The NEW 6 so far

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.

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.

It's Baseball Playoff Time

Now that TBS no longer carries the Braves, I have not watched a total of 10 games all season.
I am just not fired up for the baseball playoffs.

Here's my predictions:

National League

Philadelphia in three games over Milwaukee. I'm glad a small market team made the playoffs, but Philly is better.

I know Joe Torre will get a lot of credit for this, but I am taking the Dodgers in four games. Without Manny, the Dodgers don't make the playoffs and Torre would be home with his Yankee buddies.

Dodgers over the Phillies in seven games .

American League:

The Chi-Sox will beat Tampa in four games just because this is Tampa's first time.

In four games, the Angels beat the Red Sox. This is probably the best playoff matchup of the entire playoffs.

Angels beat the Red Sox in six games.

This will set up a Freeway Series Angels and Dodgers. I like the Halos in six games.

For the first time in 108 years, both Chicago teams are in the playoffs at the same time. Sorry, no Northside against Southside World Series.

Now that baseball season is almost over, it is time to think back to the best thing that happened in baseball this year - The Home Run Derby at the All-Star game.

Raleigh's Josh Hamilton put on a show even though he did not win it. Who cares?

Hamilton was steady after the All-Star break, but no where near as good as his first half. But he still put up MVP numbers: .304 batting average; 32 home runs; 130 RBI. Not bad for a player who just three years ago was in the gutter because of drugs.

Terrell Owens is on the verge of tearing the Dallas Cowboys apart. Owens is complaining of not getting the ball enough in the loss to the Redskins.

He had 17 throws his way caught seven and dropped five. Good defense stopped the other five. If Owens repeats his history Dallas will have to dump him by next year.

All of this football talk about the Rocky Mount Gryphons, we seemed to have overlooked the boys soccer team. They are now 11-2-1. New head coach Drew Nick has really got this team playing well.

High school football at Northern Vance Thursday night. Can the Gryphon Express stay in high gear and the "D" Block shut down the another offense?

The answer is an hour away in Henderson Thursday night.

I can remember high school football all the way back to 1961. If this Gryphon team keeps up this pace they are at now both on offense and defense, this could be the best team I've ever seen.

In order to be considered that high up the ladder, there can't be a stumble rest of the way. A full season of 11 games remain for this team to be classified one of the greatest ever.

Come see for yourself. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.

Wes Bradshaw and I will tell you everything you didn't need to know about the Gryphons starting at 6.30 on the AM 1390's Batts, Batts and Bell Pregame Show.

A Little Bit of Everything

Let's start tonight in baseball. I am just having a hard time thinking about a White Sox-Twins playoff game.

I told you several weeks back that Joey Devine of the Oakland A's was having an outstanding season.

Devine set the all-time lowest ERA of any pitcher who has pitched a minimum of 40 innings. Major League Baseball, however, states that to be the official winner on this list, a pitcher must pitch at least 50 innings.

Devine allowed just three earned runs all season. He probably would have gotten in more than 50 innings, but he missed the middle of the summer with a sore elbow. When he got off the disabled list in early August, he did not allow a run for the remainder of the season.

Not bad for a pitcher who gave up two grand slam home runs in his first two appearances in the Majors a couple of years ago for Atlanta.

The final stats on Devine were a 6-1 record, one save and an ERA of 0.59.

Richard Collier, the Jacksonville Jags player who was shot several weeks ago in Jacksonville ,has lost a leg. Doctors had to remove the leg after Collier was shot 15 times. There is even more bad news for Collier one of those shots hit his spine and he will never walk again.

I have just listened to the news conference of Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis explaining why he fired Lane Kiffin. Can someone explain to me why Al Davis doesn't reside in the loony bin?

Matt Bryant, the kicker for the Tampa Bay Bucs, buried his infant son on Saturday. He then flew to Tampa Saturday night for a team meeting. Sunday, he went 3-for-3 on field goals - including the game-winning kick in overtime.

