McCormick (1-4) at Dixie (0-6)
The Chiefs are coming off a bye week but picked up a 37-0 blowout win over Eau Claire their last time out. They had been really close in a couple of previous games (against Crescent and Fox Creek) so maybe that victory was the start of something. A’Chean Durant looked very much like his older brother (Mataeo) against the Shamrocks, running for 227 yards…so it would be more accurate to say he looked like what you’d get if Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson and a bullet could somehow have a baby. And he’s a freshman, so everyone have fun trying to tackle/catch/keep up with him for three more years. Dixie lost 18 starters from last year’s upperstate finalist team. They’ve got some size, but it inexperienced size, and they are lacking in team speed generally. They were shut out by Ninety-Six last week (thought he defense didn’t play badly at all) and have scored just 27 points on the year. Ware Shoals (1-5) at Whitmire (3-3) The region opener for both teams. Whitmire has alternated win-loss through its first six games of the year, including a nice 21-6 victory last week over the Mr. T Haircuts. Whitmire just kinda did Whitmire stuff in that one, dominating the clock and rushing for 291 yards. Jaquan Tindall-White had 15 carries for 108 yards, Matthew Prather had 72 yards and a touchdown and bull/Buick hybrid Chandler Crumley had 71 yards and two touchdowns. Ware Shoals got worked pretty good by Great Falls 40-3. They’ve lost five straight and outside their victory to start the year over Oakbrook Prep, they just haven’t done much offensively and that puts a lot of added pressure on a defense that is struggling too. Jamarius Goodman is a human highlight reel on offense, but playing a disciplined, tough, clock-squashing squad that considers a three-yard rush a successful play might be a bit heavy of a lift for the Purple Hornets right now. Gray Collegiate (2-3) at Lamar (5-1) You probably remember that this game last year is what marked the end of Lamar’s winning streak and it was the game in which Cam Galloway was injured. That changed the complexion of the Silver Fox offense and maybe played a roll in their not winning state. He’s back healthy and playing well now and he’ll be needed tonight. Gray is 2-3, but those losses have come in a shootout to a Gilbert team I expect to make some big noise in the AAA playoffs, to The OC Semi-pros and AAAAA White Knoll. They have the state’s most productive passing offense and wide open spreads aren’t a thing Class A schools encounter often. Lamar coach Chad Wilkes is a spread guy at heart, he ran that at C.E. Murray and I think that will be beneficial in this one. He knows how to defend that kind of attack. I think Lamar’s O line and running game will give Gray some trouble. This one could go either way, though, and figures to be an excellent game. Lake View (3-3) at McBee (0-5) I give the Panthers immense credit for nuttin’ up and playing a non-region gauntlet made up of scary jungle cats, dragons and monster trucks. Seriously…AJ, Chesterfield, North Central, Hannah-Pamplico, Green Sea Floyds, Blacksburg next week and the Wild Gators tonight. Aside from AJ and Green Sea, the games have actually been competitive. Given who they’ve played, it’s difficult to tell a whole lot about them. It could be like last year where they started 0-7 then ended up winning two playoff games. Lake View has lost three straight but that’s been against Dillon, Marion and Lamar (in overtime). It may be another rough one for the Panthers but I tend to think better things are coming down the line. HKT (3-2) at Blackville-Hilda (3-2) To have any shot at a region crown, both of these teams need this game, then they’ll need some help (what with both already having been unmercifully flogged by Wagener-Salley). B-H lost to them last week. They played really well for a half, but they were stopped at the goal line to end the second quarter and didn’t much sniff the end zone again. Adonis Davis didn’t have much success throwing the ball, but he did run for more than 100 yards. HKT has lost a competitive game to Edisto and a not-in-any-way competitive game to Wagener-Salley. Outside of that, though, they’ve thrown some beatings on Eau Claire, The Mr. T Haircuts and Estill, so this gave probably shouldn’t be viewed as pushover for the Hawks by any means. Denmark-Olar (3-2) at Ridge Spring-Monetta (3-2) RS-M has won three straight after an 0-2 start. Those two losses are almost toss outs, though, as they came against Saluda and Batesburg-Lessville. Against like-sized, Class A competition, they’ve actually been pretty dominant. That pasted a pretty good Whitmire team, gave North a proper seeing to and knocked around Williston-Elko last week. Collier Sullivan is a very good RB, but D-O has done a pretty nice job defensively this year for the most part. Another game where there is an obvious favorite but nothing should be taken for granted. North (0-5) at Estill (1-4) I hope North turns things around. Being mired in as long a losing streak as they are in is a morale crusher for everyone involved…and looking at what they have left on the schedule, if they’re gonna do it this year, they better get it done tonight. After beating Allendale-Fairfax to start the year (which is a head-scratcher, frankly, given what has happened with both teams since) they’ve been blown out four straight times. Williston-Elko (1-4) at Wagener-Salley (5-0) I don’t know what is going on with the Blue Devils. One week they’ll play well on offense and lose in a shutout, the next week, the defense will come to play and the offense will have a rough night for one reason or another. I do know that trying to fix any of that on the road in Chitlinburg is generally a recipe for HERPA DERPA DOO.. Wagener laid it to a good Blackville-Hilda team last week, they have a suffocating defense that can actually defend the pass (a weakness for them some years). Offensively, they can just mash you with a massive front line and a stable of backs, but they can also throw it a bit now. They are much more complete than they’ve been during any year in their recent run of success. Williston is a proud program, they have talent, are well-coached and maybe they’ll make this interesting, but given all the evidence on hand, this may not be close Green Sea Floyds (4-1) at Baptist Hill (4-2) So, here is the game of the week in Class A. Green Sea comes in fresh off a 35-7 win over McBee. The offense actually got off to a slow start, but Jaquan Dixon, QB/Dirt track tire changer Bubba Elliot and Anwain Graham all put up their customary “holy crap, Playstation” type numbers and pulled away. That offense just has so many ways to hurt you. It isn’t so much death by a thousand tiny cuts and it’s being filleted by a thousand chainsaws. The defense doesn’t get enough credit (probably because the offense is so potent) but that is a very box-stacking, downhill type defense. They haven’t played many teams that will challenge them downfield like the Bobcats are going to. It doesn’t mean they can stop the pass, they just haven’t had to. Aside from the two sound rogerings they handed out to Burke and Academic Magnet, Baptist Hill hasn’t put up the points and yards we’ve become accustomed to in recent years. After a rough go of things against The OC Semi-pros in the opener, the defense has played pretty well. They’ll have to score a lot of points to keep up with Green Sea and make some big plays in the passing game, but this might be a pretty entertaining contest. The Legion Transfer Portal (2-2) at The Charleston Charter School for Forensic Science and applied Poop Studies (0-3) Really bad matchup here. Prayers up for the Riptide. Military Magnet (0-4-1) at Bethune-Bowman (1-4) The Mr. T. Haircuts have an all-star quality back in Jesus Benjamin, but they haven’t been able to do much else offensively but ride him and their defense has been up-and-down. Benjamin alone might be enough tonight. Military Magnet hasn’t really been close in any of their contest this year. St. John’s (1-4) at Calvary Day (3-1) This will be a tough one for the Islanders…another tough one. They’ve played a fairly brutal schedule but I believe they’ll be more than ready for when region play starts next week. Scott’s Branch (1-5) at Branchville (5-1) This game is significant as it pits the two schools in our state with the word “branch” in their name against each other. That is actually in no way significant, now that I think about it. It’s more an “interesting note” or “a dumb thing I noticed.” Anyway, Scott’s Branch has given up 217 points in six games, and that number was made to look a little better by their one win (over Military Magnet). That total figures to be much higher after tonight. The Yellow Jackets are scoring a ton of points and have an athletic, strong-armed trigger man for their offense in big Zack Wiles. C.E. Murray (3-2) at Cross (3-2) This will be such an old-school, tater kickin’ type game that it will actually be played in black and white. I don’t mean pictures, I mean the field and uniforms will be devoid of color…the coaches will chew stoagies on the sidelines and order players named Clem and W.E. to more properly execute cross body blocks. I’m only mildly joking. Neither of these teams is much interested in throwing the football. They win on a power running game and great defense. Cross put up a heck of fight against Baptist Hill two weeks ago. They lost, but they also only allowed 22 points to the Bobcats. They won over Lake Marion last week, but the persistent problem for them has been consistently scoring points. They have not cracked the 20 threshold since late 2017. Against a team like C.E. Murray that allows less than 6 points a game, that is likely to be their undoing. The War Eagles are a bit more equipped to make big plays and put up points too. Still, this should be a physical war. Hemingway (0-6) at Timmonsville ( It’s been a rough year for Hemingway. They are winless, they have scored 13 points all year and have yielded 270. Timmonsville is young and they’ve taken some whoopings this year, but the kids seem to be playing hard and in games when they haven’t been totally outmanned, the defense has kept them close. They got a 26-20 win last week over Scott’s Branch (Thomas McFadden’s first as head coach) and would seem in line to get another this week.
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Calhoun Falls Charter- 56
Trinity-Byrnes- 19 Ninety Six- 26 Dixie- Take the name of their opponent and subtract 96 Great Falls- 40 Ware Shoals- 3 Whitmire- 21 Bethune-Bowman- 9 Lamar- 36 Lake View- 34 Green Sea Floyds- 35 McBee- 7 Timmonsville- 26 Scott’s Branch- 20 Wagener-Salley- 49 Blackville-Hilda- 12 Denmark-Olar- 31 North- 3? No. 2? Guess again. 1? You’re getting warmer HKT- 32 Estill- 6 Ridge Spring-Monetta- 42 Williston-Elko- 25 Baptist Hill- 28 North Charleston- 12 Burke- 48 The Charleston Charter Academy for Fly Fishing and Aeronautics- Branchville- 42 Military Magnet- 18 Waccamaw- 28 St. John’s 6 C.E. Murray- 39 Hemingway- Seriously, who didn’t love Jami Gertz? Cross- 19 Lake Marion- 6 Breakdown- The boys from Chitlinvania made a statement on Friday night and that statement was “we’re good at football.” Wagener-Salley rolled over Blackville-Hilda 49-12 and in doing so put themselves firmly in the driver’s seat in Region III. Wagener answered pretty much any lingering question anyone may have had about them with this dominating performance. Since Coach Willie Fox turned the program around a few years ago, they’ve managed to physically out-maul even other physical mauler teams. If you want to have an old-fashioned tater-kicking contest, they’ll take your best shot and reduce you to a whimpering pile of ouch in short order, but what has generally given them problems at some point is an athletic team that can spread the field and challenge them vertically. I’ve watched highlights of B-H QB Adonis Davis and he is a really good deep ball passer. While he did run for more than 100 yards, most of that came in the first half and he was just 3-of-18 through the air. It was a 20-6 ballgame late in the first half when Wagener came up with a goal line stand as time expired. They made a defensive tweak at the half, inserting a nose guard into the line. Frankly, that’s just what you want when playing W-S, is another large, scary person on the line of scrimmage. Doing so meant the secondary had to step up but they obviously did so. The Stump Whopped All-Stars also showed off some offensive versatility. They’ve generally been able to line up and shove it people’s face hole for several years now, but I think they realize that if they want to compete with Lamar and Green Sea for a state title, they can’t be as one-dimensional as they have been. Gaige Starnes didn’t put up huge numbers throwing it, but he went for 109 yards and two scores in the air (and caught a 25-yard scoring toss from Kevin Jackson). Jackson, who is very much like what you’d get if a lightning bolt and cheetah could somehow have a baby, also had 72 yards rushing and a score on just nine carries. Jhuatieg Davis actually led the way on the ground with 104 yards. They appear to be a complete team in a way they haven’t been in the past. With Williston-Elko struggling as they are, it appears all that stands between them, a region title and that sweet, delicious number one playoff seed is Ridge Spring-Monetta. The two meet in a just a couple of weeks… With teams starting to get into or towards region play, there were only a handful of “up” games for a 1A brothers this week and the only win in those games came courtesy of Cross who knocked off Lake Marion 19-6. It’s nice to see the Trojans bouncing back after a winless 2018 campaign. They still haven’t managed to crack the 20-point barrier since late 2017, but thus far that hasn’t mattered as they’ve started 3-2. If you go back two years, they were able to manhandle people and allow Nathan Walker to step on the faces of opposing school children as one of the state’s nastiest, most physical backs. They aren’t back up to that level, but it looks like they are able to eat clock, play a bit of keepaway and get after it on defense. We’ll get a pretty good idea of just how far they’ve come this week as they battle C.E. Murray in the region opener for both. The War Eagles have one of the best defenses in Class A this year. They shut out Kingstree, Lake Marion and Hemingway, while losing to a good AA teams Lee Central and Mullins, by scores of 14-13 and 15-12 respectively. When you’re struggling on offense anyway, playing C.E. Murray is kind of like eating a block of Velveeta when you’re already having troubles making poo. For those new to this blog, I make the world’s most ridiculous analogies and that one ranks right among the worst… Last Friday featured a game of the week truly worthy of the title as Lamar edged Lake View 36-34 in overtime. Honestly, going into this one, I felt the Wild Gators would be competitive and hang around for a while, but would end up losing by three or four scores and HOLY CRAP WAS I DUMB AND WRONG. Lake View held a 20-0 lead at halftime. Lamar had a lot of self-inflicted wounds in the form of two lost fumbles and 80 yards in penalties on the night. Give some credit to Lake View too. While they didn’t crack 200 yards of total offense, they played good defense (in the first half especially), they got a special teams score and stuck to a running game that was productive if not flashy. Lamar came storming back and did so, mostly, by sticking to their ground game. Cam Galloway ran for 92 yards, Jiaquell James had 87 and Dajour Green was the ultimate finisher. He only tallied 27 yards on seven carries but four of those went for touchdowns. Oh, and he caught two passes for 93 yards and another score. So Lamar demonstrated that they can stifle even the best offenses, that they’re never out of a game, that they don’t have to get desperate and throw it to catch up when behind and that they can overcome mistakes to get a win. They’ll get serious test this week against the open enrollers from Gray. You’ll remember that Gray ended Lamar’s long winning streak last year. That was the game when Galloway was lost for the year to injury, which may have changed the entire complexion of 1A football in 2018. Lake View has now lost three straight games but it’s hard to get too concerned over that considering those came to Dillon, Marion and Lamar, the latter of those in OT. They get McBee this week, then a bye week then get another stern test when Green Sea Floyds comes to town. Quick hits- I keep talking up Great Falls and its time for folks to realize something is brewing over there near the Catawba. Well, technically moonshine is probably brewing near the Catawba, but so is some good football. After four years of terrible struggles, the Red Devils are 4-2 after a 40-3 thumping of Ware Shoals. Now, I know the last two wins have come against teams with one win between them, but Great Falls has made long road trips and absolutely taken care of business. D.J. Adams is budding into an all-state player right before eyes, with ability to play RB, QB, WR or wherever he’s needed. They have other weapons too, but pay attention to that defense, which has allowed 10 points the last two weeks. They force a lot of turnovers and make a lot of negative yardage plays. They get Camden Military Thursday at 4 p.m. (Camden has no lights) before getting a needed week off (most of their guys go both ways and are probably a little beat up) then start the region slate…Branchville is an interesting team. They stand at 5-1 but three of those wins came against winless squads and one was against Jim Bob’s Football Finishing School or some such. Still, they’ve done what good teams do against inferior competition (which is roger them soundly) and they blew out a good and very scrappy Whitmire team. They’re pretty balanced on offense with Zach Wiles offering big-time dual-threatness (is that a word, I don’t think it’s a word). They get another struggling team this week in Scott’s Branch before getting to the meat of their schedule the following two weeks (against Cross and C.E. Murray)…Can anyone tell me what’s up with Williston-Elko? I mean, you pretty much write off the up losses to Barnwell, Silver Bluff and probably even Allendale-Fairfax, but they got waxed by RS-M this past week. They are now 1-4 on the year and 7-11 since the start of last season. This is a team that hasn’t had a losing record since 2006 and for whom an eight-win season has been down year since then. Certainly, RS-M is coming on after their own slow start, but it isn’t like things get easier with Wagener-Salley up next on the schedule. Is it just the schedule? I’m legit curious for some insight. Suggested reading Do chitlins even have taters? I’ll have to look into that. If I’d said “block of cheddar” instead of Velveeta, would that have made it better? When you think “dumb and wrong” think of me I would tell you to read capsules of lots of games here and also here and read about Branchville here but it’s not like you listen to anybody. It’s talking to a brick wall sometimes, Larry. I thought about being all cutesy pie and semi-historical by opening this column with “The Yankees are coming.” That wouldn’t rally be accurate, though. They’re already here, brother. On our walk in Horry County, it looked like the invasion was already complete. I took the occasion of our recent family vacation to the coast to knock a couple of far-flung counties off my dog-walking list. Horry is probably the county I’ve visited the most frequently and vacationed in the most often. I’ve obviously stayed at Myrtle Beach a bajillion times because I’m from South Carolina and that’s generally where you go on vacation when you live here. I’ve stayed at North Myrtle and my entire family used to make a week-long trip to Cherry Grove. For years, we rented a house there from a guy who worked for my dad. For some reason, after my dad fired that fellow, he seemed unwilling to let us stay at his place. Go figure. Because of time, location and the weather, we’d be leaving where we were staying in Georgetown, driving just over the Horry County line and staging our walk in Garden City, a place I’ve been through a lot, but never really been to much that I can recall. Ashley parked the car, let me and the dogs out, then shut door and sat in air-conditioned comfort while Tucker, Gracie and I started trudging down the road (she was dealing with allergies and stuff, so she gets a flier). It was not quite 11 a .m. as we started, but it immediately felt like I was wearing a parka and fur-lined boots in a hot shower. Typical, hot, humid beach day. What with my walking partners covered in fur and lacking sweat glands, I figured we needed to get on with walking and wrap this one up as soon as possible. Garden City, the stretch we were walking anyway, looked like most of the Horry County coastline. There were condos and beach houses and apartments and hotels with a smattering of restaurants and bars. I passed one of the latter and saw a younger blond woman reading a book and she did look up long enough to smile at the dogs. She was drinking orange juice…but was doing so from a large champagne goblet, so I suspect there was a little more than Tropicana in her glass. The bar had a fairly loud sound system that I couldn’t help but hear. As we strode past, they were playing some remake of “When you say nothing at all.” That song, originally recorded by Keith Whitley, is one of the best-written you’ll hear and his earnest rendering is fantastic. Allison Krauss remade it and that stands as one of the single prettiest things I’ve ever heard, with her soft, high voice lifting those lyrics to heights that are almost unimaginable. Well, the version I was hearing wasn’t by Keith or Allison, it was by somebody else and it sucked. It was hot trash in a taco shell. I don’t know who sang it, but my advice to that guy and anyone else attempting to wreck a classic is to not do it. If there’s already two amazing versions of a song, both so good that you can argue that either is the “definitive” version, you probably aren’t going to improve upon it. So don’t try. I have dogs to walk and that lady is reading her book and get hammered and we’d prefer to hear something else…or nothing at all. As I’ve documented before, the one trouble with walking my dogs near water is that they are drawn to it (Tucker especially). He’ll all but rip my shoulder out of its socket as I hang onto his leash for dear life as he barrels towards anything from a mud puddle to a creek. In this instance, there was a whole ocean on just the other side of some dunes. Oddly, even when we ventured up to where he could actually see the water, he wasn’t his normal enthusiastic self. I figured the temperature and humidity might have tamped down his level of energy. It is in no way surprising that when you are walking near the ocean, in South Carolina, in July it is going to be hot and humid, even in the late morning hours. That ranks somewhere on the “surprise meter” between “water is wet” and “trees are wood.” It was particularly bad on this day, though, so for the comfort and safety of Tucker and Gracie, I checked my surroundings, plotted a path and went about walking it so I could get them back to the car. I only deviated from that path once, that being when I saw a pair of booths set up near a public beach entrance. One was selling shaved ice, snowballs, slushies or whatever you wish to call that mix of ice and fruity syrup in a cup. Honestly, I like to have about half of one of those on occasion. As you get towards the bottom, the ice is melting, and it basically turns into super sweet, colored water. Given that is was 700 degrees with 500 percent humidity (roughly, I’m guessing) anything cold and wet would have really hit the spot. That wouldn’t happen both because I had no cash in my wallet and because the idea of trying to hold a cup and spoon while also holding the leashes to two active, excitable, 80-plus-pound dogs is laughable. That would be a straight up recipe for my cup of shaved ice ending up on the ground. Or with my luck, on somebody’s car or shoes. I had to pass, but the lady running that little stand had already noticed my dogs. “My goodness, they are beautiful…but how in the world do you walk both of them at once?” the lady asked. I thanked her and told her it’s like riding a wild horse. I just hang on and try not to get bucked or trampled. “Did you dock that one’s tail?” she asked, pointing at Gracie. We actually get asked about that a lot. I guess enough people whack their dog’s tails off that most people naturally assume when they see a no-tail dog, that’s what happened. To me, that would’ve been like your mom chopping off your earlobes. “You had some real droopy earlobes. It’s