Now where were we? Football? Brian Hairy on 1650 The Scrum? Stinky Johnson? My apologies for the lack of BLAWGING since the end of the prep football season, but unfortunately life happens sometimes. Work, family commitments, umm, all that charitable work I do, ahhhh, I’m a big reader…it totally WAS NOT that I’m unmotivated and drink beer and watch football in lieu of filling this site with compelling content. Nope. But now that football season is ov…now that I’m back from taking pie to the hungry in Bulgravia, it’s time to do a little catching up. Since last we spoke, there have been a couple of coaching changes in the Class A ranks. The most notable, because of why the change was made was at C.E. Murray. Brian Smith, who led the program for four years, was named the new head coach at Blythewood. I know some people question any coach making “the big jump” from Class A to AAAAA…you know, people who aren’t terribly bright and save their boogers in mason jars., but I don’t think that will be an issue. C.E. Murray only had a handful of winning records and playoff victories in its history and none in the previous decade before the past two years. Yes, they’ve had a nice run of talent, but there’s always “talent” walking the halls of schools. Sometimes they choose not to play football, sometimes they can’t for one reason or another or they do play and the team still isn’t any good. I think we’ve all seen talented teams degenerate into a giant bag of derp and not come close to reaching their potential because of egos, lack of discipline etc. You don’t go to a team with almost no tradition and more seasons with one win or fewer than winning ones the previous 13 years and compete for state titles unless you’re a very good coach. And being a very good coach travels, Bubba, from Class A to wherever you go. C.E. Murray was 19-5 the last two years, played for state in 2015 (for the first time in school history) and made it to the third round of the playoffs this past year, where they lost to eventual state champ Lake View (and gave them their stiffest playoff test, by the way). This doesn’t even factor in that the magical 2015 season was interrupted by a FRIGGIN’ FLOOD that had players either stuck in their houses or living in an emergency shelter. This past year half the roof got torn off the school by a hurricane. It takes leadership and real love for your players to pull through that and succeed. You also have to grasp how few resources you have at a small, rural school like C.E. Murray. There aren’t fancy bells and whistles…no jumbotron or big screen HD TVs on the sidelines. Pretty much a patch of grass to practice on and some heavy stuff to lift in the weight room. Odds are, if you coach at a Class A school, you probably have to cut and line your own field, drive the bus to away games and wash players’ uniforms. You do it all, but if you do it well, people will notice. No clue who will be replacing him, but I think Blythewood got a good one. Great Falls also had a coaching change. John Barrett stepped down after one year on the job because of personal and family reasons. I happen to cover Great Falls as part of my pay-the-bills job and I like Coach Barrett a lot. Again, real concern and care for his kids in trying circumstances. The roster got so thin they actually had to forfeit a game or two, but he held it together, got them through the season and they were competitive against teams they were capable of being competitive against. His replacement is Scotty Steen and I think it’s a home run hire. Coach Steen is a Great Falls lifer, basically. He played for Coach Danny Sawyer at Great Falls, he started coaching at the middle school a few months after he graduated, he lives in the town, he’s a part of the community and he loves the Red Devils program. He’ll give them stability after they’ve had two coaches in the past two years. Now, as far as I know, Coach Steen does not possess the ability to make there be more people in Great Falls. Well, I guess technically he could one at the time, but you see what I’m saying. The enrollment has dropped to less than 200 at the school. On the bright side, when he was introduced as the new coach a few weeks ago, all football players were asked to report to the gym to meet the new coach. They cheered when they realized it was Steen…all 35 of them. Now, if they keep that number, or something close to it, I think they’ll be fine and can be competitive. HKT has proven recently that a school at or under 200 students can win state titles. They’re still in a super-tough region, one where even making the playoffs is difficult (only three from Region II get post-season bids and Lewisville, Lamar and McBee probably aren’t gonna take to sucking anytime soon) but I think Coach Steen is the right guy to start leading Great Falls back. Tony Sullivan was relieved of his duties at Green Sea-Floyds, which is odd, since that program seemed to have turned a corner this past season. They went 6-6, gave Lake View a heck of a game and won a playoff game for the first time in a long while. I have no insight to offer on why he was let go or who they might turn to…but if you know, or want to make something up that kinda sounds plausible, leave it in the comment section. You can also let me know if I missed any coaching moves…it’s never to late for me to pretend I knew all along. The state basketball championship press conference will be Monday, and I’ll hopefully be able to bring you some highlights and stories from that. The upper and lowerstate finals are tomorrow and I’ll be taking in the boys and girls games in Class A. On the boys side, Lewisville is facing Calhoun Falls Charter. Lewisville is a super deep team that can rotate five in, five out. They regularly play 12 guys and on two recent occasions had 13 of the 14 players on the roster score in a game. They mix a few defensive looks, but they primarily press and get in transition. Trey Keels (who is 6-foot-6) and Mikial Fourney (both of whom you likely know from their football team) give them height and rebounding muscle underneath. Demetric Hardin is only a freshman, but is fairly dynamic running the point. He had 18 in the second half of their win Tuesday over Williston-Elko. Mike Hill does crazy, athletic, Mike Hill stuff inside and out and several guys can come off the bench and ignite the offense when needed. Calhoun Falls Charter only plays six or seven guys, but they do have quality, if not quantity. Lewis Turman and Armani Cade are a couple of big, productive guards. Javarzia Belton is so tall he should probably be on a green bean can (that was lame, I’ll grant you, but you try working giant humor and making it click, Slappy). He’s 6-foot-8 and had 25 Tuesday in a win against HKT. My understanding is they run a little slower pace and walk it up offensively. It sounds like Belton isn’t always a first option on offense, but is such a dang good rebounder, he scores on lots of putbacks. Has a nice touch around the rim, I’ve heard. My inclination is that Lewisville’s depth advantage will really start to show itself in the second half and they’ll pull away for a win. But really, 6-foot-8 is a heck of a wild card to throw in the mix, so it could be interesting. The girls upperstate finals will be Estill and Lamar. I’ve seen Lamar once and they’re real good…which is the sort of deep analysis you’ve come to expect from this BLAWG. Lowerstate girls final is Green Sea-Floyds vs. East Clarendon (can’t help you there) and the boys match-up is Bethune-Bowman and Hemingway (nope and nope). Comments, criticism, unfounded rumors and totally made up BS can be left in the comment section. I was totally not cooking and eating delicious meat like this instead of BLAWGING since late December.
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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