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.

Football Playoffs Need Revamping

Next year will be the next revised conferences under the every four year NCHSAA  restructuring plan.  It is a good plan because the world we live in today schools  grow almost over night and if there is not some attempt  to keep like schools with the same size together you could find a school with 1,500 students playing in the same league as someone who has dropped below a 1,000 in about three years.

Looking at every playoff held this fall, Volleyball, soccer and tennis all played with only first or second place teams making the playoffs and every now and then a third place team to fill out the bracket.   If it works so well in these sports why then will that same format not work in football?

Rocky Mount's tennis team lost two games all season and yet they traveled to a #1 seed in the first round.  Football's first two rounds Tarboro has had to re win their own conference in which they went undefeated in and after two playoff games still are.  Was that really necessary???.  I don't even want to talk about Southern Nash the #2 in the Big East starting out at #1 in the Big East Hunt.

The all mighty dollar has consumed the NCHSAA just like it has consumed college sports and the NFL and don't try to get me started on the NHL. I would truly like the high school football schedule start as it did this year on the third Friday night in August and play 10 straight weeks.  Then four rounds of playoffs would have football over by the fourth week in November and leave December to basketball.

I understand that college football is not over until the fourth Saturday in November but not every team in North Carolina plays a home game the last week.  What's  wrong with playing a State Championship at ECU or Panther Stadium.  Every college football team in the country knows who, where and when they play for the next five years.

I could see  the 1-A  played in Grenville one year while the 2-A played at Appalachian State.  There are plenty of stadiums in North Carolina worthy to host state Championships. A remodeled Wallace Wade with the history of having a Rose Bowl  Having played there is not bad either.

I do want to see a better quality of playoffs and 2nd place teams having to play the 1st place team from your own conference is not quality playoffs.  No conference foe should have to play another until the third round or later.  Just remember this past basketball season two of the best girls teams met in the third round when Northern Nash met Rocky Mount for the sectional finals.  Both teams had to earn to get that far.  Can you imagine if that had been a first game in the sectional.

Jax Does It Again

Jacksonville has knocked a Big East team out of the soccer playoffs again this year as the Cardinals came to Southern Nash and dominate the Firebirds 6-1.  Southern was the last standing Nash County team still alive in any of the fall sports and now with only football left all Nash County teams can look toward winter sports.

Speaking of winter sports Rocky Mount hosted a basketball jamboree today with West Craven, Hunt, Hertford County, Bertie and Southern Wayne.  It started this morning at 9am and went well past dark 30.

Up next for the Hunt Warriors is Cleveland who last night manhandled D H Conley.  The game will be played at Hunt.

Tarboro thought they would get Edenton again this year in the third round but surprise surprise Northeastern walloped the Aces last night  and they will make the trek to Tarboro next Friday.

There is an old saying about going to a hockey match and a fight broke out.  Today if you went to Chapel Hill to see a football game a basketball game broke out.  Georgia Tech made too many three pointers for Carolina as they win a football game 68-50.  Larry Fedora wants to get as many offensive opportunities as possible.  There is only one problem with that idea, the faster they go on offense the quicker the defense gets back on the field. 

N C State showed up from the first snap today against Wake Forest and becomes Bowl eligible.  I am hearing the Music City Bowl in Nashville might be the after Christmas trip for the Pack this year.

Virginia made last weeks win over State stick as they beat Miami in another slow down basketball game 41-40.  Duke is still alive for the ACC Championship game with Miami's loss.

There just might be a BCS Championship game without a Southeastern Conference team as Alabama goes down at home to Texas A&M  29-24.  Bama at one time trailed 20 to nothing.  Just goes to prove you had better be ready to play when you get off the bus.