not like you need them. You can still hear.” I explained that Gracie was born with no tail at all. You can feel back there that there is nothing, not even a nub. A shaved ice stand in that spot makes a lot of sense. There is a lot of foot traffic, it’s hot, people want something cold etc. The second little stand was something I’d never seen. It was a “burn center” for lack of a better term, with a lady offering a variety of sunblock and related items for free. The whole thing was sponsored by a local church. That’s an interesting form of outreach and if it allows them to reach and touch folks, that’s great. I’ll tell you, though, if I was that church, I would be very tempted to just take that theme all the way. “We don’t want you to burn on the beach…or in that other place.” “If you think it’s hot on the beach…” The lady stationed in that stand waved and asked my dog’s names, then spoke to them. Mainly telling them how pretty they both were. Tucker, in particular, always likes to hear from his adoring public, but at this point he was pretty hot so it was about time to head back. We only went a little further down the road but two things caught my attention. The first was the number of golf carts I saw, particularly ones modified so as to be able to carry stuff. People were loading up their beach gear in these things, some of which I think were actually like golf cart taxis that you call for. I get that if you have a big family, there is a nice convenience to having something to tote around your chairs, floats and things and it’s great for folks who perhaps have a little trouble getting around on their own…but I promise you, I saw one family staying directly across the street from the beach (literally, a few feet from the sand) load their stuff up, drive across the road and unload it. My first impulse was to think “man, y’all are lazy” but actually, they are really poor planners. It took WAY more time to load their gear up, drive 30 feet, then unload it, than it would have to just carry it. We used to walk a good third-of-a-mile to the beach in Cherry Grove lugging every beach item imaginable with us when we did. There was no ease of travel with a golf cart. You carried chairs, bags, boogie boards and everything else and if you had to use the bathroom, dad wasn’t giving you a quick ride back to the house. You ran back there yourself or did your business in the ocean. THESE KIDS TODAY WITH THEIR GOLF CARTS!!!! The other thing that really started to stick out was the number of folks from faraway lands (like Ohio) that were staying in Garden City. South Carolina is a vacation destination, obviously, and I’ve always noted the variety of license plates and things there from outside the state. I’d never seen this many, though, nor seen them manifest themselves with so many college colors. Almost everywhere I looked there were Ohio State Buckeye flags flying from balconies, Michigan gear, Notre Dame paraphernalia. My first impulse was to take it as an affront…it’s one thing to come here, it’s quite another to literally wave the flag of the Fighting Irish in the home of Tigers and Gamecocks. Really, though, they’re visiting and they’re spending lots of their money in my home state. Plus, all of them I interacted with (which included Michigan, Ohio State and Purdue fans) were all nice. Granted, they looked at me like I was an extra from some Hee Haw sketch when I opened my mouth, but they all got goo goo eyed over my dogs. I can appreciate that while also hating your team. That Big 10 annex is about where we turned around to go back. That lady was still sitting in the open-air bar reading her book. I noticed. She didn’t look up and smile at Tucker and Gracie this time. I noticed her glass had been topped off, so she might not have been able. I like our visitors from the north but man, they can’t hold their liquor. Trinity-Byrnes (4-2) at Calhoun Falls Charter (1-2)
The Flashes had last week off and probably needed that time to rub salve on the raw, gaulded spots left by the 62-0 whipping they toted from the Legion Transfer Portals two weeks ago. Things seem to have genuinely improved overall for the Flashes, with their opening win over Ware Shoals rousing interest and drawing some more players out for the team, lifting their roster to almost 20. That doesn’t sound like much, but you also have to remember that is essentially half the male student body. I have not nam to share with you on Trinity-Byrnes other than they have won four straight and are named like that school in Duncan is named. Ninety-Six (1-2) at Dixie (0-5) I got to see the Hornets in person last week in their 26-7 loss to Great Falls. Obviously, they are fairly young and inexperienced, having graduated 18 starters from last year’s upperstate finalist team. They actually have some good size up front (young as it may be) but what they don’t have is a lot of speed, something Great Falls was able to exploit. Ofensively, the Red Devils got a bunch of chunk plays and with not much of an outside threat from Dixie, they were able to bottle stuff up in the middle and hold them to about 40 total yards after their opening touchdown drive. You remember that story about the tortoise and the hare, where you learned that slow and steady wins the race? It’s a load. You were fed a giant stew pot full of lies, kids. The rabbit lost because he was lazy or on the dope or something. Anywho…once they get some more experience Dixie will have a shot to be back to a grind-it-out type team that can win games off its physical play. That probably won’t happen this week, though. Ninety-Six has been a bit offensively challenged this year, but they’ll come into this one with the upper hand based on speed alone. Great Falls (3-2) at Ware Shoals (1-4) The Red Devils notched the aforementioned 26-7 win over Dixie last week. They gave up a score on the first drive on a long pass (a forward pass is almost a trick play for a wing/bone team like Dixie) but absolutely shut them down after that. Made a ton of plays in the backfield. Offensively, they were without QB Tommy Seagle, but D.J. Adams moved over from his RB/WR role and had a huge game running the ball. They also brought Kaleb Funderburk in to play under center some and he threw the ball well (including to Adams). They have other weapons too, they play hard for 48 minutes and feel like an ascending team right now. They have this game and Camden Military next week, which should give them a shot to be 5-2 going into region play. I was a really surprised to Ware Shoals’ score last week (that being a 56-12 carpet-bombing) by Camden Military. My understanding is CMA has fairly stout little RB who ate them up. They have a tremendous chess piece in Jamarius Goodman…a scary chess piece with sticky hands and quick feet. Beats the crap out of a bishop. They’ll do a lot of different things with him, but they’ll obviously have to have a better night defensively than last week to hold up against the Red Devils. Whitmire (2-3) at Bethune-Bowman (1-3) The Wolverines took one on the chin (if Wolverines have chins, I’ll have to check on that) at the hands of Branchville 52-16 last week. Whitmire, unfortunately, turned the ball over four times, which proved to be more than they could overcome against a good team. I’ve seen the Wolverines, and it’s a typical Whitmire squad. They play hard, they run that scrum perfectly and put a lot of pressure on you in terms of going for it on fourth down and onside kicking on every kickoff. Branchville was able to put up big numbers through the air last week and Great Falls did too in the game I saw. They are a bit undersized on the back end which may contribute to that. Even in the loss, Chandler Crumley ran for 107 yards. Tackling him is like standing in the path of a hay wagon full of car batteries rolling down a mountainside.The Mr. T Haircuts were off last week, but lost badly to HKT their last time out. This is another team (like Dixie) that had one of its better seasons in recent memory last year, but suffered big graduation losses. It appears that offensively, they are a bit of a one-trick pony. Now, said pony (Jesus Benjamin) does a heck of a trick. He plays the bassoon riding a bicycle backwards through a flaming hoop…a strange way of saying he’s a very good RB. They’ve been a little up-and-down on defense too. Lamar (5-1) at Lake View (3-2) Don’t let Lake View’s record fool you, this is a heck of a good matchup. The Wild Gators come in losers of two straight, but it has to be noted that those losses came to perennial AAA tail-kicker Dillon and another unbeaten AAA team in Marion. Out of the gate this year, they gave Hannah-Pamplico a good rootin’, flogged the Sausages and beat West Columbus about to death. They’re a good team with some exciting, big-play athletes like Adarrian Dawkins. Lamar, since its tough road loss to Pageland, has basically ground up their opposition into a fine powder and used them to line their field. They beat AAAA Darlington 48-0, AA North Central 64-12 and a good AAA Cheraw team 52-27 last week. You know how good that offensive line is, a point accentuated by the gaudy rushing stats they had against a good Cheraw defense (375 rushing yards, two backs over 150 yards), but the defense chipped in by picking off two passes and scoring a touchdown. The Silver Foxes have a lot more experience on the roster than the Wild Gators (who replaced something like 17 starters from last year), but this could still be a terrific football game. Green Sea Floyds (3-1) at McBee (0-4) Thee Trojans saw their 10-game winning streak broken last week, but some perspective is required here. They lost a competitive game to a very good, unbeaten AAA Aynor squad. Depth seemed to play a role late, but they blew up-and-down the field offensively, with Jaquan Dixon and Bubba Elliot both putting up huge rushing numbers. McBee lost to Hannah-Pamplico last week 16-14. I tip my hat to the Panthers for playing a supremely big-boy schedule (Lake View and Blacksburg are still to come out-of-region) and it might pay off down the line (like it did last year), but facing an annoyed bunch of Trojans tonight is probably not going to be fun. Scott’s Branch (1-4) at Timmonsville (0-4) The Whirlwinds were off last week, but against a fairly brutal schedule this year, they’ve been outscored 151-26. They are just young and, especially on offense, they are adapting to a new system and to life without frightening football ninja/QB Demaric Morris. They’ll get there. Scott’s Branch has struggled terribly on defense and with turnovers on offense. They did notch a close win over Military Magnet last week, though. Blackville-Hilda (3-1) at Wagener-Salley (4-0) This is more than a battle for the old oaken hyphen trophy, it may well be for a region title. Now, this is the second region game for both and Williston and RS-M will certainly have their say, but the winner of this one certainly has the inside track here. The Hawks pasted a pretty good Denmark-Olar team last week 37-14. The highlights I’ve seen of them this year indicate that new coach Brandon Isaac has brought a little more spread to the party. They have a stable of good running back, but Adonis Davis, on top of having an awesome name, is an athletic QB who throws it really well, particularly the deep ball. They also have a guy with backdoor pharmacy level speed in WR/KR Z’ontre Kinard. Those things will give them a chance here. Against a lot of people, they could likely line up, get physical, run the ball and win comfortably. For them or anybody not named Lamar or Green Sea, that is a recipe for pain and failure. The gentlemen from Chitlinburg are too big up front on both sides, too physical and too efficient for that to work. Since they’ve gotten good over the last four or so years, the teams that have given them trouble are athletic teams that spread the field this year, that may not even be enough. Will be interesting to see how this one goes. If it’s W-S wins in a rout, you can all but crown them region champs in my opinion. North (0-3) at Denmark-Olar (2-2) I continue to hope that North can turn their fortunes around. Kids and coaches work entirely too hard to never get to taste a win (which they haven’t done in over two seasons). I doubt that reversal of fortune starts against a physical D-O team whose two losses came to Silver Bluff and Blackville-Hilda, the latter of which was semi-competitive. Estill (1-3) at HKT (2-2) The Gators have lost three straight since opening with a win over Allendale-Fairfax, a win that actually looks pretty good now given how well A-F is playing. HKT has pretty much beaten the teams they should have (Eau Claire and the Mr. T Haircuts) and lost to the ones you figure they would (Wagener-Salley and Edisto). This is really their first game against a median-level opponent. Ridge Spring-Monetta (2-2) at Williston-Elko (1-3) This will be a telling game for Williston. When they lost to Barnwell and Silver Bluff to open the season, I wrote those losses off, since they were to good AA teams. Then they fell to Allendale-Fairfax and I wondered what was up. Last week, though, Allendale-Fairfax turned around and beat Silver Bluff, so I’m now not counting that as a bad loss either. They finally got a win over Estill last week. Javier Rudolph had 124 rushing yards in that one. RS-M has now won two straight after two “up” losses to start the year themselves. Tray Dean specializes in menacing quarterbacks Collier Sullivan is a dang good RB. The loser here, frankly, will have a tough time making any kind of run at a region title, what with Blackville-Hilda and Wagener-Salley still to come for both. North Charleston (1-2) at Baptist Hill (2-2) You keep waiting for the Bobcats to have that inevitable 90 point mega bomb whoopdown of somebody, but that hasn’t happened as of yet. They were able to grind out a nice 22-14 win over a scrappy Cross team last week. Darrell McKinley had a couple of passing TDs in that one. I ain’t got much for you on North Charleston Hoss, other than they are probably walking funny after a 48-point loss to Waccamaw last week. Military Magnet (0-4) at Branchville (4-1) Branchville is coming off an impressive win over Whitmire last week. Zach Wiles had a huge game, hitting 11-of-16 passes for 196 yards and 2 TD while also running for 77 yards and three more scores. Ronnie Nester blistered the Wolverines for 152 yards on eight catches. Military Magnet lost 36-15 to previously-winless Scott’s Branch last week and just haven’t scored a lot in general. So, you know, this may not go well for them tonight. St. John’s (1-3) at Waccamaw (3-1) The returns have not been good the past few weeks for the Islanders, but that has come against three AA schools with a combined record of 11-1. They are young on offense and that offense sometimes puts their talented defense in some tough spots…but trust your 1A loving hillbilly blogger on this one…this team is going to improve as that offense gets some experience and starts to find itself. Waccamaw, a 3-1 AAA team whose only loss is to Aynor, is another tough draw, though. Hemingway (0-5) at C.E. Murray (2-2) When you’ve scored 13 points in five games like Hemingway has, C.E. Murray (owner of a super-nasty offense) is not the place you go to get well. It’s actually where you go to contract malaria or rubella or some such. Lake Marion (1-4) at Cross (2-2) The Trojans gave Baptist Hill all they wanted last week before falling 22-14. Cross is back to being a physical team that plays tremendous defense, but what they aren’t really back to doing just yet is scoring points. They still have not score more than 16 points in a game since 2017. Even one of their two touchdowns last week was on defense. Lake Marion certainly has a number advantage, being a AAA team and all, but they also got smoked like Pall Mall last week by C.E. Murray, so you have to feel like this one Cross has a shot to win. Great Falls- 26
Dixie- 7 McCormick- 37 Eau Claire- A round number. Not divisible by two, I mean it’s shape is round. Camden Military- 56 Ware Shoals- 12 Branchville- 52 Whitmire- 16 Lamar- 52 Cheraw- 27 Blackville-Hilda- 37 Denmark-Olar- 14 Williston-Elko- 44 Estill- 16 Wagener-Salley- 54 HKT- Charlie might ought not have drank the fizzy lifting drink Ridge Spring-Monetta- 60 North- 8 Baptist Hill- 22 Cross- 14 Burke- 46 Charleston Charter for School for widget and doodad studies- LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, KEITH WHITLEY!!!! Scott’s Branch- 36 Military Magnet- 15 The OC Semi-pros- 58 St. John’s- The accompanying video pronouncing this word seems a hair unnecessary. C.E. Murray- 53 Lake Marion- More like Lake Mari-none. AMIRITE?!?! Aynor- 36 Green Sea Floyds- 22 Lakewood- 44 Hemingway- 7 Marion- 28 Lake View- 12 Breakdown- As some teams are starting to get into region play, we had far fewer “up” games this week, but our Class A brethren posted a solid 3-5 mark against teams of higher classification. Two of those were in no way surprising (McCormick’s rout of Eau Claire and C.E. Murray’s proper seeing to of Lake Marion), so let’s focus on Lamar drilling a very good, ranked AAA Cheraw squad. Since their loss at Pageland, Lamar has savagely flogged the unfortunate sets of school children tasked with playing them. The crap bombed AAAA Darlington 48-0, stuck in North Central sideways (64-12) and now handled Cheraw 52-27. The same Cheraw that beat Marlboro County, Chesterfield and Pageland. Now, Cheraw moved the ball a little better than some of Lamar’s other opponents, but we’re talking about a quality AAA team here. The Silver Foxes made Cheraw’s run defense look like, well, not a turnstile as much as a well-lubricated turnstile with rocket boosters. Jiaquell James went for 161, Cam Galloway had 152 and Dajour Green added 56 yards. Think about this…Cheraw held Pageland, home to melon-chunking giants and very fast people to, to 12 points. Lamar lined up against that same defense and averaged nearly 7 yards-a-carry. When you can do that, you can compete with (or whip) pretty much anybody. The Silver Foxes have two more stiff out-of-region tests (Lake View and Gray, against whom eating clock and running the ball well will be essential) but they look every bit like the contender we assumed they’d be… The only “up” loss that caused me to raise an eyebrow was Green Sea Floyds having their 10-game winning streak snapped by Aynor. There is really no reason, though, save maybe overinflated expectations, to make any kind of a big deal out of that result. Here again, we are talking about Class A team not only playing a AAA team, but playing an undefeated, very good AAA team. The reason I start this ridiculous BLAWG out every week by highlighting “up” wins is because they are a big deal. When you can go toe-to-toe with someone double, triple or eleventydrupletuple (that’s probably not an actual thing) your size, the deck is stacked against you. More students likely means more athletes walking the halls and it certainly means considerably better depth. From what I read, depth did play a factor, with Aynor piling up yards on the ground in the second half. Still, QB and stock car mechanic Bubba Elliot ran for 134 yards, Jaquan Dixon ran for over 100 and had a 50-plus yard scoring catch. They are the most explosive offense in Class A and against competition ONLY twice their size, their defense has bordered on being dominant. They’ll be more than fine in the games that matter. They get a scrappy McBee team this week, then face Baptist Hill in what figures to be an interesting matchup. Given the downhill, load the box defense they play, it will be interesting to see them go up against a more wide-open spread attack like that Baptist Hill operates… It’s a little early to hype any contest as being a de facto region title showdown, but here I am, on Wednesday, September 25, telling you this week’s Blackville-Hilda at Wagener-Salley game is kind of a de facto region title showdown. Besides, in most every way imaginable, it is WAY better to be early than late. Anywho, I thought Wagener-Salley might get a bit of a test from HKT, who had been playing defense and an effective game of keepaway on offense through the opening weeks of the season, and holy crap was I wrong. It was non-competitive from the jump, with the boys from Chitlin Junction dominated up front on both sides of the ball. Likewise, I thought Denmark-Olar, another team playing some salty defense and controlling the ball, might be a handful for Blackville-Hilda. And they were, in the sense that Blackville gave them a handful of their hind ends. Now, Ridge Spring is certainly playing better after a rough start vs. a tough schedule and Williston blew up offensively this past week. They’ll have some say, but boy, this feels like the top two teams in the region playing this week. We’ll have a preview of that one (and every Class A game) up, hopefully on Thursday... I wanted to take a second here to congratulate all the Class A players whose hard work was honored with inclusion on the South Carolina Shrine Bowl roster. Unfortunately, those players are represented by the Keith Whitley and Willy Wonka references above. Not one player from the Class A level was selected for the game. At this point, we know Class A players will be slighted and get short shrift. Generally, it takes either a Division I signee (see, KeShawn Toney) or a guy who plays for someone on the Shrine Bowl coaching staff. We almost always at least get the latter, and weren’t even tossed that crumb this year. I get that Class A has been diminished a bit in terms of size by realignment, it isn’t a super great year for top-end Class A seniors and we had lots of coaching turnover in the class this year, which has an impact. A friend of mine actually heard the argument once “well sure, that running back puts up good numbers, but he does it against 1A competition.” Yeah, and he does it behind a 1A line, while also starting at linebacker and returning kicks and being the punter. Unlike in larger classes, most Class A teams don’t have the numbers to two platoon, so the best athletes never leave the field. I doubt many 5A QBs double as starting safeties. To me, that makes any stats look far MORE impressive for Class A guys. And of course, Lamar, Green Sea, Wagener and a bevy of other drop a metric crap ton of points and yards on AA, AAA and sometimes even AAAA competition. You honestly mean to tell me Bubba Elliot couldn’t have helped the Sandlappers? “Well he doesn’t fit our system.” In which case you system must be “losing at football.” Kevin Jackson? How about any offensive lineman from Lamar? I always hear what a tough time they have finding linemen? Plenty of them in that little town down in Darlington off I-20. I get that the team is no longer picked based on what you do as a senior, or sometimes on the field at all. Combines, 7-on-7s and summer work play an increasingly large part in the selection process and small, poor, rural Class A schools are often underrepresented at all those events for financial reasons. Many will get their due in the North-South game, but to not get the acknowledgement from the Shrine Bowl remains very disappointing to me. Suggested reading… Aynor is a super funny word and also their football team is good. You can read capsules on lots of games here and then also here, or say you did and don’t. Nobody believes a word you say anymore anyway, Carol. You can read about Great Falls beating Dixie here, but remember the guy who wrote it is a hack and sucks as a person. Great Falls (2-2) at Dixie (0-4)
