Northern 13


Nash Central travels to Roanoke Rapids where the Yellow Jackets have score 68 and 56 points in their first two games.Brand new football team RM Prep was the 68 and Weldon gave RR the 56.  There will not be 50 in Roanoke Rapids Friday but a good game.  Nash Central 34 RR26

Hertford County is 2-0 and has scored 79 in their first two outings.  Rocky Mount is 2-0 and gave up 40 in their two outings.  If you want to see scoring Rocky Mount will be the place where the question is how good is either team.  I have just flipped a coin and Hertford County wins 35  Rocky Mount 28.

North Edgecombe is taking the week off preparing for Tarboro next week.

Just heard from Randy Langley as I was blogging that tonight on theWRAL- Sports they honored   Dequavais Mann the Northern Nash Football player that is heading to Duke next year to play football.  Dequavias Mann this week's WRAL-TV Extra Effort Winner.  Go Knights!

Spooky Anniversary

Today is the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina attacking New Orleans and the Bayou country of the Gulf Coast.  Another Hurricane is dumping rain on that area today seven years later.  We who live in a Hurricane plain know what happens when high wind and rains run their course.  I pray for those people who have a long road to recovery in that area today.

Seven years ago today a Babe Ruth Baseball team had just won the 14 year old Babe Ruth World Series in Quincy Massachusetts and were trying to fly home to celebrate beating a team from Nash County North Carolina on August 25th of 2005.  The 25th had been a Saturday afternoon and every team that makes it to the World Series the Babe Ruth Association cut deals with major airlines that the teams fly for free when ever space is available.  The space on a major airline to get the Jefferson Parrish  Louisiana team home left Boston on August 29th and because of Katrina  the flight was diverted to Houston.

I had flown up early Saturday morning with Richard Sarmeinto, Don Tharrington and Baseball Britt Johnson and Rich and I did a TV tape of the game to show on WHIG that Sunday night. Jefferson Parrish won 7-2 when they beat a team with Brian Goodwin, Tyler Joyner, Ben Fish, Dillon Cockrell, Mike Williams  and other 14 year old players  from Nash County.

While I watch the news and see what that part of the country is going through again I can only think of that Jefferson Parrish team that had so much to celebrate on the way home from winning a World Championship only to find many of them had no homes to go to.  Many of our players we have seen have gone on to bigger and better things in life.  I wonder what happened to all those kids?

The Rocky Mount Gryphon football has just become an undefeated team as Bunn has announced that they used an ineligible player in the season opening 37-21 win over Rocky Mount and have forfeited the game.  Remember back during the Holt era at Rocky Mount on opening night the Gryphons beat East Forsyth 43-6 but later had to forfeit the game because of the use of and ineligible player.

Fifty years from now no one will remember how the Gryphons lost opening night in 2008 or how they won in 2012.  Every team and coach try their best to make sure everyone is legal when ever they take the field because too much sweat goes into preparation to throw wins away on a clerical error.  But it happens.

How Do You Value a Great Coach?

Tom O'Brien begins the six year as head coach of the WolfPack Friday night and in his six year there is more optimism in Pack land than any of his previous six.  If it is one thing the man has done is stick to the plan.  He had said all along that he wanted to red shirt every player as freshmen especially linemen so they would have five years to get stronger every year.  This year's seniors in Raleigh is the first  full recruiting class that TOB has recruited every player on the Pack.

Injuries can destroy any team and if the Pack stays healthy this just could be a real nice season in Raleigh.  Time will tell.  This whole season could ride on the results Friday night as the Pack should be favored in this game but historically the Pack starts every season slow and gets better during the season.  For the sake of the ACC and even this football season for the Pack They need a victory Friday night.

Gryphon fans will remember that first time B W Holt walked into Rocky Mount's locker room and took over the program just a week or so before August practice started.  He has the ability to see talent and get them into the right place and in his first year the Gryphons won their first five games before losing for the first time.

  It seems in the short practice time since he has arrived at RMA he has already turned the attitudes around enough that the Eagle players are listening to what he has to say and then doing what he ask them to do.  I don't know how many games they can win when conference starts but I bet they don't lose many that when the game is near the end  they don't still have a shot to win.

Raymond Cobb made North Edgecombe a perennial Eastern Final and State finals year after year. Two State Championships banners hang at NE.   He leaves NE and goes to his SWE and right away he turns the Cougars from an average team to a team than goes deep in the playoffs every year.  Only once in eight years injuries did him in and other wise SWE has been one of the teams you had to beat if you wanted to get out of the East either when they were 3-A or 2-A.

The wrong coach can run a program down just as quick as some of the great coaches can lift up a program.  Some cases the talent is just not there and they do a good job just to be average and a it is hard for Joe average fan so see when there is simply no talent on a team.  It doesn't matter how many wins and losses you get every coach likes to be able to look back and his players and think when he first came to me he was  skin and bones and couldn't remember one play from the next.  Look at him now colleges are calling him wanting him to play for them.

Yes every coach worth his salt cares more about what a player becomes more than how many wins that player helped get.  Sometimes they both work together and everybody wins.  It just seems the really good coaches get something out of players that others can't find  that player had that in him.

There are a lot of good coaches in this area.  There are not many that turn a program around by just being there.  We are mighty lucky that we have a couple that roam the sidelines in theses parts.  When ever they leave they will be hard to replace.

Mason Holt Wins Again

Rocky Mount High school Senior Cross Country runner Mason Holt won the 2012 Wendell Park Early Bird Invitational Saturday in Wendell.  His winning time of 16:48 was thirty second faster than the second place runner in this 5k race.  Gryphon Zach Shea finished fifth but overall Rocky Mount could only place fifth in the team competition.  Fike was the only other Big East team to run in this event and they finished sixth in a 12 team run.

Over on the girls side Fike and Rocky Mount flip flopped  Fike Finishing fifth while Rocky Mount was sixth.  In each of these events so far this year they has an A Race where basically the varsity runners run and a B race where the JV's would run.   In the B event which in this week's run is called the Women's open event Rocky Mount Gryphon freshman Schuyler Moss was the winner.  Schuyler's big brother is Benton Moss former Gryphon pitcher and now a pitcher for the University of North Carolina. 

Once he left the game over the weekend Russell Wilson had lead the Seattle Seahawks to six scores  and they missed a field goal on the other drive when they failed to score.  That was good enough for the Seahawks to announce that Russell will be the starting quarterback opening day.  Now that Mike Glennon has risen up to the top of the charts of NFL scouts  heading into his senior season at N C State Tom O'Brien decision to cut Wilson loose doesn't look so bad now.

Wilson who couldn't decide on playing baseball or football led O'Brien to declare either you play football for the Pack or head out so Mike Glennon will get his chance.  Wilson who was becoming the Brett Farve of College Football not being able to stay or go went on to Wisconsin.  Wilson had a great season at Wisconsin and Mike Glennon did the same for the Pack.  Since Wilson has been back to State on several occasions  it would seem as if O'Brien's decision worked out for everybody.

Last night the Carolina Panthers got front and center on the Sunday Night NFL game at the New York Jets.  The offense didn't look all that good and yet they beat the hapless J-E-T-S.  I think the Panthers will be in a fight for a playoff spot this year  but I seriously doubt the Jets will half their games.