Tampa Bay head coach Jon Gruden was asked why Bryant played and he responded, "Matt needed football, his teammates and the fans to get over his tragedy."

It is amazing what people can do when they're at their lowest point.

I just got back this afternoon from doing a Faith Christian School volleyball game. It's the first time that I have been in their new gym at the Beechwood Dr. campus.

After 14 years of hopping from one school to another to find a place to play its indoor sports, the people at Faith have really kept the faith and they have a prize. It will not be too many more years until their entire school is at one location.

Thursday night's game against Northern Vance (2-3) is the final non-conference game for Rocky Mount. The real games start Oct. 10.

I know it's Thursday night and this being an away game, it will be hard to get fans there. Guys, we need more fans there than NV!

I had forgotten to bring this up, but wasn't the field's paint job great Friday night?

The "RM" at mid-field was painted gold and the numbers on the yard lines were white with a navy blue shadow to them. We all need to thank one man for that work, but he was embarrassed and annoyed when I announced his name during a JV game a couple of weeks ago.

His name will go unnamed here, but I think most of you know who did it.

Great job, person who shall remain nameless!

Much To Do About Something

If you attended the Rose game a few weeks back. you paid $7 to get in the game.

There was a sign on the gate that the extra dollar was going into a fuel fund to help Rose pay for the expense it will incur next season when it starts playing all their conference games with the Wilmington 4-A schools.

I believe that is called a "Pitt County Tax."

Just maybe if Pitt County made all their schools approximately the same size like Nash County did, they wouldn't have that problem.

Every Monday I make a visit to one of the warehouses behind the football stadium on Barnum Rd. I have to check my company's inventory and as I rode by the football field it sure did look like there was a party there Saturday.

The trash was in bags piled up, but it looked like either the wind had either turned some of the piles over or an animal had gotten in several bags.

It looked like a tornado had come through the parking lot. By lunch time, the city had it looking like a parking lot again.

I think the Down East Viking Classic has become a big hit for Rocky Mount.

When Rocky Mount High School gets its new stadium on their new campus, there should be some kind of expansion done at RMAC. I don't see why if the stadium was big enough, 20,000 people would show up.

Somewhere in the future, N.C. Wesleyan might become a Div. III football power and large crowds might come see them play.

There will be no JV game this Wednesday night due to the fact that we have already played Northern Vance. Remember, that game was played on the Thursday night when the varsity should have been playing.

By the way, we won 34-zippo.

I know that the entire athletic department at Rocky Mount High was not very happy being about the only game that got postponed that Friday night against NV. All other high schools watched the weather forecasts and moved their Friday night games to Thursday and they played in dry conditions.

Apparently, no one in Vance County has a TV, radio, Internet or telephone. They had no idea a tropical storm was coming ..

I am just thinking to myself now, but if we have a chance to lay a hurting scoring wise on Northern Vance Thursday will Coach Holt get some revenge??

So far, no one has scored on the Gryphons in the first quarter. I have said this before ,but we need Northern Vance to give us a tussle. We don't need to start conference play with out having broken a sweat in any second half. I'm being serious when I say that.

Don't forget that the game is a 7 p.m kickoff. If you decide to stay close to home Thursday, we will begin the Gryphon chatter at 6.30.

The way this team is playing, they deserve your support.

NFL Week 4

Ever since college football went to 85 scholarships per team there has been an ever so slight slide to where unless a team is decimated with injuries scores are closer.

Very seldom do you see the 65-14 score any more - it is more like 38-24.

Since the NFL merger way back in the 60's when the old NFL decided to quit fighting with the upstart AFL, teams are getting ever so close. There is a fine line between winning and losing.

The Kansas City Chiefs have been the Duke Blue Devils of the NFL having lost nine games in a row.

One of the hottest teams, Denver, lost today to the coldest Kansas City to break the nine-game losing streak. KC 33, Denver 19

Oakland put up a monumental effort for their coach, who Al Davis wants to fire. I think the city needs to fire the owner of the Raiders. Oakland used to be one of the best NFL franchises. Now, it's a joke.