This figures to be a pretty good matchup. Great Falls is coming of 34-0 thumping at the hands of Andrew Jackson, but that was a14-0 game early in the third quarter against unbeaten, unscored upon AA team. Coach Tom Butler has done a good job in his first year with the Red Devils. They’ve won twice in overtime and rallied from a 22-point deficit against Whitmire to be throwing in the end zone to tie the contest on the last play of the game. The kids play hard and never think they are out of it. They aren’t just a scrappy little bunch that gets by on effort, though. They aren’t deep, but they’ve got good size up front and lots of offensive weapons (Talford, Moore, Fox, Adams etc. and so on). It’s hard to get a read on Dixie at this point. We knew there would be some bumps in the road as they replace 18 graduated starters from last year, but the early schedule has included three AA opponents and one AAA. This week, playing a like-sized opponent for the first time, will give us the most accurate reading on what kind of team they have. It should also be pointed out you can’t actually get from Great Falls to Dixie without walking through thick forest and being guided through a frightening series of hills by a Sherpa. Eau Claire (0-4) at McCormick (0-4) The Chiefs sort of fall into the Dixie boat of being winless but having played a big-boy schedule chock full of AA, AAA and quality out-of-state competition. McCormick nearly beat Fox Creek last week, pushing them to overtime before falling 20-14. Quarterback Suderian Harrison ran for a score and threw one and A’Chean Durant ran for 100 yards in the loss. The level of competition lightens up a bit this week…and by “a bit” I actually mean “a whole, whole lot.” Eau Claire is winless and lost 50-6 to Lewisville, 35-0 to HKT, 74 to NOT NAM against Wagener-Salley and 42-12 to Dreher. This is a good chance for the Chiefs to take some momentum into the bye week ahead of the start of region play. Camden Military (2-2) at Ware Shoals (1-3) Things got off to a really good start for Ware Shoals this year, as they opened with a curb-stomping of Oakbrook Prep. Since then, though, they lost to Calhoun Falls Charter, were blown out by AAA Travelers Rest and fell 20-13 last week to Greenwood Christian. Other than the TR loss, the defense has done a pretty good job and they do have a big-time offensive weapon in Jermarious Goodman. When you’ve been mired in a tough couple of years like the Purple Hornets have and have a new coach, it may just take a while. Generally, Camden Military represents a “W” on the schedule of SCHSL teams, but it should be noted they come in with a pair of victories (over Hickory Grove Christian and Asheville School, so this is certainly not a layup. Branchville (3-1) at Whitmire (2-2) This actually figures to be one of the better matchups of the week. Branchville laid a painful, Grade 1 ROOTIN’ on The Charleston Charter School for This, That and The Other last week 67-12. If they can get this one, they have an excellent shot to be 6-1 rolling in Cross for a big region matchup on Oct. 11. As I’ve mentioned before, It’s hard to find a lot of info on Branchville, located as they are, I guess, in a corner of the state that still communicates with smoke signals and hollering. Whitmire evened its record at 2-2 last week with a 40-14 win over North. They spread the sugar around big-time on offense in that one, with Chandler Crumely rushing for 66 yards and three scores, Jaquan Tindell-White going for 66 yards (he also ran a kickoff back for a touchdown) and two other racking up at least 50 yards on the ground. Fun Fact…these are the state’s only two Pre-K through 12 schools. Cheraw (4-0) at Lamar (3-1) As always, Lamar plays a big-time, grown man schedule and continues that this week with unbeaten, AAA Cheraw. When you look at the stats from their 14-12 win over Pageland last week, it’s kinda hard to figure exactly how they are undefeated since they were outgained in that one 313 to 29 in terms of total yards. However, they got a 70-yard interception return late in the game from Lawton Harris to provide the winning score. There is something to be said for finding a way to win even in a game in which you were statistically dominated. Lamar’s offense actually could have taken the night off last Friday, since the defense outscored a good AA North Central team by itself (returning three interceptions for touchdowns) . They didn’t take the night off, though, hence the 64-12 dragging. This has the makings of one of the state’s best games this week and can go either way…though I will certainly say I don’t think 29 yards of offense is getting it done for Cheraw this week. Denmark-Olar (2-1) at Blackville-Hilda (2-1) Alright, it’s tater-cutting time in Region III. Actual, real, count-towards-the-playoffs games commence there this week. B-H was off last week, having beaten Allendale-Fairfax their last time out 27-0. With as many returners as they have up front, a really good dual-threat QB in Adonis Davis, a bevy of talented RBs and a QB-crushing football cyborg in Kumon Odom. Still, they struggled to put away a Mr. T Haircuts team in the opener that has gotten knocked around pretty badly since then, got flogged by Barnwell (most everyone will get flogged by Barnwell) and didn’t put away A-F the way I thought they would. So, maybe the week off will prove helpful. Denmark is one of the early surprises in 1A. They lost last week, but that was to a good AA Silveer Bluff team. They won a shootout over Branchville and rolled the Mr. T Haircuts that ran for nearly 300 yards on Blackville-Hilda. The loser of this game isn’t necessarily behind the eight-ball, but they’ll be 0-1 in the region with games against Wagener-Salley, HKT and RS-M still to come. Williston-Elko (0-3) at Estill (1-2) It feels weird to sit here and write about Williston-Elko, but they are now 0-3 and are just 6-9 since the start of last season. This is traditionally one of the preeminent powers in Class A football. Their first two losses this year, you almost wrote off since they played up against a couple of powerhouses. I thought they’d regain their footing last week, but instead they lost to Allendale-Fairfax 27-16. Credit to A-F for scoring a defensive touchdown, coming up with a couple of big goal-line stands and scoring on some explosive plays. Tres Rimes had almost 300 total yards offense, but miscues and turnovers hurt the Devils. I’d normally chalk this up as a comfortable “W” for them, but this Estill team, while it has lost badly to Ridgeland-Hardeeville and Wade Hampton, started the year with a win over the A-F team Williston just lost to. Could be a more competitive game than folks are expecting. Wagener-Salley (3-0) at HKT (2-1) This has suddenly turned into a pretty important game. The boys from Chitlinville were off last week, but when last we saw them they we CRANKSMACKING Eau Claire 74-0. They are throwing the ball a hair more than in past years, but they have five hogs up front and a stable of backs that can trample you, your competitive spirit and your very soul (that was a tad dark, I’m sorry). They’ve also looked good on defense, including against Fox Creek, a team with some nice passing capabilities, a thing that has given W-S trouble in the past. HKT’s close loss to Edisto never looked bad, but it really doesn’t now, what with Edisto being an unbeaten AAA team. Their beatdown of the Mr. T Haircuts last week, particularly the way they played defense in that game, was impressive. The Stump whooped all-stars will be the favorites every time they walk on the field in the regular season, but they might get a bit of a test. Ridge Spring-Monetta (1-2) at North (0-3) North has the state’s longest losing streak, they lost 40-14 last week to Whitmire while giving up more than 300 yards rushing. RS-M beat Whitmire two weeks ago 68-28. So, you know, this one may not go well for North. Baptist Hill (1-2) at Cross (2-1) The Bobcats got off to a rough start his year, with two lopsided losses, but those came against The OC Semi-pros and Bishop England. Last week they gave the Academic Magnet a thorough, thorough rogering by a 67-0 score. You had to figure when they got on a level playing field competition wise, they’d score seventy bojillion points as always. Cross is putting together a nice bounce back from last year’s winless campaign. They knocked off Kingstree last week 16-13. Zyrell Eadie caught four balls in that one including a 65-yard touchdown from DeAndre Brown. So, Cross is going a little more to the air than normal. They’ve played some really tough defense, but they still haven’t score more than 16 points since the 2017 season and to have a chance in this one, I believe they’ll need a lot more than 16 points. Charleston Charter School of Stuff and Things and Sundries (0-2) at Burke (0-3) Burke lost close to Cross in the opener, but have gotten drilled by First Baptist and Barnwell the last two times out (though honestly, there’s no shame in any of those three losses). The Riptide has lost close to Academic Magnet and very, very badly to Branchville. Bout all I got for you on this’n, Hoss. Scott’s Branch (0-4) at Military Magnet (0-2) The Eagles, to be honest, are struggling right now in every respect. In four games they’ve allowed 176 points and scored 22. Turnovers have been a big problem as have penalties. Now, it is worth mentioning those losses, lopsided as they were, came exclusively against AA and AAA schools, including some pretty dang good ones (Bamberg, Edisto etc.). Military Magnet, likewise, has three losses, but all are to teams of higher classification. This game, the first in which each gets a like-sized opponent, it will be a better barometer than any other game either has played thus far. The OC Semi-pros (3-0) at St. John’s (1-2) I’m gonna hand it to Coach Josh Harpe, the Islanders will pretty much play anybody, anywhere. They’ve already been to Andrew Jackson and have some other stiff tests to come out-of region, all of which should have them primed for the region slate. Now, this is a tough matchup, going against a AA school with one of the most potent offenses in the state. Trust me, though, St. John’s has a good defense and a young offense that is still finding its way. Give them time and good things will happen. Lake Marion (1-3) at C.E. Murray (1-2) Not your typical AAA vs. 1A battle. Lake Marion has not played a close game, having railed Military Magnet, but lost by very wide margins to Woodland, O-W and Bamberg-Ehrhardt (by a combined 168-14). The War Eagles are close, man. Coach Brian Smith has them playing great defense, but they lost to a really good AA Lee Central team 14-13 and solid AA Mullins team 15-12. They just need to find a little more offense. The way they’ve played so far portends well for down the road when they get into region…and maybe this week against a defensively challenged Lake Marion squad. Lakewood (1-3) at Hemingway (0-3) Hemingway did finally reach the end zone last week for the first time, but still fell 26-6 to Carvers 26-6. You have to figure the offense will come around to some extent eventually, particularly when they aren’t playing the likes of Lamar, Andrew et al. That said, this is probably not a good matchup. Lakewood may not be walking right after last week’s savage 61-0 diddling by Sumter, but it’s a big AAAA school against a Class A opponent still trying to find itself offensively. Green Sea Floyds (3-0) at Aynor (2-0) The Trojans came from behind to beat hated rival Loris last week 28-27. Jaquan Dixon did some Jaquan Dixon stuff in that game. He answered a Loris score with a 60-yard touchdown run in the final seconds of the first half. He scored on another long run in the fourth to build on is team’s lead, then he picked off what would have been a game-winning two-point try by Loris late in the game. This is another in their tough earl-season gauntlet. Aynor has only played two games, but they’ve notched quality victories over Waccamaw and East Clarendon. Expect a great game here. Lake View (3-1) at Marion (4-0) The Wild Gators suffered their first loss last week, but it came to AAA powerhouse Dillon and came on the heels of three nice wins to begin the year. So, nothing to worry about there. Nothing to worry about if the young, up-and-coming Lake View team loses this week either. Marion appears to be a pretty good contender in AAA in the lowerstate. It occurs to me occasionally, there may be folks out there that love Class A football, but aren't crazy about, you know, words and reading and junk. My solution to that problem was to try something different this week. Instead of putting all those letters and verbs and whatnot, my buddy James McBee and I recorded a podcast to review last week's action, preview this week's games and discuss liver pudding, mono, refrigerators wrapped in barbed wire and other relevant stuff. Hope you enjoy...
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/piedmontpickemshow/episodes/2019-09-12T23_28_28-07_00 “This dog-walking thing is just an excuse for you to eat barbecue, isn’t it?” my wife asked recently.
That is a scurrilous, slanderous lie! How dare she. Granted, we had eaten a lot of barbecue, but consuming perfectly smoked, delightfully seasoned and lovingly sauced pork just happens to be a fringe benefit of my 46-county dog-walking trek. And, I mean, since we were in the area and had to mark Williamsburg off the list anyway, what kind of sense would it make NOT to eat Scott’s Barbecue? What other dining options would one likely find in the greater Hemingway community? Before going to downtown Hemingway for our actual walk, we did make our way to Scott’s. This would mark my second visit to the original Scott’s location. The first was a fairly memorable experience about six years ago. The drive took us past "Henry's Starlight Lounge" which stood out a bit because Henry actually had a portrait of himself on the sign atop the building. I guess that was there in case you missed the same picture which just so happened to adorn "Henry's Restaurant" conveniently located in the same elongated building as Henry's Starlight Lounge. Sadly, Henry’s appeared to have gone the way of the Dodo, with the building looking unoccupied as we drove by on our recent trip. I must admit that my wife wasn't entirely sold on the experience on our first trip. I'm a barbecue nerd that was eating up every second of the journey, but she didn't fully understand why you'd drive an hour to eat at this one little place when other options were closer. Lots of people would hold the same view. By her own admission, she's also a "city girl" who mostly accustomed to eating in establishments with carpets and table cloths. I, on the other hand, enjoyed more meals than I can count at Babe's Cafe in Santuc. Babe's shared a tiny brick building with Joe's Store, was barely big enough to hold the three tables it had and was staffed by a verbose, six-foot-something, 300-some-odd-pound fellow named Babe who would occasionally tell patrons he wasn't going to cook whatever it was they'd ordered. "I ain't cooking any damn onion rings today," he once growled at me as he gave me French fries instead of what I'd actually asked for. Babe was hysterically funny (he was buddies with Jerry Clower) and could somehow make fried bologna sandwiches taste like filet mignon. He pulled food off that little grill that had almost no equal. You are rarely going to find those kinds of characters and that amazing level of cuisine at a generic chain place, I have learned. On that first trip, there were actually two signs out front. One said "Scott's Pitt Cook B.B.Q." and listed a phone number. There were no portrait-style pictures of the proprietor, but there was a little cartoon pig over a fire. The other read "Scott's Variety." Both signs were accurate at the time. There were shelves stocked with some of the normal country store merchandise you'd find anywhere, but there were also bottles of their sauce and bags of homemade pork skins (which are also called nabs) on either side of the three dining tables in the building. There has been a significant change since last I visited, and not one that was desired. The old location burned down a few years ago. Scott went on a “chef in residence” tour to raise money for the rebuild and did so. The lone sign now said “Pit Cook…Scott’s BBQ. The stuff inside now not related to eating pig meat is pretty minimal. The menu is much the same starting off big, listing the price for a whole smoked hog and the cost if you bring in a hog you'd like them to smoke for you before getting down to a sandwich or sandwich plate. They don't have a lot of sides to pick from and I like it that way. Sometimes, when barbecue joints try to cook everything under the sun, they lose focus on what's really important, which is the barbecue. Pick a few things and do them well. My plate came with some slaw, beans, barbecue and two pieces of white bread. I also got a bag of nabs. I asked for tea and was told they didn't have any. Whatever you want to drink, you go to the cooler in the back and pull out yourself. That was a reminder that you weren’t really in a restaurant…in was a general store that happened to serve amazing barbecue alongside quarts of motor oil and fishing lures. Part of what makes the barbecue at Scott's different is that he only cooks whole hogs. Many barbecue places use only pork butts to make barbecue, but with whole hog, you're getting pork butt and loin and rib meat and ham too. I could distinctly taste the unctuous, fatty awesomeness of some pork belly in one bite. My wife and mother-in-law were similarly impressed. On that first visit, we actually met Rodney Scott, the establishment's renowned pitmaster. Among barbecue and foodie types, he's pretty famous, but was down-to-earth and nice as could be. Scott, as I suppose we can all be at times, is totally attuned to his profession. When we told him where we were from, he related to us in terms of barbecue. "Oh, up there in mustard sauce territory," he said. I told him that was correct. I also told him I am a strict mustard-based sauce disciple (a phrase that probably has not appeared in print many times) and will not be swayed from that view, though I conceded that his spicy vinegary sauce came closer to converting me than any other I'd had. We talked about barbecue for a few minutes. I asked him about a quote I'd heard attributed to him insinuating that using charcoal was lazy. "I might have said that," he answered with a smile. Scott makes his own coals in giant barrels behind his store. He shovels the coals into his smoke pits and spends who-knows-how-many-hours tending to and turning whole hogs. He does things the hard way and you can taste every ounce of effort and sweat he puts into his craft. He is living proof that if you do things the right way, work hard and are great at what you do, the world will find you, even on a rural patch of road in the South Carolina lowcountry. He thanked me, then headed back to his smoke pits to make more culinary magic happen. There was more magic to come on our second visit. We pulled up to Scott’s barbecue around 1 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. It was a typical lowcountry South Carolina summer day, which is to say hot, with air roughly the consistency and humidity level of a bowl of beef stew. There were mosquitos and flies buzzing around that I feared might carry me away, sort of like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. All that would be worth it, though, to get inside of Scott’s. From the outside, the place looked mostly like it did prior to the fire that burned it down a few years back. There were still people sitting on benches adjacent the front door and there was still a buggy full of the biggest, most amazing-looking watermelons I’ve probably ever seen. I considered myself lucky when I opened the door that the only line at the counter was a family of four. As I patiently stood behind them, I looked around and did notice some differences from the original Scott’s. It is still sort of a general/variety store, but there are way fewer non-barbecue offerings present. Really, I only saw a couple of stand-up display racks of chips, honey buns and normal general store trappings. A lot of the celebrity signed headshots that used to adorn a wall near the register were also gone, probably victims of the flames. On one hand, I hate that because those are fairly cherished mementos, they’re a reminder of who has walked through the doors and for some folks, a signed picture of a Food Network personality is sort of a seal of approval. However, if you’ve ever had Scott’s barbecue, you already know that what you’re getting is good and real. There did remain a sign warning visitors against the evil of “drop down pants.” Once I got to the order window, I told the lady what my wife and mother-in-law wanted (which was a barbecue sandwich and a side of some type). I like tater salad macaroni and such as much as anybody, but if I’m at a world-class barbecue joint that is three-plus hours from my home (meaning I rarely get to eat there) I’m just eating meat. So I ordered a large barbecue sandwich, but also ordered (or thought I ordered) a chicken sandwich. I’d never had any of Scott’s chicken, so I decided to give it a try. I must have just beat the peak lunch rush, because by the time I was done ordering, at least a dozen other folks had come in and gotten in line behind me. One pleasant change at Scott’s is they do have a little bar on the side where a lady sells tea and lemonade. So I ordered us drinks while I waited. When I finally got my order, I took it out to the car, almost giddy and the delights I knew awaited me. I opened the sandwich and inspected it before I shoved it in my face hole. The whole hog approach at Scott’s shows. You aren’t looking at finely chopped meat and it doesn’t resemble traditional pulled pork either. You can see textural differences. I believe there was a succulent belly strand laid right at the top of my sandwich, next to what I’m sure was some ham meat. It had the light red hue of Scott’s barbecue sauce. As Scott makes coals and meticulously tends to his whole hogs, he mops them with a spicy vinegar concoction. And for those unfamiliar, when you cook whole hogs, you don’t use little culinary brushes because it would take forever. You take an actually, full-sized mop, dunk it a big barrel of your sauce, and slather it on the pigs. “This is good, but it’s kind of spicy,” Ashley said. To her, “spicy” is almost a pejorative. It isn’t to me, though. The vinegar tang and red pepper heat cut through the richness of the meat a bit. That sandwich was perfect. You tasted pork, the heat and bite of the sauce, smoke and seasoning in that order. I was fairly hungry, so after knocking out my barbecue sandwich, I went for the chicken sandwich, but there wasn’t one. Oh, there was chicken…about half of one, but I apparently had a miscommunication of some kind with the lady taking my order. There was no bread or bun, just chicken. That was fine with me. The chicken at Scott’s tastes a lot like the barbecue, which is to say the meat flavor is up front, his normal sauce is present and it is smoked to perfection. Pulling out of Scott’s took some doing. The small parking lot and very rural locale are not totally equipped to handle the crowds the place draws. Cars were packed in around us so tightly, we couldn’t see in either direction. Helpfully, someone wearing thick gloves and an apron came from around back, walked out in the road, looked in both directions, then gave us the signal that it was safe to pull out. He then waved and strolled on back to the smoke pits as we left. As for our walk in Hemingway, it was brutally hot, so we had to keep it short. It was a nice little downtown with bright red brick sidewalks and a water tower (which just screams “small town” to me, particularly if there are numbers spray-painted on the side denoting when the nearby school won state). The place seemed to have an inordinate number of haircutting places to be so small and there was, I promise, a car lot that featured two whole vehicles for you to choose from. I only encountered one person during the walk, but one lady at a stoplight did wave and smile and Tucker and Gracie. That’s about all I’ve got on Hemingway. That’s not much, is it? Hmm. Maybe Ashley was right after all. Maybe sometimes, it is mostly about the barbecue. Buford (0-2) at Dixie (0-2)
This game is a little difficult to get a read on because of how the Yellow Jackets and Hornets both got to 0-2. Buford opened with a fairly competitive loss to a good Blacksburg team then lost to what appears to be a pretty salty AAA Indian Land squad. Still feels weird to put “Indian Land” and “AAA” in the same sentence. It wasn’t that long ago Indian Land was like Carlisle with a less exciting night life. I stopped at what appeared to be the area’s only gas station going to a game once upon a time and they didn’t even have a bathroom. The cashier helpfully invited me to do my business behind the building and promised not to look. Really. I’m guessing “just leak it out back, buddy” probably isn’t a thing in Indian Land anymore. Anyway, Buford had one first down in the first half and never visited the end zone. I think we all realized Dixie was in a bit of a rebuilding mode after last year’s senior-laden squad made it to the upperstate title game. They opened with a loss to AA Christ Church, then lost at AA Landrum last week 35-7. Their only score in that game came via special teams as Dixie blocked a punt and Caleb Simpson recovered it in the end zone. With something in the neighborhood of 17 new starters, there is an obvious adjustment period for the Hornets and they’ve had to do that against two really good teams. I saw Buford in the preseason against Chester and from that I will note that Dixie might have a chance here. Travelers Rest (2-0) at Ware Shoals (1-1) Ware Shoals looked good in its opener against Oakbrook Prep, but then went out last week and lost 14-13 to a Calhoun Falls Charter team that hadn’t won a game in nearly three years. Honestly, most of the losses in that stretch weren’t terribly competitive. Maybe the Flashes are legitimately better, but that was still a bit of a stunner. I watched some highlights and even in the loss Jermarius Goodman made a ton of big plays on both sides of the ball for the Purple Hornets (ran for a score and threw one) but it obviously wasn’t enough. Now, coming off that and facing a 2-0 AAAA Devil Dogs squad, um, you know, this might not go real well for the Purple Hornets. Laney (0-1) at McCormick (0-2) The Chiefs had a nice showing in the opener, nearly upending AAA Crescent, but were made the victim of one of my lame zero jokes last week against Lincoln County. They play an ambitious schedule that will include Fox Creek next week. Wouldn’t be shocked to see them 0-4 at that point, but then they get Eau Claire before rolling into region play, so they’ll have a shot to bounce back quickly. I don’t know much about Laney other than that laid it to McCormick pretty badly last year, are 1-0 and are the alma mater of Michael Jordan. Why then they are called the Wildcats and not the Jordans or Swooshes or GOATs or Fightin’ Wenningtons is beyond me. *Update- This is Laney High in Georgia, not the one in North Carolina that Michael Jordan attended. PigskinAndPigskins regrets the error, but not so much that we are going to change what we already wrote and deprive ourselves the chance to make a Bill Wennington joke. Ridge Spring-Monetta (0-2) at Whitmire (1-1) Here’s another team that is really tough to gauge, given who they’ve played. The Trojans opened with a shutout loss to Batesburg-Leesville, then got roasted 41-6 last week by Saluda. But here again, they weren’t playing Larry’s Living Room Rangers, they were playing a couple of really good AA teams in Batesburg and Saluda. They’ve got talent up front in Cameron Davis and scary, QB-mashing football robot Tray Dean, but they’ve done next to nothing offensively. This should be the week we see what they’ve got as they face a like-sized opponent for the first time. Whitmire managed to hold off Great Falls last week 37-29. Great Falls was able to rack up some fairly hefty yardage totals against them particularly through the air, but will do that to a lot of people this year. RS-M is apparently spreading it much more than they used to, so that may be something they try to exploit. The thing about Whitmire is how much pressure they put on you. They onsides kick on every kickoff, they usually go for it on fourth down and they run that scrum offense. You have to be disciplined and it eats clock and shortens the game and if you end up trailing late, you’re sunk. Great Falls cut the deficit to eight with eight minutes to go and got the ball back at their own four with two minutes to play. RB Jaquan Tindell-White has some wheels and is fun to watch. FB Chandler Crumley doesn’t have wheels as much as he has tractor tires that crush possums and corn stalks and defenders unlucky enough to be in his path (I have no idea what any of this means). Should be a good matchup. Lewisville (2-0) at Great Falls (1-1) Dearest Reader, How bout clicking here and reading the preview I wrote on this’n for the newspaper. Best, Me Darlington (0-2) at Lamar (1-1) The Silver Foxes suffered a rare regular season loss last week in falling to Pageland. Here’s the thing, though, their defense played WAY better than the final score would make it appear. Pageland, home of large lineman and fast people, really just wants to push you around and run the ball and they flat could not against Lamar. They hit a long pass early and scored twice on defense and that was pretty much it. So long as the Silver Foxes take care of the ball, they will be fine. They are playing a AAAA team this week in Darlington, but it’s a AAAA team that have routinely dragged. Darlington lost to Cheraw 28-0 in the opener and 47-6 to West Florence last week. Lee Central (1-1) at Timmonsville (0-2) You know, it’s entirely possible that Timmonsville could be this year’s McBee. Last season, the Panthers looked like hot trash in a taco shell for about seven or eight weeks, but only to dumb untrained eyes (like mine, mainly). They were playing arguably the toughest schedule in 1A and struggled, but it made them a better team. They won a couple of games late, made the playoffs and won two games. Timmonsville has already lost to a 2-0 AA team and a 2-0 AAA team. Offensively, the young Whirlwinds haven’t done much of anything really, but they’ve kept their games fairly respectable. I don’t expect they’re going to win this week against a rugged, experienced team like Lee Central…and probably not against Marion or Green Sea Floyds, either. But maybe there will be a payoff down the road… Allendale-Fairfax (0-2) at Blackville-Hilda (1-1) The Hawks may be walking funny and talking with a lisp after the savage flogging laid upon them last week by Barnwell. Really, though, that’s one you just kind of move on from. Barnwell MIGHT have one or two reasonably competitive games during the regular season. They’ll beat fellow AA teams worse than they did Blackville-Hilda, so it’s not a harbinger of anything long-term. I watched some highlights of the game and was kind of surprised to see the Hawks going single-back, four wide as much as they were, since they are generally of the “we’ll just stomp on your face” variety on offense. Maybe they felt like that wasn’t a winning recipe against Barnwell. Maybe Barnwell loaded the box and took that away…maybe I’m pulling stuff out of my tail hole at this point. Anyway, Hawks QB Adonis Davis looked good throwing the ball, both on the short stuff and on a couple of bombs that went for scores. I don’t know a whole lot about Allendale-Fairfax other than I read they looked improved in the preseason, they are 0-2 and the league did them a terrible, crappy disservice by sticking them in AA. Branchville (2-0) at Denmark-Olar (1-0) Two weeks ago, I probably wouldn’t have pegged this as game of the week material, but here we are. Branchville, to be blunt, doesn’t have a WOW win in its first two, having beaten Colleton Prep and long-struggling North, but they’re 2-0 and have done that coming off a six-win season that included a playoff victory. It’s time to start paying attention to them…if that were a thing that’s possible. I’ve haven’t been able to find much of anything on them, save some “hype” videos that feature wacky, montage-style editing that makes it impossible to see what anyone is doing. In some stuff I found from last year they’re go double-back, double-wide a good bit and had a good-sized junior quarterback with a big arm. So maybe that holds or maybe he entered the transfer portal. If you’ve seen them and have a scouting report, I’d love to hear it. Ditto for Denmark-Olar. I do know they had a nice win over the Mr. T Haircuts last week. The defense played especially well, not yielding a score and holding a potent rushing attack in check. Estill (1-1) at Wade Hampton (2-0) Coming off a hard-fought win over Allendale-Fairfax in the opener, Estill got roughed up by Ridgeland/Hardeeville 39-0 last week and I regret to inform you 39-0 would be a good outcome this week. Wade Hampton is a big, good AAA team that runs an offense you never see who gave up 69 yards of offense last week while forcing four turnovers. Better things may be ahead for the Gators but this is a tough matchup. North (0-1) at Bethune-Bowman (0-2) The Mr. T Haircuts hung in there and kept it relatively close in the opener against Blackville-Hilda, mainly on the strength of RB Jesus Benjamin’s 200-plus yard rushing performance. Last week, they were straining at the bowl to make anything move, pretty much, with their only score against Denmark-Olar being a punt return. They’ll find the sledding a bit easier this week. I’m rooting for North and would really like to see them get out of the prolonged losing streak they are mired in, but after a 55-0 loss to Branchville last week, it’s hard to see that happening against B-B. Eau Claire (0-2) at Wagener-Salley (2-0) The Shamrocks have been outscored in their first two games by a margin of 85-6 against Lewisville and HKT. The boys from Chitlin RFD rolled a good Fox Creek team last week, blasted Pelion and are as physical as it gets on both sides of the ball. This will be a lot like a 50-car train full of cinderblocks and dynamite colliding with a donkey cart slowly crossing the tracks. Burke (0-2) at Baptist Hill (0-2) I doubt this is even being played this week, what with there being a hurricane and whatnot, but if it is it seems like the place and time that the Bobcats will get their first win and score seventy-eight gojillion points. Charleston Charter School for Aquatic Biology and Booger Studies (0-1) at Phillip Simmons (0-2) Again, with this game likely not even being played, not gonna expend a lot of energy on it other than to say the Iron Horses have been close in their two losses and might get over the hump against the Riptide. Academic Magnet (1-1) at Military Magnet (0-1) Another likely weather casualty, which is a shame because this match-up between magnet schools is an attractive matchup. I’m positive it would be a good one. See what I did there? Magnets, attractive, positive…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cross (1-1) at Timberland (1-0) Assuming this game is even played, it’s probably not a great matchup for Cross. They’re improved over last year but are still young, challenged offensively a bit and Timberland is a top five AA team. Scott’s Branch (0-2) at Bamberg-Ehrhardt (1-0) You can basically read my Cross-Timberland preview above and apply everything I said to this matchup, minus the “improved over last year” part. Johnsonville (0-2) at Hemingway (0-2) Another “if they even play” game. The Sausages hung in there against Lake View and Marion, but have managed to scratch out only 14 points in two games combined. Hemingway, young, with a new head coach and playing heavy hitters Lamar and Andrews out of the gate has been outscored 107-0 in two games. This could be a spot for Hemingway to start turning things around a bit. Calhoun Falls- 14
Ware Shoals- 13 Landrum- 35 Dixie- 7 Lincoln County- 41 McCormick- Remember how many it took to make a thing go right? Two less than that. Whitmire- 37 Great Falls- 29 Pageland Central- 33 Lamar- 20 Chesterfield- 35 McBee- 26 Edisto- 22 Timmonsville- 14 Barnwell- 62 Blackville-Hilda- 18 Denmark-Olar- 26 Bethune-Bowman- 6 Ridgeland/Hardeeville- 39 Estill- Less points than the above team’s name has slashes Hunter-Kinard-Tyler- 36 Eau Claire- Two less points that the above team has hyphens Branchville- 55 North- You say it best when you say this Saluda- 41 Ridge Spring-Monetta- 6 Wagener-Salley- 42 Fox Creek- 20 Silver Bluff- 20 Williston-Elko- 6 Bishop England- 31 Baptist Hill- 12 Academic Magnet- 14 Charleston Charter School for Computer Technology, Applied Mathematics and Spoon Technology- 12 North Charleston- 32 Military Magnet- 21 Andrew Jackson- 69 St. John’s- Not as many as Andrew Jackson had, by like, 69 Lee Central- 14 C.E. Murray- 13 Whale Branch- 28 Cross- Tell ‘em bout it, childhood crushes of mine East Clarendon- 39 Scott’s Branch- Not nam Green Sea Floyds- 47 Hannah-Pamplico- Did I already do the joke about less points that hyphens? I think I did. Andrews- 53 Hemingway- Seriously people…can I get a safety or something here? Lake View- 20 Johnsonville- 6 Breakdown- It wasn’t the best week for our Class A brethren in terms of taking on the big this week. After going almost .500 on “up” games in the ridiculously named Week 0, Class A schools were just 4-16 playing teams of higher classification this past week. That bad number came about because some teams we are accustomed to seeing win such games lost close ones (see: Lamar and C.E. Murray), some were playing teams that don’t look particularly beatable by anybody (see: Blackville-Hilda and St. John’s) and some are probably just going to struggle regardless of whom they play at this point in the year (see Scott’s Branch and Charleston Charter). Some of those four wins were impressive ones, including Wagener-Salley’s victory over Fox Creek. That had the making of a shootout for a while, with Fox Creek leading 13-12 after one. From that point on, the Chitlinville All-Stars savagely defiled what is normally a pretty good AA team. Kevin Jackson ran wild (three touchdowns), Kaleb Shaw did likewise and the defense allowed only one more score the rest of the way, none in the second half. They did get dinged by the passing game of the Predators early on, which is a thing they have been susceptible to in recent years, but they defended well from the second quarter on. If they can continue to do that, maul people with that big O line and studly collection of backs and mix just a tiny semblance of a passing game (which they did do Friday) in, it might be a while before they lose one. They’ll be big favorites the next two times out against Eau Claire and HKT, then their region slate is front-loaded with Blackville-Hilda and Williston-Elko early. They could have a region crown and a high playoff seed sewn up early… Lake View’s win over the Fightin’ Sausages wasn’t overwhelming it terms of score (20-6) but if you dig inside the numbers a bit, you’ll see a different story. Johnsonville didn’t scratch out much offensively, but the Wild Gators just went about the business of slowly draining the clock of it’s precious seconds and the Sausages of their will to compete. They ran the ball 50-some flippin’ times for near 300 yards. Ja’Correus Ford (a name you should familiarize yourself with) had 129, Adarrian Dawkins had 77 and threw a touchdown and Michael McInnis added 72. They play a super manly schedule that features Dillon, Marion and Lamar out-of-region in the coming weeks. Hard to imagine them getting through that hellish gauntlet unscathed, but running the ball and playing defense can get you a long way in this game, Broham… The least surprising “up” win for a Class A team was Green Sea Floyds’ CRANKSMACKING of Hannah-Pamplico. After taking a Grade 1 rootin’ from Lake View in the opener, we all might have figured H-P wasn’t quite the team we expected or close to being what we saw from them last year. At least not here early in the season. Still, it’s a AA team that has a lot of starters back up front and some athletes. We know that with QB Bubba Elliot (who plays football when not driving the Larry Jim’s Taxidermy and Accounting Services Buick at the local drag strip) and Jaquan Dixon, the Trojans are pretty much gonna name their score. Both had huge games again. But their defense did not allow H-P to cross midfield. Like, at all. For the entire game. They’ve got some tests coming up in Aynor, Loris, Baptist Hill and Lake View, but right now it almost doesn’t feel like it matters who they play. They are a giant, destructive force. They’re like, um, what’s something topical here? A giant, destructive force that lays waste to everything in its path in the Atlantic? Maybe a tug boat full of dynamite captained by a cross-eyed guy that huffs paint? Analogies are not my strong suit. I’ll keep thinking on it…The other “up” win was HKT’s blistering of Eau Claire. Couldn’t find much on that game, but HKT might be a team to keep an eye on. They were very competitive in an opening loss to what is now a 2-0 Edisto team. Eau Claire is in for a long, rough year (having gotten housed the previous week by Lewisville) but HKT did what you are supposed to do in those instances, which is take care of business… As I figured would be the case, C.E. Murray v Lee Central was old-timey football, minus the coaches smoking on the sidelines and nattily attired fans drinking hooch from leather flasks stuff. That was two very physical teams that can’t much be bothered with the forward pass. The identity of both is to whip your ass at the line of scrimmage, run the ball, stop the run and leave with a “W” with little care whether they get that 3-2 or 70-0. C.E. Murray held a lead late, but Lee Central scored with under two minutes to go, went for two and got it. I’ve heard good things about the talent Lee Central returns this year and their prospects for the season, so this is by no means a bad loss. From all appearances, Brian Smith has put his stamp back on the War Eagles program in a hurry, with his team shutting out Kingstree in the opener and narrowly dropping this one in a hard-fought battle. They get a week off before battling Mullins, Lake Marion and Hemingway in successive weeks… I have to admit I was fairly surprised by the Lamar-Pageland outcome, but I probably should not have been. Despite their close opening loss to Broome (a pretty good AAA team) all I’d heard about the Eagles coming into the year is how deep they are, how big they are up front on both sides of the line and how good they are against the run. Lamar’s entire O line from last year returns intact and that’s five big, scary dudes, not five randos they rounded up from the pizza line in the cafeteria. What the Silver Foxes don’t and won’t do much is throw the ball, so they essentially had to go strength-on-strength. QB Cam Galloway ran the ball well, going for 67 yards on 10 carries. For the most part, though, designed running plays to their backs didn’t net much in the way of yardage (69 yards total). But the thing is, Pageland couldn’t run the ball on Lamar either (133 yards on 44 attempts) and the Silver Foxes had a lead late in the contest. What happened was Paglenad scored with 4:30 left in the contest to go up 21-20. Lamar then suffered two turnovers in the course of 69 seconds, both of which were returned for scores. That was it. Pageland didn’t throw the ball much, but did get a long touchdown pass early and turned two picks into scores late. It was a tough loss, but Lamar will be more than fine and will benefit down the road from playing teams of Pageland’s caliber… I’m not going to go on-and-on about the game I attended Friday (Great Falls v Whitmire), since I wrote a story about it that you can read if you so choose. I do want to note a few things, though. First, if you beat Whitmire it’s because you’re just better than them, because they play their tails off for 48 minutes, they put pressure on you in the kicking game and they are perfectly content to run for three yards out of that scrum, wait as long as possible until snapping it again, then running for three more yards. And they almost always go for it on fourth down. That can backfire sometimes, obviously, but it also makes you continue to have to make plays. They short-squibbed every kickoff against Great Falls, so essentially they attempt an onsides kick on every kickoff. They only recovered one, but that came early in the third. They had just driven for a score, then got to put that offense back out there to kick and thump on down the field, eat clock and score again. They won by one TD, so that made a big difference. Chandler Crumley is a total load at fullback. He may not rack up massive yardage totals, but he’s like a refrigerator on wheels rolling down a hill. Maybe one with spikes on the door and a gun turret on top. He’s a big kid (near 240) who runs low to the ground and is a big-time stick-mover. I really like Jaquan Tindell-White at running back. He’s not real big at this point (only a sophomore) but is quick, shifty and runs with great patience for a younger player. Great Falls was down 22 in the second half and had ample chances to quit. Instead, they clamped down on Whitmire defensively and made huge plays in the passing game. Kelton Talford is a mismatch against almost anyone (because he’s a tall person with large hands who runs fast) but Xavion Moore had a big game at WR too. Both were over 100 yards. They aren’t real deep but they can score points and they showed a lot of grit in battling back. Poll Time As always, I will present you with the S.C. Pep Media Class A Poll, followed by my ballot for said poll. Gonna level with you here…it was a difficult week for pollin’. We’re at the point in the season when some teams have only played once, so it’s hard to judge them. Then you have to try to measure teams that are 0-1 and 0-2 but have played much bigger, super strong competition, against teams that feast early on sweet, delicious cupcake schedules. I’m not good at measuring or anything else involving numbers, but here you go… S.C. Prep Media Class A Poll 1. Green Sea Floyds (9) 2. Wagener-Salley (1) 3. (tie) Lamar (1), Lake View 5. Blackville-Hilda 6. C.E. Murray 7. Branchville 8. Baptist Hill 9. Denmark-Olar 10. (tie) McBee, Calhoun Falls Charter My ballot 1. Green Sea Floyds 2. Wagener-Salley 3. Lake View 4. Lamar 5. C.E. Murray 6. Blackville-Hilda 7. Denmark-Olar 8. Whitmire 9. Branchville 10. Baptist Hill Suggested reading Check out this Great Falls-Whitmire story if you want to but take it with a grain of salt because the guy that wrote it is a hack deluxe. Much like when you eat them, it’s hard to keep chitlins down. Destructive force near the beach? Maybe a dolphin with a bazooka? You can read this roundup that includes lots of 1A action or you can be ignorant like your doggone diddy. All joking aside, congrats to Calhoun Falls Charter on breaking a nearly three-year losing streak on Friday. Ware Shoals (1-0) at Calhoun Falls Charter