Time has left Al Davis behind. San Diego scores 25 points in the fourth quarter to escape from Oakland 28-18. Philip Rivers has lead his team to three leads in the fourth quarter this year, but the San Diego defense gave two back late in the fourth.

Rivers has now led San Diego to three 15 points or more deficit in his career and won. Brett Favre has never won a game trailing by 14.

Ever since Tennessee changed quarterbacks, its offense has started scoring points. They have the best defense in the league and it looks to me unless they put Vince Young back at quarterback, the AFC Championship will have to be won in Nashville.

Buffalo is 4-0. They will be hard to catch after the snow starts falling in the AFC East. I think the first coaching change in the NFL happens Monday in St. Louis.

Jacksonville like San Diego is 2-2 and had better not fall any further behind in their division or they will be playing for a wild card. Houston, I think, is still in a hurricane funk.

Tampa Beats Green in the battle of the Bays. Aaron Rodgers has a hurt shoulder for Green Bay. I wonder if Brett Favre is available.

According to all the media expert ,Dallas had one foot in the Super Bowl, but they couldn't beat the lowly Redskins, who are tied with the Cowboys - Skins 26, 'Boys 24

Has any body noticed when Carolina runs the ball they win? Is the coach for Atlanta a brother of John Fox? They look just a like in different uniforms. Fox chews gum. Check these two guys out the next time each is on TV.

In the battle of who is the worse team in Ohio, the winner is Cincinnati.

Everyone wanted Farve to light up the scoreboard last Monday possibly his final appearance on Monday Night Football, but it took until today. Farve finally played in jeans today and slung six touchdown passes all over the pasture. His victim was the Cardinals.

If there is one point to be made about the NFL is you had better be ready every Sunday or hear the boos.

Another College Saturday

I want to see a show of hands who picked Duke to be the best D-I football team in North Carolina?

Duke breaks its almost four-year strangle hold of ACC football futility with a 31-3 stomping of Virginia. They had lost 25 straight conference games until today.

What in the world has happened to Virginia?

Wake Forest, after an impressive game at Florida State last weekend, lays an egg against Navy.

That was the worse performance I have seen from the Deacs since Jim Grobe has been in Winston Salem.

Carolina gets a good win in Miami. It may have found the quarterback it needs in Cam Sexton.

Just eight days ago, ECU was looking at a BCS bowl game. Now, it's humbled at home by Houston.

N.C. State looked like Southern Wayne against the Gryphons in the first half. The best thing that happened to the Wolfpack was the down pouring of rain which gave most of the fans a reason to leave before half time.

I was flipping the dial for most of Saturday night as I watched Virginia Tech beat Nebraska at Lincoln. It is only the 38th time the Cornhuskers have lost at home in the last 292 home games.

Former Gryphon great Stephan Virgil blocked a punt through the end zone in the first half,and sealed the deal for the Hokies by causing a Cornhusker fumble on the last play of the game.

Who is the best team in the ACC - Virginia Tech or Duke?

At least for this week.

The Down East Viking Classic goes to Elizabeth City State 24-13 over St Augustine's. A huge crowd tailgated for most of the day at the RMAC on Saturday afternoon.

Alabama, Oklahoma and LSU took giant steps toward moving to the front of the pack in major college football.

Southern Cal, Florida and Georgia took giants steps backwards.

Watching the N.C. State-South Florida football game, I am sure there was not one advertisement in which you could not buy something in three easy payments of $19.95. What happened to a good old car dealer ad? You know the now is the best time to buy ads. Not a one on the game.

Finally, I would like to close tonight by telling everyone of a wonderful movie that is must see.

"FireProof" hit Rocky Mount Friday night and the family took it in Saturday afternoon. The movie is made by the same church that made "Facing the Giants."

If you believe in the Lord, this one is must see - especially if you are married.

It's after midnight, which means it is T-minus 12 days to NEW 6 Conference opener against Northern Nash.