The Purple Hornets started the year with a 32-12 win over Oakbrook Prep. I don’t know whether Oakbrook is any good or not, but I know that same Oakbrook team laid a 36-point beatdown on Ware Shoals last year, so it represents some progress, obviously. I’ve mentioned Jermarius Goodman before. He’s listed at 6’1, 195 and is a heck of an athlete. In fact, his highlights from the Oakbrook game make him look like what you’d get if Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson and a magical flying hammer had a baby. Seriously, go watch that. The camera is kind of far away, but it looks like the Purple Hornets are in a double-tight, wing/bone offense. He mainly plays RB, but lines up under center too. He ran for a couple of scores, caught one and might have made a child from Oakbrook cry with a BLOW UP hit on defense. CF Charter, I think, started its game last week but wasn’t able to finish it because of the weather. I’m thrilled that they continue to be able to field a team, but Goodman alone may be enough for the Hornets to go to 2-0 this week. Great Falls (1-0) at Whitmire (0-1) The Red Devils lost a two-score lead late in the fourth and hung on for a 39-38 triple OT victory over C.A. Johnson. The offense created some big plays and the defense scored twice. I like their skill people A LOT. Kelton Talford is a cell tower with spring-loaded legs, basically. The Winthrop basketball commit goes 6’7, has nice speed and outstanding ball skills. D.J. Adams and Kell Brown are big plays waiting to happen too and they have other weapons. They are also big up front , but the team doesn’t have a ton of depth, with only 20-some on the varsity roster. There were guys who rarely left the field through four quarters of regulation and three OTs last week. Whitmire had a tough go against Mid-Carolina, losing 27-0. They were out-sized big-time and lost the time of possession battle, though they hung in there and fought like they always do. On paper this is a pretty even match-up and should be a good game as the other recent contests between the two have been. I’ll be at this contest and you can follow the action via Twitter @CNR_Sports McCormick (0-1) at Lincoln County (0-1) I don’t know a whole lot about Lincoln County, but that loss on their record should come with a bit of an asterisk. They only trailed four-time defending AA state champs Abbeville 10-7 late in the second when the game was stopped due to lightning. That’s not really a loss and even if it is, consider who they were out there playing. Their games with McCormick have been a little one-sided in their favor in recent years. The Chiefs didn’t account for themselves too badly at all last week, falling to AAA Crescent 21-20. A’Chean Durant, little brother of rocket-powered football robot Mataeo Durant, had a long kick return for a score in that one. Pageland Central (0-1) at Lamar (1-0) The Silver Foxes threw a world class CRANKSMACK on Hemingway last week, beating them 54-0 and holding them to under 50 yards of total offense. Hemingway actually averaged NEGATIVE 1.1 yards-per-carry and two of their nine passes were picked off. At that point, you might as well just take a knee every play like Coach Red Beaulieu had his team do in the second half of the Bourbon Bowl. Honestly, Lamar’s front line is going to do that to a lot of folks. The Silver Foxes aren’t going to throw the ball much, content to let their fleet backs and scary O line maul their way to points and glory. Pageland lost a tough one last week to Broome by a 20-14 count. The Eagles hold one of the most impressive records in our state’s prep football history, that being that they’ve never had a losing record. Ever. With this one, Cheraw coming up in two weeks, then Lee Central, North Central and AJ still on the slate, keeping that going will be impressive. McBee (0-1) at Chesterfield For now, I’m not reading a whole lot into McBee’s 37-0 loss to Andrew Jackson, mainly because I think the Vols will prove to be a really good AA team this year. I saw McBee in the preseason and despite all the hype about them switching to a spread last year, I didn’t actually see them attempt a pass. They were in passing sets (single back, three WRs and TE mostly) but ran exclusively. That may have been because the teams I saw them scrimmaging (Lewisville and Heathwood Hall) are pretty small up front defensively. The thing is, McBee plays such a brutal schedule (Green Sea, Lake View and Blacksburg) we may not be able to see how improved they really are until they hit region play. This is the opener for Chesterfield, which diddled McBee pretty good last year. Timmonsville (0-1) at Edisto (1-0) The Whirlwinds lost to East Clarendon last week 28-6. I haven’t found much information on that game, other than the fact that Timmonsville played better defense than the score would indicate. They gave up one kick return for a score and lost a fumble in the end zone for a score, so the defense really only yielded two scores. The offense didn’t score at all, though. East Clarendon is a AA school and finished last year fairly strong, so that may not stand as a bad loss at all. Edisto won in the debut of coach Preston Deaver. They use a two-QB system. It looks like both threw it and ran it pretty well last week. Jalen Green caught a couple of touchdowns in that one. The Whirlwinds won this matchup last year 14-6. Blackville-Hilda (1-0) at Barnwell (1-0) Blackville-Hilda opened with a nice win over Bethune-Bowman. Adonis Davis led three scoring drives, and a lot of guys logged carries. Z’Ontre Kinard ran a couple of punts back and Kuman Odom generally menaced the Mr. T Haircuts with four sacks. I will note, though, they gave up an awful lot rushing yards. Just being honest here…I don’t know that any of that will matter this week. Barnwell is absolutely loaded for bear and ready to make another deep playoff run in AA. They destroyed Williston-Elko last week and might do the same to everybody they face this year. (NOTE: This game was played on Thursday and results in a savage 62-18 beating by the War Horses). Bethune-Bowman (0-1) at Denmark-Olar The Mr. T Haircuts lost last week to Blackville-Hilda 36-14. That’s about what I expected, with B-B replacing a multi-year starting quarterback and playing a big, physical team like Blackville. However, there was one massive bright spot for the Mr. T Haircuts and that was RB Jesus Benjamin, who went for more than 200 EXPLETIVE ADJECTIVE MODIFIER yards on the ground and scored a TD. Doing that against that defense is a serious day’s work and probably speaks to the line he’s got in front of him too. He’s an old-fashioned plowhorse back who will tote the tater 20-plus times a game. This will be the opener for D-O and new coach Gregory Wright. The Vikings won this matchup in a surprise last year, after which the Mr. T Haircuts went on a nice run and claimed a region crown. Estill (1-0) at Ridgeland/Hardeeville (0-1) In a prep landscape littered with hyphens, I applaud Ridgeland/Hardeeville for the bold usage of a slash. Jaunty and offbeat punctuation says “we’re different” or “the person who named us was drinking” or something like that. Anyway, they lost big last week to Marlboro County, but did make a playoff appearance for the first time in a while last year and feature a left tackle (Jeremiah Orr…or Jeremiah/Orr if I really want to sell the joke) who looks like he should be featured on a can of green beans at 6’5 and near 300 pounds. Estill opened with a nice win over Allendale-Fairfax last week. HKT (0-1) at Eau Claire (0-1) HKT fell its opener to Edisto 40-26, but I’d say keeping it close against an OK AAA team isn’t a bad loss. They should have a good shot to get a “W” tonight. Eau Claire sort of seemed to be taking a bit of a step forward last year, getting to four wins (including 14-0 over HKT). But based on last week’s results, I sort of doubt they are going to be build on that. They lost to Lewisville (who was winless last year) 50-6 and even that curb-stomp score doesn’t convey how lopsided the game was. It was 30-0 after one and 44-0 at the half. The clock ran nonstop (as in, there wasn’t even a break between the third and fourth quarters) the entire second half. Eau Claire got scorched on a couple of early deep balls, struggled to stop the run and turned it over a couple of times. Branchville (1-0) at North North is mired in a pretty miserable stretch. They were winless each of the last two seasons and have one victory in the last four seasons combined. Having covered a couple of teams that went 0-fer, I feel for them. It isn’t that the kids and coaches don’t work hard when losing happens, sometimes it’s just a numbers game or a lack of talent. Here’s hoping they can break the losing streak this season. Branchville had one of its better seasons in recent memory last season with a senior-heavy roster. They beat Colleton Prep 23-7 last week. Ridge Spring-Monetta (0-1) at Saluda (1-0) The Trojans had a few missed opportunities last week, but just couldn’t get much going on offense in general as they were shut out 21-0 against Batesburg-Leesville. It goes without saying they’ll need to score more than zero to win this week (I’ve looked it up…you actually can’t win that way), but they’ll likely need to score A LOT more points. Saluda is fresh off a last-second victory over Strom Thurmond, so they’re obviously a very good team. Noah Bell is the QB and had more than 260 total yards and three touchdowns in that win. RS-M is good up front defensively, but that unit will be challenged and, again, THEY MUST SCORE MORE THAN zero to have a chance. Wagener-Salley (1-0) at Fox Creek The Chitlinville All-Stars thumped Pelion last week 46-2, which wasn’t really a surprise. W-S is a big, physical team that can push around a lot of opponents. If you want to have a tater-kicking contest…a game where you stand nose-to-nose wearing steel-toed boots kicking one another where it hurts until somebody hollers uncle, Wagener will jump right into that briar patch with you and win 19 out of 20 times. Since they’ve taken a big step upward the past 3-4 years, what will sometimes give them a little trouble is an athletic team that opts against the tater-kicking contest and instead spreads it out and throws it some. Fox Creek has traditionally been that kind of team, but from what I’ve read might be able to compete with W-S in the tater-kicking trenches too. This was Wagener’s lone regular-season loss last year. Should be a good game. Silver Bluff at Williston-Elko (0-1) Williston might walk funny and talk an octave higher after the whoopin’ they took from Barnwell last week. I’m going to tell you, though, to ignore that outcome. Barnwell is liable to do that to everybody they play in the regular season and all the way until they meet Abbeville deep in the AA playoffs. A.J. Chandler posted borderline made-up sounding stats with 190 yards receiving in the losing effort. This game wasn’t terribly competitive last year, but with Silver Bluff being young up front and somewhat inexperienced at QB, maybe it will be a bit closer this time around. Bishop England at Baptist Hill (0-1) The Bobcats had a rough go of it in the opener, but as with Williston, I’m going to say we should set that one aside for now. They lost to the OC Semipros 58-12 while allowing a 200-plus yard rusher and 200-plus yard passer. But The OC is gonna hang video game numbers on lots of folks. Hard to know if this is a representative game either, though. The Bishops have put really good teams on the field recently, but only won three games last season. This is very much a wait and see type deal. Charleston Charter School for floatation studies and crabbin’ at Academic Magnet (0-1) Riptide v Raptors is a friggin’ awesome mascot matchup. Academic Magnet lost to Northwood Academy last week 34-0. That is all I have to offer on this game that is relevant or true. North Charleston at Military Magnet Season-opener for both schools. Military Magnet has a new coach for the first time in nearly 20 years in Derrell Pringle. They haven’t been very competitive in recent years (1-10 last year), but I swear, they always have some athletes, seemingly competing for state in track and field every year. North Charleston, I’ve got nothing for ya, Bubba. St. John’s (1-0) at Andrew Jackson (1-0) If nothing else, the Islanders earn some sort of bus endurance award for this. I’m not sure it’s even possible to get from St. John’s to AJ without having to park the bus, walk across a rope bridge and ride a burro through a series of deep ravines. St. John’s gutted out a 14-13 win over an improved Phillip Simmons team last week. The awesomely-named Iron Horses lived in St. John’s territory in that one, especially early, but the that Islanders D turned them back time-and-again and kept it close long enough for the offense to scratch out some points and win it. They had a couple of 100-yard rushers in that one. AJ thumped McBee 37-0. I think the Vols are a sleeper/dark horse candidate in AA. They have a senior QB in Chas DeBruhl and they’ll toss it all over the place. He didn’t have a super accurate outing against McBee (14-of-32) but made those completions count with 205 yards and three scores through the air. They also had some chunk plays on the ground and the defense just left a Panthers team I expect to be pretty good jumping and shaking, unable to squeeze out a drop. This is the longest of long road trips and a good team is waiting on them when they arrive, but if you’re St. John’s you take heart in the fact that defense and a good running game travel. C.E. Murray (1-0) at Lee Central (0-1) If old-timey football appeals to you, if you dream of football in black and white, where players wear leather helmet and run the wedge and coaches in three-piece suits chain-smoke Pall Malls and deride players as soft for coming out of the game with a broken head, this game is probably for you. The first game of Brian Smith’s second go-round at C.E. Murray looked a lot like the first…which is to say they ran the ball, played good defense and won, shutting out Kingstree 29-0. Lee Central lost their opener, but that came to Wade Hampton, who advanced to the AAA lowerstate title game last week. They have a buttload of seniors back from last season. They (like C.E. Murray) also have precious little interest in throwing the football, running out of a Wing-T. This should be a physical war. Cross (1-0) at Whale Branch (1-0) The Trojans notched a hard-fought 16-14 victory over Burke last week. They didn’t generate a whole lot of offense, but the defense played well and the win represented a step forward over last year in every way, since Cross was winless in 2018 and never scored more than 14 points in a contest. That was unusual for a program that is generally good for 6-9 wins a year. If memory serves, they had one or two seniors, which is something that can happen at small Class A programs. You have an unusually small class or an unusual imbalance of girls to boys sometimes. The latter of those problems is great when it comes to getting a date, but maybe not for winning football. This is a pretty heavy lift this week going against a good AA Whale Branch team that will out-size the Trojans up front on both sides of the ball. East Clarendon (1-0) at Scotts Branch (0-1) Scott’s Branch got absolutely mauled last week 62-8, but that came to AAA Manning and special teams miscues made the final score look even worse than it was. Scott’s Branch gave up a punt return for a score and had two punts blocked for TDs. They actually moved the ball pretty well, running for 200 yards. East Clarendon is fresh off a 28-6 win over Timmonsville. The defense didn’t allow a score in that one, but the offense didn’t produce a whole lot of points, with two of their touchdowns being of the non-offensive variety. This should be a pretty competitive game. Hannah-Pamplico (0-1) at Green Sea Floyds (1-0) Here’s a proposition so frightening it should lead to most of 1A wearing a diaper for a while. Green-Sea is the defending state champion. They viciously savaged East Columbus last week 51-9. It was 41-0 AFTER ONE QUARTER. They could have hung a hundo if they’d felt like it, but mercifully called off the hungry, angry dogs and ran the clock. Because of heat and weather, though, they’ve had to do a lot of practicing in the gym. So at this point they are a tad under rehearsed. Imagine when they actually go full throttle. Jaquan Dixon scored on a long TD on the first play of the game and Bubba Elliot (who sounds like he should driving the Levi Garrett Ford at the Nichols dirt track) threw for a score and ran for a couple of others. They will likely repeat those performances many times over this year. H-P is coming off one of the best seasons in recent school history, return a lot of guys up front but still got whacked by a Lake View team breaking in 20 new starters. They had two picks returned for touchdowns which made things look worse. The more worrisome aspect of the game for them was getting gashed on the ground by the Wild Gators. If they can’t stop the run against the Trojans this week, it ain’t gonna be pretty. Hemingway (0-1) at Andrews Give Hemingway credit on the “not scheduling sweet, delicious cupcakes” front early in the season. They played Lamar last week and that didn’t go so well as they ran for negative yardage in a 54-0 drilling. Hard to know much on Andrew yet, what with them not playing in the opening week, but they are traditionally a good AA team and won six games last year before having the misfortune of drawing Barnwell in the first round of the playoffs. That is very much like reading a choose your own adventure book and picking the path that leads to you being eaten by a dragon or something. Lake View (1-0) at Johnsonville The Wild Gators provided one of the big surprises of the opening week, leaving marks on AA Hannah-Pamplico with a 46-6 victory. They didn’t complete a pass, which actually isn’t necessary when you have two guys run for near 140 yards (Adarrian Dawkins and Ja’Correus Ford). The defense actually outscored H-P, taking a couple of turnovers back for scores. It was the kind of result that might announce them as a contender, which is amazing considering how young they are. The Sausage people have not yet played a game. Suggested Reading The Aiken Standard does a great job covering the Class A teams in their area and you can see some preview information right here. When I see the quote “We all stunk…everyone stunk” I feel the need to share it with you… -Christ Church- 33
Dixie- 7 Crescent- 21 McCormick-20 Ware Shoals- 32 Oakbrook Prep- 12 Mid-Carolina- 27 Whitmire- What happens, when Gus and Charlie need a new line of work… Great Falls- 39 C.A. Johnson- 38 Lamar- 54 Hemingway- There’ll be panty draws a’flyin’ Andrew Jackson- 37 McBee- LADIES AND GENTLEMEN…WHITNEY HOUSTON!!!! East Clarendon- 28 Timmonsville- 6 Blackville-Hilda- 36 The Mr. T Haircuts- 14 Estill- 16 Allendale-Fairfax- 13 Edisto- 40 HKT- 26 Batesburg-Leesville- 21 Ridge Spring-Monetta- They have more hyphens in their name than they did points. Wagener-Salley- 46 Pelion- 2 Barnwell- 69 Williston-Elko- 14 The OC Semi-Pros- 58 Baptist Hill- 12 St. John’s- 14 Phillip Simmons- 13 Branchville- 23 Colleton Prep- 7 C.E. Murray- 29 Kingstree- Ladies and gentlemen, Imagine Dragons! Cross- 16 Burke- 14 Manning- 62 Scott’s Branch- 8 Green Sea Floyds- 51 West Columbus- 9 Lake View- 46 Hannah-Pamplico- 6 Breakdown- It was a good opening week for Class A, as the classification posted a 7-8 record against larger competition. The only one of those that qualified as a stunner to me was the vigorous rootin’ that Lake View laid to Hannah-Pamplico. I had a feeling the Wild Gators would have the look of a contender at some point this year, but they were breaking in 20 news starters, which usually looks like a giant bag of DERP early in the season. They were also going up against a AA squad that had one of its best seasons in recent memory last year and returned a lot of talent up front, though they did lose a lot of skill talent from last year. None of that mattered as Lake View lined up and ran it straight up H-P’s turkey box or gravy hole (whatever Gruden use to call it). Adarrian Dawkins only attempted two passes, didn’t complete one and it didn’t matter. He ran for 140 yards ON SEVEN BLAME CARRIES and Ja’Correus Ford went 137. Really had to labor for it though…toting it nine hole times. They also crap housed a couple of interceptions. For a team that young to perform that way right out of the box is pretty amazing and might serve notice that they may have some say in the how things go in the lowerstate this year. Particularly if they keep running the ball like they did Friday. They play the Sausage People this week with a good shot at going 2-0… It wasn’t a shocker, but it was good to see Great Falls get the Tom Butler era off to a good start. It took a while (three overtimes) but they hung on for a 39-38 win over C.A. Johnson. The once fearsome Red Devils have fallen on some hard times in recent years. From 2015-2017, the program won a single game and forfeited a couple of contests because of low numbers. That was directly proportional to the school’s enrollment drop. Things started to swing in the other direction last year as the team posted a respectable 4-5 record and did so with only a couple of seniors. This team has legit talent, particularly at the skill positions. Kelton Talford is basically a telephone pole with sticky hands and an impressive 40 time (he’s tall is what I’m trying to say), D.J. Adams is a heck of an athlete, as are Kell Brown and Elijah Simpson. What the team doesn’t have is a lot of depth, with a roster in the low 20s. That illustrates pretty well why I love 1A ball so much. With a roster that small, there are guys who literally never left the field through four quarters of regulation and three overtimes. They were completely gassed but found some way to gut it out and get the W for their new coach, their school and their town. And I’m not just going all black-and-white Andy Griffith episode on you there…talk to those kids. Playing for their school and town means a lot to them. They play at an always-tough Whitmire this week. If they get that one, I’m telling you, watch out. Six or seven wins won’t be out of the question… St. John’s hung on for a nail-biter over Phillip Simmons. Now, I don’t know how good the Iron Horses will be this year (though based solely on nickname I expect them to be like a crazy cross-breeding of Secretariat and Robot Ninja), but I suspect they are going to take a big step forward in their second year. So, I consider this a good win for St. John’s. The Islanders have some very young skill guys on offense (a freshman at quarterback, for example) but they are super salty on defense. Phillip Simmons lived in their territory early, but that defense kept turning them away and kept them in the game. St. John’s showed off a nice one-two punch at running back in Robert Fields (132 yards, 1 TD) and Sean Lowery(108 yards, 1 TD). They gutted one out big time. They get a REALLY tough test this week in Andrew Jackson…I mean, the ride alone is ridiculous. I don’t think you can actually get from St. John’s to rural Lancaster County without exiting the bus and fording across a creek on a donkey or something. They also play the Legion Transfer Portals, North Charleston, The OC Semi-Pros, Waccamaw and a big-time private school in Calvary Day. That is a big-boy schedule. They will be battle-tested in a major way by the time they get to region, but when you can run the ball and play defense you’ve always got a chance… The other “up” wins included the Stump-Whooped All-Stars from Wagener dragging Pelion, but that wasn’t really a surprise. I also wasn’t’ shocked in any way to see Brian Smith (the one that coaches at C.E. Murray, not the one at Ridge Spring-Monetta…I remain convinced they are two different people) get a win in his return to the War Eagles. They did it in really impressive and typical Brian Smith (again, the one at C.E. Murray) style, which is to say they ran the ball and their defense just punched the opposition in the face. They took a 28-0 win over Kingstree and a big-time contributor was Kobe Montgomery, whose defensive stats were of the silly, cartoonish, “holy crap, he did what now?” variety. He had 10 tackles, six tackles for a loss, forced a fumble and had two sacks. They get a stiff test this week in a Lee Central team that returns a lot of talent from last year. If you like old school football, where the forward pass is considered a gimmick and guys named Clem and J.R. smoke Lucky’s in the huddle, eschew pads because they find them girly and punch opponents in the face just because, that will be the game for you…I’d like to welcome Cross back to the land of the winning. After a rough 2018, the proud program got a 16-14 win over Burke. Now, they still struggled for offense and Burke isn’t traditionally very good, but it’s one more win than they had last year and more points than they scored in any game last year. They’ll have a hard time repeating that success the next two weeks against Whale Branch and Timberland, but a win is a win and it’s a step in the right direction…I couldn’t find a thing on Estill’s win over Allendale-Fairfax aside from the final score and that’s the kind of insight and insider knowledge you’ve come to expect from this BLAWG! As for the 1A on 1A matchups, I can’t say I was surprised by how Lamar handled Hemingway. The Tigers have a new coach (their third in three years) and are breaking in a lot of new starters. Plus, it wasn’t Larry’s Living Room Rangers on the opposing sidelines, it was Lamar. It’s gotten a lot of attention that Lamar’s offensive line returns all five starters, but people seem to forget how good they are up front on defense. They held Hemingway to 44 total yards. The offense did it’s thing, with four backs running for over 40 yards, led by Dajour Green, who had 94 and two touchdowns on…wait for it…THREE CARRIES. I’d also like to mention that a lot of people tried to convince me Chad Wilkes was gonna be all spready throwy right off the bat with the Silver Foxes. I get it…Lamar always has slick skill guys, Chad is a spread guy, so that’s what he’ll do and it’ll work. Well, that’s kinda like the time I decided to cook grits in beer. I like grits, I like beer…how could it not work? Well, it tasted like the tears of children and failure. That’s actually a terrible analogy…but I felt like with that O line back and a QB who is athletic and a winner but maybe not a great passer, he’d just hand the ball to fast people, run for big yardage and win. Well, they ran for over 300 yards and attempted three more passes Friday than I did. Expect more of the same. Lamar gets a traditional AA power this week in Pageland, who is coming off a close loss to Broome. Hemingway’s road doesn’t get much easier as they’ll play up against Andrews. Quick hits- Wasn’t at all shocked to see Blackville-Hilda win over the Mr. T Haircuts like they did. They’ve got the primary pieces of last year’s excellent backfield back and a tremendous O line. Plus, The Mr. T Haircuts lost QB/LB/S Braxton Wedgeworth III, esq. to graduation. He’d been under center for basically as long as I’ve done this BLAWG and other talent was lost too, so it felt like they’d end up on the losing end of things. I’ll note, though, that RB Jesus Benjamin was a dadgum horse against Blackville, running for 212 yards. He’s a terrific player, one who deserves a lot of attention, but I was a little surprised to see those kind of numbers by anybody against B-H defense. File under “might be a thing, might just be a first week thing.”…Green Sea Floyds laid a total CRANKSMACK down on East Columbus. It was 41-0 after one, so it’s not a stretch to say they could have hung 100 if they’d really felt like it. Bubba Elliot accounted for a couple of early scores, and Jaquan Dixon did crazy Jaquan Dixon stuff. They made East Columbus feel like the actual Columbus, which is to say an Italian sailor who died from a crippling case of the gout. They get a Hannah-Pamplico team this week that got mauled by Lake View, so Green Sea might be in position to be the merciful “no, no we’re not gonna score 100 even though we could” guys again this week…McCormick might be more ready to contend than I thought. They gave what was a good AAA team last year in Crescent all they wanted in a 21-20 loss. A’Chean Durant had a 90-yard kick return for a touchdown in that one. Defense obviously played well too. Because they play “up” and out-of-state games early we won’t get to see them against a like-sized, known quantity until October. So it may be hard to know exactly what they have until then…Don’t take bad losses by Williston-Elko, McBee, Ridge Spring-Monetta or Baptist Hill as a sign that any of those teams are bad. They were all playing up against REALLY, REALLY good competition. Give it a week or two. If they’re still getting slogged, then it may be time to scream, panic and poor mouth the coach on message boards (that’s what people used to do in that situation, anyway). Poll Time OK, I vote in the S.C. Prep Media Polls. I’ll go on record as saying I think this is a tad early for polls. Some teams haven’t played yet, one game isn’t a good body of work and you largely work off tradition and what teams did last year. Still, folks love ‘em a poll, so here it is. I’ll give you the final prep media poll, then my 1A ballot. As noted, I have a hard time early on. How do you compare a team who beat up on Ms. Mary’s Finishing School to one that lost to a really good AA or AAA team? It’s quite a balancing act, particularly at the bottom of the poll, but here it goes… S.C. Prep Media 1A poll 1. Lamar (6) 2. Green Sea-Floyds (7) 3. Wagener-Salley (1) 4. Lake View 5. Blackville-Hilda 6. C.E. Murray 7. Baptist Hill 8. Ridge Spring-Monetta 9. St. John’s 10. (tie) Hemingway, Dixie Others receiving votes- Great Falls, Williston-Elko, McCormick, McBee, Cross, Ware Shoals For those wondering, Lamar is number one despite having fewer first-place votes than Green Sea-Floyds because we use a points system. I actually tally the 1A poll…basically, a first-place vote is worth 10 points, second place is nine, down to one point for 10th. In the first two polls, Green Sea has had the most number ones, but has come in fourth on one ballot and, I think, sixth on another. Lamar is one or two on every ballot. So they tally more points and get first. Now my poll, which will change drastically when we have more results to go on… 1. Green Sea Floyds 2. Lamar 3. Lake View 4. Wagener-Salley 5. Blackville-Hilda 6. C.E. Murray 7. St. John’s 8. Ridge Spring-Monetta 9. Baptist Hill 10. Great Falls Suggested reading… Quaker grits mixed with Shiner Bock tastes like broken hearts and boogers. CRANKSMACK!!! WILD GATORS ANGRY!!!! You can read capsules of multiple games here and also here. Or you can keep lying to yourself Bob. She’s gone and she’s not coming back. They have a cannon and an analogue clock in Ware Shoals. And also a 1-0 record. So it’s math really. One is 10 and 10 one, which makes complete sense, right? NOTE: Coaches, I scour every source available for info and game stories. Unfortunately, some schools simply don’t get covered much and others have their team’s stories locked behind a pay wall. If you send me stats on your guys or want me to note that a particular O lineman had a good day, shoot me the info. I promise I’ll use what is sent. Email is [email protected] or you can DM on Twitter. I’m @CNR_Sports. Players, if you have a highlights online you’d like me to link to, you can send that my way too. GAME OF THE WEEK
Lamar at Hemingway There’s a lot of interesting angles to this matchup. First off, you have new head coaches at both schools. After leading his alma mater to four straight state title game appearances, Corey Fountain left Lamar to take the job at Clinton. Enter Chad Wilkes, who spent the previous two years at C.E. Murray. Hemingway is on its third coach in three years (odd for a program of this stature) and has a good one in Charlie Richards. Every coach I’ve talked to is positive Wilkes is going to turn Lamar into a slapnuts, fling the tater, wide-open spread offense right off the bat. He went to a C.E. Murray team that had made it to state the year before almost exclusively running the ball between the tackles, turned Darius Rush into a Shrine Bowl wide receiver and did the aforementioned slapnuts, pass-it-a-bunch offense thing en route to the lowerstate finals in his first year. I think this is a little bit different of a situation. He may start to work in some spread concepts and the program may be full-on spread in another year or two, but he inherits a team that returns all five of last year’s very good, bordering on frightening offensive linemen. He also has QB Cam Galloway back from injury. I’ve heard he’s a dynamic runner and a gutty leader, but that throwing the ball is not necessarily his strength. So, you let Galloway run around a little, hand it to a fast person, let that offensive front bury the opposing school’s children and win. They lost big-time running backs Malik Johnson and Jacquez Lucas, but Lamar always stud hoss RB candidates. Hemingway does not have as much talent back. They lost a special playmaker in Darius Taylor and a frightening manbeast in Darius Williams. Facing a stacked Silver Foxes team may not be a recipe for success when you are breaking in a bunch of young starters, but let’s see how the Tigers look out of the gate and how they progress as the season goes on. Lamar laid a grade one rootin’ on Hemingway last year (69-7) which left them walking funny for a few weeks before they finally got on a winning track. Greenwood Christian at Calhoun Falls Charter I want to continue to tip my cap to the Flashes. The school has about 100 kids, the football team roster numbers in the mid-teens, yet they somehow put a team on the field every year. They haven’t won a game since 2016 and they lost to Greenwood Christian 42-14 last year. Here are the relevant and true statements I can make about their opponent this week. 1. They are a Christian school. 2. They are located in Greenwood. 3. Their coach is named Jolly Doolittle, a name that makes him sound like a really happy pirate. Sure, he may loot the booty from your ship and feed you to the sharks, but he does it with a winning smile. Christ Church at Dixie Last year, the Hornets sort of used this game to serve notice they were ready to make a run. They not only beat the once mighty Cavaliers, they shut them out 19-0. They ultimately came up one game short of making it to state, losing a close one to Lamar in the upperstate title game. They had slowly built to that in the few years beforehand, dialing the schedule back a little and letting some young players take their lumps. It worked, but now that process sort of has to start itself over (minus the sweet, delicious cupcake-y schedule) as they lost 18 starters. That included Deiveon Donald, a two-way starter who drove the Hornets offense. When you have a 230-pound guy who runs a sub-4.6 40 playing 1A ball, it sometimes looks like a grown man playing with his kids in the backyard. But, like, a really aggressive grown man who maybe has some anger issues against sickly children who don’t really like playing outside. Anywho, they’ve got a lot of holes to plug and a tough opponent to do it against. McCormick at Crescent The offense of the Chiefs sputtered along last season in the first year after the graduation of do-everything four-year starting mega-stud Mataeo Durant. Well, enter freshman running back A’Chean Durant, Mataeo’s little brother. I’ve heard whispers that he might actually be better than his brother, a thing I’ll have to see to believe. People always say the little brother is better…even if he’s bow-legged and blind in one eye. “Yeah, but he’s tough. He’s a player, now.” The early returns are promising as he had 100-plus yards and two long touchdowns in a recent jamboree. So maybe the offense will be improved. Going against a AAA team coming off a playoff appearance, though, it may be a week or two before that improvement shows itself. Ware Shoals at Oakbrook Prep The Purple Hornets have been struggling for a long time now, odd given the history of the program. They haven’t beaten a team that actually won a game since 2016. The one 2018 victory came against the winless Calhoun Falls Charter Flashes. Of course, in an asinine prep world with pre-set playoff brackets and a classification that was made entirely too small in the last realignment, that was plenty enough to get them in the playoffs. I saw them last year and I’ll note that they played hard, they just didn’t have numbers or a whole lot of athletes. They have a new coach in Chris Johnston and he does have some talent on hand in the form of Jermarius Goodman, who impressed me last season. They lost badly to a not great Oakbrook team last year, but this shouldn’t be an impossible game. Whitmire at Mid-Carolina The Wolverines are coming off a successful year that saw them win a playoff game for the first time in a long time. Coach Charlie Jenkins has done an amazing job, considering the program was in the midst of the state’s longest losing streak when he took over several years back. Every time I see them, their kids play their tails off. They are tough and they run an offense you don’t see a whole lot in the scrum. As a reporter and photographer, let me tell you how bad it sucks trying to take a picture of 11 bodies, tightly packed and surging in one direction. It’s effective, though and they have a lot of guys who will tote the tater. Look for Nate Stanley and Jaquan Tindell-White to get a lot of carries this year. They also have a good knack for drawing your defense in and busting you over the top at the right time. Don’t know a ton about Mid-Carolina. They did beat Whitmire last year, but that stood as their only victory. C.A Johnson at Great Falls This will be a different-looking Red Devils team this year. New coach Tom Butler is bringing a spread offense to town and an aggressive, odd-front defense that will try to put opposing offenses behind the sticks. On that new offense, though, they have got some serious skill talent. Kelton Talford (who just committed to Winthrop for basketball) is one of the biggest mismatches in high school football right now. He goes 6’7 with long arms and can just about jump over the crossbar. Imagine being a 5’9 corner and drawing that assignment. My hammy would get real tight, real fast, I’m thinking. Seriously, it’s like trying to cover a giraffe…a really athletic giraffe with sticky hands. He’s gonna win a lot of jump balls. He’s not all they’ve got, though. D.J. Adams and Kell Brown are big-time athletes too. The defense looked good in the one scrimmage they had. The problem they face is numbers with a roster in the 20s. Help is on the way, though, since I understand they have a group of about 18 eighth graders playing middle school ball right now. I don’t know a ton about C.A. Johnson other than they have a heck of a running back and a name that makes me laugh…because despite all the physical evidence to the contrary, I am 5. Andrew Jackson at McBee It got a lot of attention last season when new Panthers coach Johnny Kline came in and implemented a spread offense. Even in the recent years when they were competing for state titles, the forward pass was still considered a bit of a trick play they weren’t too sure about in McBee. If memory serves, they had a deep playoff run three or four years back that included 12 passes…for the season. I actually caught part of their scrimmage against Lewisville and Heathwood Hall the other week. They were certainly in passing formations, going with three WRs and a TE, but I don’t think I actually saw them attempt a pass. They looked good running it, though, and let’s remember this is a team that struggled badly early on in 2018 against a brutal schedule, but finished strong and won a pair of playoff games. I think they’ll take a step forward this year. However, that brutal schedule remains intact. AJ lost a couple of multi-year skill position players from last year, but they carry a roster of 70 and have 20 seniors, so this will be a heavy lift for the Panthers even if they are as improved as I tend to think they will be. East Clarendon at Timmonsville The Whirlwinds are another team with a new coach. Ron Baker left after one season to take the job at Lake City. So a program that had one coach for basically the entire time I’ve been alive will now be on its third in three years. The new head man is Thomas McFadden, who played under Bill Tate on the 1992 state championship team. It’s an oddity in this state, but if I understand correctly, McFadden doesn’t teach or work for the school district. He’s a sheriff’s deputy, but coached essentially Timmonsville’s entire roster at the middle school level a few years ago. So, there is some built-in familiarity, which is good. The roster is young and lost a couple of major talents off last year’s team in QB Jamaric Morris and RB Fanando Jackson. The two, essentially, were the offense (and both contributed on defense too). The Whirlwinds got off to a great start last year, going 4-1 with the lone loss being a close one to AA Lee Central. Then, the Eaddy kid got hurt, missed the year and they lost four straight. I saw them at the end of last year. The ranks were pretty thin, but they beat Great Falls to make the playoffs then nearly upset Ridge Spring-Monetta in the first round. This should be a winnable game. East Clarendon won two games last year and lost to Timmonsville. Don’t know a ton about them, other than they have a QB named Cub, which is awesome, and a RB in Marques Webb who is supposed to be really good. Blackville-Hilda at Bethune-Bowman The Hawks looked to be reestablishing themselves last year under new coach Corey Crosby. They were super big and extra nasty in the trenches, allowing them to play the style of offense where they put on sturdy boots and kick you in the marbles until you decide you’d like to stop. The awesomely named Adonis Davis also gave them just enough of a deep passing threat to make you think about it and compliment running back Daylun Dickerson. Then they lost early in the playoffs to McBee, Crosby left after one year at the helm and Brandon Isaac was hired, marking, I believe the first time a S.C. Class A high school football program has hired a quality control coach from the Saskatchewan Roughriders as head man. The Mr. T Haircuts actually won a region crown last year, but lost longtime starting QB Braxton Wedgeworth III, esq. along with a slew of other starters They should have legit plow horse back Jesus Benjamin back to power the offense, but it’s hard to know just yet what they can put around him. Allendale-Fairfax at Estill Estill had one win last season and that came against North, who is mired in the state’s longest losing streak. From what I’ve read, A-F has looked better this preseason on both sides of the ball coming off a tough 2018…bout all I got for ya on this’n, Hoss. Edisto v Hunter-Kinard-Tyler HKT has a new head coach this season in Tony Felder, who was previously the coach at Manning. They normally put a fairly competitive team on the field and they did manage three wins last year, doing so with a run-based offense behind a big O-line (an oddity for a team that has lived on the spread for a while) . The problem is they are in what amount to a super-region with heavyweights like Williston, Wagener, Ridge Spring etc. and they are one of the smallest public schools in the state. Does it seem like I’m BS-ing with generalities here? Yeah, it probably does. Batesburg-Leesville at Ridge Spring-Monetta The annual battle for the old oaken hyphen barrel. RS-M had a bit of an underwhelming season in 2018. They weren’t bad by any stretch, going 6-5, but given the talent they had returning, particularly on defense, I expected them to contend for a title a year after making it to the upperstate finals. Instead, they beat one team with a winning record and struggled to consistently put points on the board. I read in the Aiken Standard that two of their LBs “left after their junior year” and the other starter graduated. So, there are holes to plug there. They will also be young in the trenches and have a new head coach in Brian Smith (a different guy than the Brian Smith at C.E. Murray…I’m almost sure the same guy doesn’t coach both teams). They do have RB Collier Sullivan back after he rushed for 1,300-plus yards and 17 touchdowns last year and DE Trey Dean, whose highlight reel looks like Tecmo Bowl Bruce Smith. The thing is, they have a VERY ambitious early schedule with B-L and Saluda right out of the gate. Will be interesting to see how they look against like-sized competition in a few weeks. Pelion at Wagener-Salley The boys from Chitlinville have established themselves as a winning program. They won the region last year and with Blackville, Williston and RS-M front-loaded on their schedule, they had it locked up really early. Beating Williston was about the last regular-season bar they had to clear as that was one accomplishment that had eluded them since they started turning things around. The next step for them is to make a bit deeper of a playoff run. They were 10-2 last year, but met their demise, as many do, against Lamar in the postseason. They aren’t real fancy on offense. They have a massive offensive line (most of which returns from last year) and a bevy of talented backs. They’ll just methodically drain the clock and your will to compete. They’ll score 28-35 points, which is generally more than you’ll have and they’ll go onto the next game. Apparently they may try to throw it a little, tiny bit more this year. They’ve thumped Pelion each of the past few years. Barnwell at Williston-Elko 2018 was an atypically down year for Williston, which has been a force in Class A for years. They will take the field this year without Keshawn Toney, who was like a frightening cross-breeding of a bull and hawk…big and strong, but able to fly and with really sharp talons, tailor-made for snaring passes. Or something like that. He was a D-1 stud that played TE and WR and on defense. Now, from what someone who watched them last year told me, it did look at times like they were maybe trying to force the ball to him a bit. Either way, you aren’t better without a guy like him. Their numbers are good, as usual, and they have a lot of returning talent. It should be a bounce back from last year’s 6-6 mark, but that bounce ain’t likely to happen this week, brother. Not with an absolutely freakin’ stacked War Horses team right out of the gate. I’ll be shocked if Barnwell isn’t playing DEEP into the AA postseason. Baptist Hill at The OC The Bobcats have put one of the most prolific offenses in Class A history on the field in the past two years. They did it two years ago with Corey Fields at QB, but got off to an atypically slow start in 2018. So Marion Brown took stud hoss WR Rashard Maxwell and put him under center. I wondered about the move at the time…figuring that taking a dude with 19 TD catches the year before and having him do something other than catch footballs was risky. Well, here’s a shocker, Marion Brown knows more about football than I do. Maxwell ran it as much as he threw it and they weren’t as vertical in their attack, but the move worked big-time. Now Maxwell is gone. Daryll McKinley is the new starter at QB, and I’m interested to see if he puts up Fields/Maxwell type numbers. They get a tough opener, battling The OC Semi-Pros, a loaded AA team who might be a tad under-rehearsed because of a lack of preseason action, but figures to contend this year. Military Magnet at Lake Marion The Eagles have a new coach this year in Derrell Pringle, who will look to get the program over .500 for the first time in 6 or 7 years. I don’t understand their struggles, really, since I watch them compete for state crowns in track every year. They obviously have athletes. Maybe that will start to translate to more football wins soon, though maybe not this week, opening at an OK AAA team as they are. Phillip Simmons at St. John’s I think the Islanders have a shot to be a dark horse out of the lowerstate this year. They don’t have a ton of seniors, but they’ve got a great group of sophomores and juniors. Coach Josh Harpe is developing a freshman quarterback, so there could be a bit of a learning curve, but they will be super nasty on defense, which should help them as they grow on offense. Don’t forget, this is the team that, late last season, clamped down on a Baptist Hill offense that had averaged almost 70 a game in its previous five. Phillip Simmons should present a better challenge than last year, when they were in their first year of existence. C.E. Murray at Kingstree Brian Smith (not the one that coaches at RS-M, I’m almost sure of it) is back to guide the program he built into a title contender after two years away. When he was taking the team from the absolute bottom to the state title game, he did so with a power running game. You name a means by which a football team can run the ball (bone, I, wing, straight T), they’ll do it. They’ve had a more wide-open spread attack the past two years under former coach Chad Wilkes, so they may throw it a little more than his teams typically do, but I expect Smith will work to establish a good ground game. The one compliment I always hear about Brian Smith coached teams is how well they tackle, a bit of a lost art at times. They play up the first four weeks (against Kingstree, Lee Central, Mullins and Lake Marion) but if they make it through that stretch OK, I can see them finishing very strong and making some noise in the playoffs. Burke at Cross I’m a fan of the Cross program because they are a tiny Class A school that somehow manages to put a good, physical team on the field every year. At least, they did up until last season. They only had a handful of upperclassmen and, I think, two seniors, and it showed as they were overwhelmed week after week in going 0-9. Honestly, they were just outmanned, never scoring more than 14 points in a game. The best thing about young teams is when they aren’t young anymore…which is the case with this year’s Trojans. Hopefully a year of taking their lumps will bear some fruit. Burke is a program that struggles on a yearly basis, but to their credit they did scratch out a 5-5 regular season record and did make the playoffs last year. This could be a good, competitive game. Scott’s Branch at Manning We continue with the trend of head coaching changes. In this instance, Leonard Johnson returns to the Scott’s Branch program he coached to two titles previously. They lost some big-time athletes in Amonte’ Brown and Sean Swaringer and will be going with a fairly simple, power-running attack. They’re also going to be running a 46 defense, so I’m obviously going to have to go to one of their games because holy crap I love a 46. They play a couple of tough ones in the first three weeks (Manning and Bamberg-Ehrhardt with East Clarendon in-between), but things are a bit more manageable after that. Green Sea Floyds at West Columbus For the first time in school history, Green Sea Floyds will take the field as the defending state champion. The season of the Trojans read like a Hollywood script, with a program that had never enjoyed success overcoming massive obstacles (in the form of two hurricanes, the residual flooding of which put some players out of their homes and had them out of school for nearly a month) and knocking off the state’s top program ((Lamar) to win it all. They were a little up-and-down (not surprising given what they had to deal with) early but something happened in late October. They narrowly beat Hemingway, then their offense absolutely exploded. They hung 63 on Creek Bridge (BTW, RIP Creek Bridge), 68 on McBee, 64 on C.E. Murray and better than 40 on Baptist Hill and Hemingway (in a rematch) before holding on for a 26-20 win over Lamar. They did lose a big group of seniors, but they return two big-time talents in QB Bubba Elliot (who is named like he should be driving the Jimmy Jack’s Taxidermy Chevy at a dirt track somewhere) and RB Jaquan Dixon. More than one coach has told me Dixon might be one of the best backs in the state, regardless of classification. I’ve heard nothing but good things about Elliot, a solid runner and passer who is tough and brings some serious winner’s energy to the table. I know very little about West Columbus other than it’s in North Carolina and probably not near East Columbus. Lake View at Hannah-Pamplico The Wild Gators suffered the heaviest graduation losses I’ve ever heard of, with 20 dadgum starters gone from last year, including all 11 on defense. They have exciting quarterback Adarrian Dawkins returning. He throws it pretty well and ran for over 1,000 yards last year, but from what I’ve read may be sharing time under center and moving around a little bit. So, I have no idea what to expect from Lake View. Breaking in that many new guys, I’m guessing there could be some early struggles, particularly this week, against a good, physical H-P team. “So, I guess you guys are from Mullins,” a lady asked my wife and I as we vacationed a few weeks back.
It was a logical assumption to make. After all, I was wearing a Mullins Auctioneers T-shirt. “No ma’am they just have a cool mascot. I’ve been there once and that was to buy this t-shirt,” I replied. In a sea of off-brand jungle and mountain cats (Panthers, Wildcats etc.), dudes who are ready to whip somebody’s butt (Trojans, Vikings, Braves, Warriors et al), dogs, devils of varying hue and things with stingers (Yellow Jackets and Hornets), the image of a fast-talking gentleman who sells merchandise (specifically tobacco in the case of Mullins) stands out. Even if a school has a mascot unto itself in our state (I think Chester is the only SCHSL school using “Cyclones” and Walhalla is the only “Razorbacks” that I know of) it is still usually fairly common nationally. There’s plenty of teams called “Cyclones” and “Razorbacks.” Now, if it was the Chester Deadly Wind Swirls or the Walhalla Fat Hairy Woods Pigs with Tusks, then this column would be about how Chester and Walhalla set the bar for amazing mascot names, but that isn’t the case. Auctioneers is the standard-bearer. I don’t know of any other team that uses that moniker…because you usually want to go with something fearsome and intimidating and a guy at a lectern semi-yodeling “twenty dollar bid, twenty dollar bid, do I have thirty?” doesn’t fit the “ooh I’m scared of that” template. It also comes as close as any mascot can to capturing the history and daily life of a community, given the area’s roots where cropping and selling tobacco is concerned. That would be like the Columbia High Legislators or the Myrtle Beach Ohioans. It’s perfect and it wins…but it isn’t alone. With high school football practice four days away as of this writing, now seems like as good a time as any to compile a big, dumb list. So here it is…the top South Carolina high school mascots. This started out as a top 10 list, but there are 12 that I consider worthy of mention here. The criteria includes originality…um, and stuff I think is awesome, basically. There may be some rockin’ SCISA nicknames for all I know, but I’m not well-versed in those, these are all SCHSL-participating schools. Where appropriate, I’ll also make some suggestions on how an already-good mascot name could be made even better…or how it could be ruined or turned into something only I find funny. Honorable mentions… Timmonsville Whirlwinds- It’s not unusual for teams to utilize a weather phenomenon (see Cyclones and Hurricanes) as a mascot. I like Whirlwinds because it can either be a “dangerous column of air moving around and around in a cyclonic or funnel shape” or “an energetic or tumultuous person.” Either is evocative and suitable for athletics. It’s somewhat uncommon for mascot purposes and it sounds sort of Southern and old-timey, like something my grandma would have said (the same one who would tell me that “the dooflatchy” was broken…which could have been anything from toaster oven to a sparkplug in her Chrysler). It has some Biblical background and Johnny Cash sang about one, so probably you should not quibble with me on this. Suggested upgrade- The “Bad Clouds” would be an epic mascot. It’s super southern, totally original and very scary. Awful idea- I toyed with the notion of someone using “Drought” as a mascot, but what would you have standing on the sidelines? Somebody dressed like a withered corn stalk or a really thirsty squirrel? “Dry ‘em up, dry ‘em up,” and “”1-2-3-4 it ain’t gonna rain no more” wouldn’t be very effective cheerleader chants either. St. James Sharks- This mascot wouldn’t make sense for every school in the state. The Union County Sharks wouldn’t work because their ain’t no great whites swimming in Tinker’s Creek, Hoss. You might find Great White in the tape deck of a rusted-out Malibu in Lukesville, but that’s beside the point. St. James is six or so miles from the Atlantic ocean, which does contain sharks (I have proof), it’s not an oft-used mascot, sharks are frightening sea beasts, they’re sleek, my cousin was supposed to be eaten by one in the worst movie ever made but his grisly death scene was edited out…it’s a perfect fit. Suggested upgrade- Being more specific (the Hammerheads) would be a bit more colorful. Awful Idea- St. James Jaws sounds awesome and is alliterative (meaning it has lots of the J) but is also begging for a copyright infringement lawsuit. Oh well. Eau Claire Shamrocks- I have no idea how Eau Claire became the Shamrocks. I don’t know that many low-growing, three-lobed, clover-like plants grow near the school. Were there a lot of Irish settlers in the area at one point? Can’t help you there, Jabo. I do know that plant-life is way underrepresented where mascots are concerned. That and the scarcity of other teams called “Shamrocks” make it stand out. Suggested upgrade- Kudzu? Shouldn’t someone in our state call themselves the kudzu? Awful idea- I love honeysuckle…we have it in abundance and the aroma of it wafting on the thick, summertime air is one of the best smells I know of…but would you want “suck” right in the middle of your name? 10. Ware Shoals Purple Hornets- I mentioned earlier that winged, stingy things are a bit overplayed and they are, but the descriptor “purple” makes all the difference here. I don’t know of another team going by this name anywhere. There’s a certain wacky factor at play, since I’ve seen and encountered every manner of dirt dobber, bee, wasp and hornet imaginable and have never seen one that was actually purple. In fact, if you Google “purple hornet” you won’t get anything on armed insects…you will in fact get thousands of results dealing with sea coral. Does anyone in Ware Shoals, Tumbling Shoals or Ware Place know their mascot is actually sea coral? I sure didn’t. Is there sea coral in the Saluda River? It doesn’t really matter. Anybody who shoots an actual friggin’ cannon at their football games and serves delicious BBQ nachos in their concession stand is OK in my book. Suggested upgrade- The ‘Skeeters. Someone name your team the ‘Skeeters and I’m a fan for life. (Updated note…Mesquite High in Texas is, in fact, the Skeeters and I’m now a fan for life). Awful idea- Dirt Dobbers or Sea Coral. 9. St. John’s Islanders- Other than the NHL franchise in New York, I don’t know of many teams using this’n. A friend pointed out that they and the Aucs are about the only human mascots in our state that aren’t hostile and ready for battle or plunder, which earns bonus points. Islanders is actually sort of plain and to the point…we live on an island, so we’ll just call ourselves that. I dig it, though. We don’t need fancified sea coral and whatnot, we’ll just be what we are and that’s that Broham. It would be like Landrum dropping “Cardinals” and going with “Hill Folk” or Columbia High becoming “The Sandhillians” which would actually involve creating a new word, now that I think about it. Also, The Islanders was the name of a former WWF tag team, earning additional bonus points. Suggested upgrade- The Angel Oaks would be an amazing name. When you have one of the oldest living things on the planet on your island, that deserves to be emblazoned on a helmet and possibly a water tower, I think. Awful idea- You know, Purple Hornets would actually be more appropriate here than in Ware Shoals since we now know the dirty coral secret… 8. Catawba Ridge Copperheads- One of the primary reasons I’ve reworked this list is because this school just opened and blessed us with slithery, scary goodness in the mascot department. There are obviously much more dangerous, more venomous snakes, but we don’t really have them here. It’s unique, it’s colloquial, it’s fearsome and it gives the band the opportunity to play “Copperhead Road” frequently. If nothing else, when the team converts a big third down, the band could just play that one part. The really loud one that’s like “BUH DUH DUH DUH DUH!!!!” You know that part? Yeah. Suggested upgrade- The Cobra Commanders would be totally sweet but who could see anything in that mask? Awful idea- Nobody wants to touch a toilet snake but that doesn’t mean you should name your team after one. 7. Traveler’s Rest Devil Dogs- If you need me to explain why this is epic and among the best there is, kindly stop reading now. 6. Charleston Charter School for Social Studies and Automotive Repair Riptide- I always forget the school’s actual name (I don’t think “automotive repair” is actually in there), but I never forget the “Riptide” mascot. Is it alluding to the powerful ocean current that can lay waste to swimmers and boats, or the 80s TV detective show starring Joe Penny and Thom Bray? Either way, it’s a dadgum winner, people. Very rare, very colorful, conveys power and there were pretty girls and helicopters in the opening sequence... Suggested upgrade- If we’re going with 80s TV shows, what would be more awesome than the Macgyvers? Nothing. The answer is nothing. Nobody in their right mind would screw with the MacGyvers. Awful idea- The Danny Tanners. 5. Bethune-Bowman Mohawks- There is a Native-American tribe with this name, but I can’t find where they are indigenous to South Carolina. So clearly, this nickname is an homage to Mr. T’s haircut. Regular readers of this BLAWG know I already call Bethune-Bowman “The Mr. T haircuts” and I pretty much dare you to say otherwise to Mr. T’s face. Suggested upgrade- Since we’re already delving into 80s TV and Mr. T, The Hannibals wouldn’t be bad. Awful idea- Hannibals, now that I actually really think about it. 4A. Fox Creek Predators- As long as the name isn’t a reference to that list the state has on that website or to owners of panel vans equipped with sliding boards and Icee machines, this is among the best mascots South Carolina athletics has to offer. As already discussed, most mascot names fall into a couple of generic groups…they are usually some type of animal, or varying types of war-like people. Fox Creek bucked that trend, and the obvious trapping of being lazy and going with the Foxes. Predator can be viewed in one of a few different ways. It’s either a mindset…one of strength that preys on the weak which is flat-out out gold when you are talking about the fields of athletic battle…or it’s one of the most badass movies in the history of ever. I regularly refer to this team as “The AHNOLDS” so you can probably figure out which of the two I think it is. In either case, this mascot veers from the ordinary and breaks the mold. Bravo, Fox Creek. Suggested upgrades- Commando was an awesome AHNOLD movie too, but if you go with “Commandos” are people think your team isn’t wearing underpants? They might. Awful idea- The “Kindergarten Cops” would not frighten opponents and was frankly a craptastic load of a movie. 4B Berkeley Stags- OK, I’m being a complete weenie here and making my top 10 a top 11 but it’s my list and I’m not good at math and that’s how it’s gonna be, Broham. When I originally did this list, I made the grievous error of omitting this outstanding entry and was frankly too lazy to go back and change it. A stag, of course, is a male deer (or, you know, a particular brand of short film). But “stag” makes it sound bigger and more brutish. Deer embody all the traits you’d actually want in a stud athlete…speed, strength, a stoic nature, really small poops (maybe not that one). And let’s be honest, there are few sights in the world scarier than a set of glowing eyes on the side of Highway 9 in the dark. Stags are crazy, fuzzy, torpedoes with antlers. Suggested upgrades- The night prowling Honda wreckers is great, but too long to fit on a jersey. Awful idea- The white tails or Bambis. 3. Lake Wild Gators- I think we can all agree that this fits into the Ware Shoals category where an adjective makes all the difference. Just going with “Gators” would be fairly meh and run-of-the-mill. It’s the inclusion of “Wild” that sets Lake View apart. Wild can mean uninhibited and unpredictable and if you put those attributes in a vicious animal that can swallow people whole, you’ve got some pretty frightening imagery. Wild can also apply to that girl you went to school with…you know the one…started smoking when she was 12…disappeared for a long stretch of that field trip to Washington DC… I don’t think they mean “that” kind of wild in this case. Suggested upgrade- None. Awful idea- Somebody could try to be offbeat and really different and be the Disgruntled Ferrets or the Psychotic Opossums but I don’t think the world is ready for that. 2. Barnwell War Horses- Just going by “The Horses” would a tremendous mascot change-up. It would be a rare name and one that invokes images of both power and grace, beauty and danger. But Barnwell was all like “nah y’all, watch this” then went and upped their game with War Horses. A War Horse, literally, is a horse ridden into battle (back when people rode horses into battle), but it can also mean “a soldier, politician or sports figure who has fought many contests.” So, it’s a grizzled warrior, tough, always up for the fight…and if you live to fight many contests, it’s because you’ve won all your previous ones. You’re a winner. You’re calling yourself a big, brave winner with hooves. Hubris? Maybe. Wonderous in every way? Yep. Suggested upgrade- I guess you could just come right out and call yourself “The Winners.” Awful idea- Show horses wouldn’t pack quite the same gritty punch. 1. Mullins Auctioneers- See above. It was bound to happen sooner or later. As I’ve endeavored to walk my dogs in all 46 South Carolina counties, the experiences have been overwhelmingly positive. We’ve encountered nice people and seen some corners of the Palmetto State that had previously been foreign to us. I’ve known from the get-go, however, that we’d eventually hit turbulence. If you do anything 46 times, you are likely going to have at least a few stinkers in the mix. Stinker is an excellent description of our trip to Georgetown. I didn’t take Tucker and Gracie on one definitive walk. Since we were staying on Pawleys Island for vacation last week, we would obviously be doing lots of walking there. That included throughout the resort we were staying in and on the beach. On one of our first days there, I got up early (Gracie actually woke me up early…EVERY DAY of our vacation) and took the dogs out for a stroll. Given my food intake on vacation, I need some long walks to offset the caloric orgy I engage in, but I also like to try to burn some excess energy out of the pups. The mornings were perfect for dog walking, with temperatures still relatively low and a nice breeze. That, combined with the abundance of shade-covered roads provided by all the trees eliminated the normal summer walking problem of withering heat. We walked past a golf course, soaking in the scenes of the lush, rolling fairways and water hazards. It’s funny, those are nice to look at when you aren’t actually playing golf. When I’m actually swinging a club myself, water basically serves as a swear word-inducing ball magnet. Anyway, we were walking down the winding path towards the front gate and nearing the halfway mark of what would be an hour-long walk before we finally approached another person. He was an older gentleman who I could tell was eying Tucker and Gracie. He was making a beeline toward us, so I was sure he was a dog-lover. Like so many others we’ve met, I was certain he would lavish my dogs with praise, inquire about their breed and tell me how beautiful they were. I was wrong. “You do realize you have to clean up after your dogs here?” he said, nose cocked slightly towards the sky, allowing him to look down on all he beheld. He didn’t say “hello” or “hey buddy” or offer any pleasantry at all. Just immediately jumped into being an unpleasant, abrasive butthead. That’s a really odd thing to toss at somebody you don’t know without some sort of icebreaker or greeting. If he’d actually seen one of my dogs poop in his yard and me just leave it there, I would certainly understand. During one of our walks on this journey, I’ve actually stepped in stuff an irresponsible pet owner left behind. If Tucker dropped one next to this guy’s mailbox and I said “whoa that’s a big’n. Wait until whoever lives here sees that…HIGH FIVE TUCKER” he’d have reason to confront me. That was not the case. I’m guessing the guy was a resident as opposed to a visitor like me and maybe doesn’t like vacationers cycling in-and-out of his neighborhood. That’s something he might should have considered before he moved into a vacation resort near the ocean THAT FEATURES RENTALS. I hate to mention this, but the fact I was a wearing Clemson hat and spoke with a twang probably tipped him off that I didn’t live there. To fit in with the residents you have to say stuff like “yous guys” and wear Buckeyes gear. Maybe I should’ve said “Oh yeah…31-0!. Bite me grampa.” The thing is, I’m a friendly, easygoing person. If you want to be unfriendly and uptight and act like someone elected you Crap Commissioner (Poop Poobah) of Georgetown County, I don’t care that much, really. It’s just a strange kick to get on. “Ah, a guy and his dogs. Time to lay down the poop laws for this out-of-towner.” Still, his brusk query needed a reply. “I always clean up after dogs, no matter where I am,” I said. He turned around and walked off. No “good” or “thanks” or “up yours buddy.” It didn’t ruin the walk, but it made me wonder how somebody who lives in a beautiful, relaxed area near the ocean can be such a grump. A grump who wants to project that grump attitude to strangers walking dogs. That’s a crappy way to go about your day. Things would get even crappier. Walking the dogs on the beach was a weird experience. Tucker loves the beach, loves digging in the sand and loves getting in the water to swim. Previously, Gracie was less of a fan. The first time we took her to the beach, the waves lapping towards her seemed to frighten her a bit. She would scurry away every time water moved in her direction. Last year she seemed to overcome that a bit, reluctantly walking into the surf. The thing is, we’ve had Tucker since he was seven or eight weeks old. We’ve been there for basically all of his life experiences and know what he likes and dislikes and usually why he likes or dislikes certain things. Gracie was almost a year old when we adopted her. When she first came to our house, she didn’t like to be touched, particularly on her head. She’d swing it at you like a weapon if you tried to pet her. if In fact, it took a solid six months for her to really trust us and accept the affection and attention we offered. So, maybe there’s a reason from the first 10 months of her life that water scares her. Maybe, as a gentleman in Clemson suggested a few weeks ago, it goes back to her lack of a tail, which apparently does impede swimming a bit. So when I walked them on the beach last week, I was surprised to see Gracie actively pull towards the ocean constantly as we walked. Tucker was a hair more relaxed, knowing he’d get there eventually. When I let them get in the water, Tucker splashed and frolicked and swam like always. Gracie seemed to like being in the water in general, but every time a wave approached (or the break approached, we weren’t out very far) she would either turn around and let it hit her backside or she’d try to run to shore. The one time I took them deep enough that swimming would be required, she freaked out a little bit. Anytime I took her out of the water, though, as she reacted negatively to waves or depth, she started pulling toward the water again, wanting to get back in. She was also much more agitated and barky than usual. She barked at people, she barked at dogs, she barked at seagulls (and, in fact tried to chase them as they flew by). She also pooped in very inconvenient places. For whatever reason, on the beach, her poop making place of choice was very near the water. As the water lapped up on the beach and began to recede, she’d assume her half-squat and do her business on the wet sand. That’s fine, except the next wave would then lap up on the shore, and scatter her poop in all directions. On the next-to-last day of our trip to the beach, I brought the dogs along. As we sat down, a lady sitting nearby commented on how pretty Tucker and Gracie were. She asked about Gracie’s lack of a tail, how I managed to walk both at the same time and such. She had a dog too, a small, older dog that she told us was blind. Gracie got riled and started barking and jumping in the dog’s direction so I decided it might be best to take them on a walk. Gracie didn’t know she was barking at a sweet, old, blind dog, but she was and I wanted that to cease, so away we went. As had been the case all week, she tried to walk toward the water. I held off on letting them jump in initially, but finally relented. That went fine for a minute, we were near a bunch of kids playing in the water who thought it was funny to see two big dogs splashing around. The level of humor that provided paled in comparison, though, to the laughs provoked by Gracie hunching up and dropping a big steamer. As per usual, it was on wet sand, but the water was approaching. It was almost like I was in a race against the clock trying to defuse a bomb…a big, giant poop bomb that would explode in seconds. I feverishly pulled the roll of bags out of my pocket, tore one off the roll but DADGUM IT it’s hard to open those things. As I got it open and got my hand inside, the water lapped up, hit the poop and started carrying it every direction. Now the kids went from laughing to horrified as I tried to hold onto two leashes with one hand and scoop up floating, moving dog turds with the other. At a certain point I noticed that some folks sitting just up the beach from me (may have been the kids’ parents) had whipped out their cell phones and were videoing my antics. So, if there is a viral YouTube video titled “hapless beachgoer chases doggie logs” or something, that’s probably me. Hopefully it’s only on YouTube and not some site where weirdos look at stinky. I got as much of the leavings up as I could and headed back, but I saw that Ashley and her mom were still talking to that lady and her husband. I was a tad flustered at that point and wanted to go back over and sit down, but didn’t want Gracie menacing that poor little dog. So I stood and waited and waited. When those folks finally left and I was able to get back to my chair I found out why the conversation went on so long. The lady was actually a dog sitter and her husband had been on the 37th floor of one of the World Trade Center buildings on 9-11. Hard to be mad at having to stand around with wet doo doo bags and crazy dogs over that. I only wish I’d been able to talk to the gentleman myself and hear his story. Ashley decided we’d all go out into the water, so Tucker, Gracie and the two of us did so. Gracie again alternately seemed eager and hesitant. After a minute or so, she decided she’d had enough and tried to go to shore. I offered up a “come on Gracie, it’s OK” but that fell on deaf ears. She bucked and tussled and somehow pulled her little peanut head right out of her collar. Now she was running free and crazy on the beach. As I tried to grab her I must’ve let go of Tucker’s leash…so now my two big, crazy dogs were running completely amok…and by “amok” I mean directly toward a family of four sitting right by water on a towel. I almost saw the scene in slow motion…Tucker was chasing Gracie directly towards them. They looked up, saw two animals barreling toward them and all shrieked in horror. Somehow I managed to grab them both just before they pummeled the folks. The family was very nice about it. They didn’t speak much English, but assured us they were fine and no harm done. At that point, I decided we’d had enough beach fun and we left. Those were fairly isolated incidents, though. The bulk of the trip and our walks were great. At the end of one particularly long walk, we were headed back to the condo we were staying in. Tucker decided he didn’t want to go the way I was headed, so he pulled me toward a little side road. I figured he was up for some more adventures, so I followed along, but that wasn’t what he wanted. The path he pulled me down was actually a shortcut to our condo…a shortcut we had not walked or driven in our entire time there. Our vehicle wasn’t visible at the point when he got insistent about going that way. “How in the world did you know we could get back this way?” I marveled. I know everybody thinks their dog is really smart, but mine has navigation skills. Columbus went the wrong way, didn’t end up where he wanted to go or thought he was and he gets his own day. Why shouldn’t Tucker get one? Then, on our last day, as we finished a walk, a fellow with a thick accent approached us and asked if he could pet my dogs. He’d had dogs all his life, he said, back home in Canada. He asked about their swimming skills and I told him Tucker’s were top-notch and Gracie’s were nonexistent. He’d always been a fan of golden retrievers and saw that in Tucker. “They are both great dogs,” he said. “But this one…he has a majestic form. He should be in dog shows,” he said. Majestic form was a totally new one on me. I thanked him and we went on our way. I’ll tell you, those two occurences alone were worth the all the other crap I had to endure. I saw a statue of a young, slim Elvis in a gold lame suit, hips swiveled in the direction of the mic stand he was holding onto, right down the street from a wedding chapel. So of course I was in…York? That does not mean anyone should mistake York for Las Vegas. I didn’t see any card tables, free drinks or, you know, other less wholesome stuff they have in Las Vegas. It does mean York is interesting and different than you might think. I headed out last Saturday with Tucker and Gracie to mark York off the county walk list. Even thought the city shares its name with the county, that likely isn’t the first place people think of when it comes to that neck of the woods. Rock Hill and Fort Mill likely top that list. I worked in Rock Hill briefly and have some relatives there. No offense intended here, some parts of Rock Hill are beautiful and there’s a lot to do, but some parts of it feel like the product of a giant people explosion no one saw coming. In places it’s stuff, next to things, on top of whatever, across from more stuff, things and whatever. And the stuff, things and whatever are constantly changing and expanding. I don’t know a ton about Fort Mill and didn’t particularly feel like driving that far, so I decided downtown York is where we’d head. Our path there went through Lockhart and up Highway 49. The thing you forget about, what with the county booming and growing and teeming with people and businesses (and soon the Carolina Panthers) is that a pretty big chunk of it isn’t developed at all. I drove for many miles without seeing much in the way of businesses other than a few farms and a place that purports to sell (or maybe train) German Shepherds. There were a few signs, so worn and faded by the elements they almost couldn’t be read, dotting the roadside here and there, one of which I believe was for an engine repair shop. I don’t know why, but I like those old, barely readable signs. Nobody should tear them down…they are as much a part of the natural scenery and at this point as the trees and fields and as much a reminder of what once was as historic markers chiseled in granite. Before we got to York, we passed through, Sharon, which I have to admit I’ve either never visited or haven’t paid attention to if I did. If a Hollywood director said “build me a set of a textbook, old, Southern town” it would probably look like Sharon. The main drag, if you want to call it that, had about six adjoining brick buildings, only one of which appeared to still be home to a functioning business. The paint had all but peeled off those buildings, probably robbing me of the chance to see an old Coca-Cola or Adluh Flour ad. I passed a cotton gim (pretty sure that’s not still a thing), a tiny post office and a multi-story brick building. I was intrigued enough by it to snap a pic through the windshield, mainly because I can’t figure out what it used to be. It had the look of a mill building, but wasn’t quite big enough. There were some pretty churches, one of which featured a cemetery tucked behind a white, picket fence. It was as quaint and lovely as a cemetery can be, really. There was a nice little park on the edge of town and a house flying state and Confederate flags. Right out of central casting. All of it. We finally got to York, parked and I released the hounds for our stroll. Ashley recently recommended that perhaps I should consider walking them before I walk them. That’s probably not a bad idea, because the minute they hit the pavement they went barreling down the street and I could barely hold on or keep up. It wasn’t super busy, but I still decided to cut down some side streets to burn a little energy out of them. As I did, we passed a dry cleaners. Gracie, never broke stride as she turned and trotted right into their open front door…like she had a blouse to pick up or something. There was really young kid in there who could not have been more thrilled, saying “y’all, look at that dog.” I gave her leash a tug, though, to summon her out because, you know, not every dry cleaner necessarily welcomes animals inside. After a few minutes we went back up to Congress Street. The first time we had to stop and wait for traffic, a waiting car rolled down its windows. “Oh my! You have great dogs!” the lady driving the car said. “Thank you. I also have wild crazy dogs with too much energy,” I said, as Tucker tried to take off running. Before checking out what the downtown area had to offer, we actually ventured a bit further down the road to a residential area. There were a lot of nice, big, older houses. I’ve detailed for you before that I am equipped to explain architecture and building design about as well as I am to perform an emergency appendectomy on a marmot or pilot a space shuttle. Old, two-story, some columns and wrought iron fences is about the best I can do. As we turned to walk back toward the business district, we passed a park, though I couldn’t actually tell if it was a park at first. It was so close to a nearby house, separated only by a very short wall covered in kudzu, I thought it might be someone’s yard. I finally saw a small sign denoting that it was a park. I tried to get a pic of the dogs in the gazebo, Tucker cooperated, Gracie did not as usual, and we got back to our walk. Then came the Elvis statue. When I was a kid, before I sought out my own music and just heard whatever my parents listened to, it was a steady diet of soul and oldies. Elvis fits both descriptions and even once I started making my own listening choices, The King stayed in the rotation. On top of that, he’s a monumental figure in the history of our country both musically (how many people actually create something new) and in terms of popular culture impact…and shot TV sets in lieu of changing the channels. How can you not love Elvis? The statue was an awesome (and kind of odd) thing to see, so I investigated. It makes a lot more sense when you figure out that the statue is in front of a music store. I REALLY wanted to get Tucker and Gracie’s pic in front of it because the “Hound Dog” jokes write themselves, but Gracie couldn’t be bothered and Tucker wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, unfortunately. He would not sit close enough for a good pic. Maybe he thought that statue was the Devil in Disguise. Maybe they both had Suspicious Minds about what was going on…I’ll stop now. We hadn’t encountered a lot of people up to that point, the few that we did mainly smiled and waved, but we were approached by a tall fellow who asked if he could pet my dogs. I made them sit and they sat and soaked up the additional attention. “Have you taken them to the dog store?” he asked. I hadn’t seen a dog store, but he pointed it out to me. It was just a few doors up. That shop “Dogma and Fetch” looked very inviting. They had a chalkboard sign on an easel outside noting that they had organic dog treats and there were lots of colorful signs in the window. They apparently sell dog accessories and do washing and grooming. On the chance that there might be an animal inside, I decided to pass. Nothing sets my dogs off like other animals they think are on “their” turf and man do they get loud. I will go inside the next time I come through. There was an equine store, so my horse-loving wife now wants to visit. There were a lot of other cool shops, a place selling vegetables on a folding table and, sadly, some classic businesses no longer in operation (a trading post and old-school drug store/soda fountain). “The Sylvia” is still open, though, a theater with a stunning art deco look (I had to look that up) built in the early 1900s that operated as a movie theater until 1968. It now plays host to musical and theatrical performances and still shows movies on occasion. I had a chance to go see Allison Moorer there many years ago, didn’t, and am still a little salty about that. Oh, there’s also a wedding chapel, which seemed just a hair out of place. I can’t recall every hearing anyone say “we ran off to York and got hitched.” I did a little research, though, and found it isn’t THAT kind of wedding chapel. It’s a gorgeous old building, made of English red bricks delivered from Charleston by wagon and built in 1824. It just happens to be a space that people rent for weddings There is a courtyard adjacent the building (maybe the nuptial-izing takes place there?) that has grass so lush and green, it almost looks like someone painted it. The 105-year-old courthouse looks about like you’d expect an old southern courthouse to look (which is timeless and amazing) and from its front yard you get a stunning view of First Presbyterian Church. This is where my failings in the architecture description department become a problem. The place looks like a castle and with its steeple and peaks embraced by a brilliant blue sky, it was quite a sight. York features a nice little bakery/coffee shop with outdoor seating and I almost had a seat. The only thing that stopped me was the fear that one of the dogs might hear the call of nature. They generally only go on the grass, but if they really have to go they’ll go wherever and I don’t want them dropping a hot pile to put somebody off their apple fritter and latte. By this time, the dogs were tiring out and the cool, cloudy conditions of the morning had given way to the July blast furnace we are accustomed to in South Carolina. So, we headed back to the car. Right as we go there we encountered an older couple. The lady had a brace on her leg and was using a cane, so I had the dogs sit on the off chance they might get excited and jump in her direction. “You’ve got some mighty big puppies,” the man said. “Yes sir, I do,.” The lady went by slowly but stopped for a second to add “pretty too.” I loaded the dogs up and headed home. I’m glad I picked York for our walk. It’s bigger than I remembered, but not so big it doesn’t retain a smaller-town vibe. It’s been too long and won’t be long until I come back. There’s nice houses, nice people, nice stores… And Elvis. "How about that fighting Clemson Tiger Football Team?" That's technically a question but my dad never presented it to me as such and never expected an answer. It was rhetorical, there was a short pause between "tiger" and "football" and it was delivered with something between an unemotional monotone and resigned exasperation right after any Clemson football loss. After they lost their opener to Virginia Tech in 1986, after they didn't show up against Georgia Tech in 1989, after they suffered letdowns and head-scratchers in the '90s and 2000s that made “Clemsoning” a dumb pejorative for a time… "How about that fighting Clemson Tiger Football Team?" Now, the Tigers have nearly always won more than they've lost and when I was young, losses were actually few and far between. When they came, though, they made for terribly grim Saturdays and sometimes Sundays if it was a particularly bad loss or came at the hands of a hated rival like South Carolina or Georgia Tech. Dad went to Clemson, loved Clemson and losses by the boys in orange hurt. They hurt and lingered and wrecked him (and by extension, me) for days. When I was a kid, on fall Saturday mornings we frequently got up early, packed up some ham biscuits and fried chicken and made the drive to Tiger Town. With "The Tiger Tailgate Show" blaring from the radios of nearly every parked car, we'd toss a football around in the parking lot until it was time to head inside with 80,000 or so other orange-clad fans. The cannon would fire, the band would strike up "Tiger Rag" and the Tigers would rub the rock and run down the hill. It was often so loud you couldn't hear yourself yell. All that overwhelms the senses of a 10-year-old kid and makes quite an impression. So does seeing your dad hanging on every play, erupting with excitement at every touchdown, cussing referees for every bad call and just kind of sighing painfully and sitting on his hands when things weren't going so well. Whether I realized it or not at the time, it was also a full-family bonding experience. The experience was different, though just as enjoyable as I got older. Like the time a friend and I tried to nonchalantly walk through the entrance gate carrying a duffle bag full of beer and ice. Needless to say, the duffle bag had to stay outside, but with Clemson fans being a genteel, southern lot, our bag of beer was still waiting on us when we left the game…a game where I screamed and cussed and left 50 shades of pissed off after the Tigers lost one to Georgia Tech they shouldn’t have on a Thursday night. That beer came in mighty handy. You also have to understand that when I was growing up, there weren't multiple all-sports channels that allowed you to watch every game in the country every weekend. If you wanted to see your team play, you often HAD to do so in-person because it wasn't going to be televised. So it was like a pilgrimage you made six or seven times a year. For faraway road games that weren't going to be aired, you had to sit and listen to the game on the radio. When that was the case, whatever we were doing, we stopped at game time, cut on the radio and often listened as we sat in the kitchen or played ping-pong once we got a table. Longtime voice of the Tigers Jim Phillips was the soundtrack for many a Saturday afternoon for me. There were times, again when I got a bit older, where I didn’t necessarily want to talk to my dad about the things you’d normally talk to a parent about, like school or your job or personal life because those might have been veering into dumpster fire territory at the time. I could always use Clemson football as a conversation topic, however. Football is just a game, but to us it was an important one. It was one that bonded us. I give you that backstory to explain why, when it came time to walk in Pickens County, there was no doubt we’d be doing so in Clemson. We arrived early on a Saturday morning, not unlike my family would’ve done on game day long ago and parked in downtown. As I got the dogs out and started the walk, I was reminded of something I already knew. Clemson, in the truest sense, is a college town. This has nothing to do with rivalry, but Columbia is not one. If you could pick up the University of South Carolina and move it to another city, Columbia would still exist. It would still be centrally located, it would still be accessible from almost everywhere in the state via interstate, it would still be a hub for lots of businesses and residential development and the state government would still be there. If you moved Clemson University out of Clemson it would basically be, to borrow a quote from my dad, Whitmire with a less exciting nightlife. Most everything that’s there, is so because the school is there. It’s somewhat isolated up in the corner of the state and you don’t go through there headed to much of anywhere. As such, with it being early July (dead in the middle of summer break for students), there weren’t many people about at all. We walked around what qualifies as the business district for a bit, but with not much happening, I didn’t see any reason not to go ahead and make our way toward the football stadium. When we got there, I went around to the side to look down the famous hill. We were standing about where the football team exits the bus to rub the rock and run down the hill to enter the field. I could see Howard’s Rock on a small pedestal under protective glass, I could see the field and stands and the oculus in the distance. We weren’t alone, though. There was a family there, two young parents and a kid who was probably seven or eight. I didn’t actually see the kid’s face at first, but he was pressed against the bars, peering into the stadium. It’s hard to describe the wide eyes and giant smile present on that kid’s face when he turned around. Maybe he’d only viewed the exploits of Dabo, Deshaun Watson and Hunter Renfrow on TV and actually getting to see it in person was the equivalent of me having gotten to drive the General Lee when I was his age. Maybe his dad, who was almost glowing as he watched his son’s excitement, went to Clemson and this was the first time he’d gotten to bring him to see Death Valley in person. A father and son bonding over Clemson football is pretty cool. It’s something that lasts a lifetime, I’ve learned. “That is a future Clemson Tiger right there,” the dad said to me, motioning to his son. The family had taken note of Tucker and Gracie by this time and were fairly enthralled. “Are those both Goldendoodles?” the mother asked. I explained I had one Labradoodle and one Goldendoodle. They told me they actually had a Goldendoodle at home. I then got a reply that is fairly common when I encounter other doodle owners. “But ours isn’t nearly that big,” the dad said. The son seemed a little shy (or scared) at first, but by the time we parted company, he was just sort of marveling at how fluffy Tucker was. Another family, this one with a daughter of toddler age pulled up, got out of their car and came over to take some pictures. It’s funny, it’s almost like Death Valley is a tourist destination now because of all the recent success the team has had. It’s the kind of place you stop and take pictures of because it’s sort of famous and kind of a big deal. It’s hard to think of a place that’s been a regular part of your life since you were a child in those terms, but there it was on display in front of me. They too found Tucker and Gracie irresistible. “DOG!” the little girl said as she petted them both (after her parents were reassured they didn’t bite). As we started to walk back, Gracie had to poop. That was no big deal, except she’d already gone once as we walked toward the stadium. Then came a third one, which is never good news. Gracie has some digestive problems and while putting her on special, stomach sensitive food has helped, issues still arise occasionally. If she goes for a third time, it’s probably going to be unpleasant. I’ll spare you specific details, but it was, um, messy back there. When this happens, we actually have to use little doggie wipes, so I called Ashley (who was in the car) and asked if we had brought those. We had not, so I instructed her to find a drug store and buy some baby wipes. So, what had been a lovely walk down memory lane in a place I love was not going to end in especially inspiring fashion. I was sitting in the downtown area of Clemson, with my dogs, one of whom had poop all over her hind end and back legs. It was getting close to lunchtime, so there were more people starting to mill around. One guy, an older gentleman, came up to ask what kind of dogs I had. “Looks like that one had a little accident,” he said. “Kind of a blowout. Yeah,” I said. He managed to overlook that, though. He was obviously impressed with them. “Pretty dogs,” he said. “Are those good water dogs? I’m thinking about getting a new dog myself.” I told him that, yes, Tucker craves time in the water more than a fish flopping on a shoreline. Gracie, not so much. “I wonder if that’s because she doesn’t have a tail,” he wondered. “That tail is a big part of their ability to swim.” I’d honestly never thought about that. I always thought Gracie was skittish around water because of some bad experience she had before we got her (she was a rescue dog shifted around to multiple homes before we got her). Maybe standing on a street corner waiting for a baby wipe delivery had been a worthwhile experience after all. Ashley finally came back, having found a CVS or something, I cleaned Gracie up and put both dogs back in the car. As we headed out of Clemson, we passed a sign denoting the 2016 and 2018 national football championships the Tigers had won. I was glad I got to be there that day with my wife and dogs. The family spending Saturdays in Clemson is a tradition, of course. My dad, unfortunately, didn’t live to see those two championships, events that would have thrilled him to no end. If he had, he wouldn’t have to ask "How about that fighting Clemson Tiger Football Team?” I actually could answer that question now, though. “Pretty good, dad. Pretty, pretty good.” “Little-known fact,” I said, channeling Cliff Clavin for a second. “Western Union was actually founded right here in West Union.”
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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