The main problem with Tennessee HS football

#51
#51
There are football hotbeds, of course. Maryville/Alcoa, Hartsville, South Pittsburg to name three off the top of my head. But other places are completely apathetic towards football. One Hamilton County (Chattanooga) school I'm familiar with has 20-year-old junk for a weight room, has three different styles (similar; close enough to wear in the same game) of home jerseys they still use because they can only afford to replace those they lose and the press box has busted (permanent) seats. They don't even have pep rallies for road games. Others have been wearing the same jerseys for a decade and change helmets only when the NOCSAE regulations require it.

An aside -- is it a statewide thing now that cheerleaders are not allowed to wear their uniforms (even with sweat pants) to school any more?
 
#52
#52
Look I am from Memphis Tn I went to Craigmont High School we had a pretty good football team under Harry Burnham and good track team Eddie Pierson I ran a 10.6 hundred I had team mates that ran 10.2's and 10.3's and 10.4's the Vols coaching staff wasn't there and I repped the Vols hard and the only time that the Vols were in memphis was for Melrose and we were a bigger school the more the Coaching staff realizes that that they need memphis the better off the Football program will be
 
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#53
#53
you can't turn a donkey into a race horse. there is definatley a different gene pool in tennessee than in many other southern states.

i totally disagree about the lack of coaching around the state. there are several really good programs across the state. the quality of football as a whole is pretty good. there are just not many stand out athletes.
 
#54
#54
there are good atheletes (1-2) in every town, with its own high school of 250-600, every 15 miles apart so talented players don't get to practice or play against or with other talented players, makes it hard to gauge how good a kid is.
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#55
#55
I think this thread is relevant if we're talking about middle school on up. Youth football isn't even in the equation below that. Plays? The linemen are Michelin tire men and the fastest backs win. It's beehive football. A big scrum of little guys and suddenly a kid pops out with the ball and wins the race to the end zone. Girls are better youth football players in a lot of cases.

System? Put your kid in soccer or basketball and build up his stamina and footwork or baseball and develop hand/eye coordination. Youth football is a waste until puberty.

After that you have an argument and I think the African American population in the state has more to do with it than just population. Facilities or lack thereof have something to do with it also. How many football players does New York City produce? I mean, they have the largest population period and a large A-A population as well.

It's a culture. Alabama, Texas and Georgia have it. Tennessee doesn't to the same extent. All you have to do to be a football coach at the high school level in Tennessee is be a teacher. I don't think that's necessarily the case in states with more of a football culture.
 
#58
#58
nickknx865 said:
The youth programs in Tennessee usually operate the MS programs.
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I don't know about the Knox area, but I have never seen a youth program run a middle school program in mid tn.
Don't get me started on youth football. I think it is a zero factor in this debate and I think pee wee football should be done away with.
 
#59
#59
Look at that nice big state directly north of Kentucky in red on the tulsaworld.com map. Then realize that we have none of these advantages that states further south do.

Ohio has made it nearly impossible to become a teacher
Ohio has made it nearly impossible for non-teachers to be coaches
Ohio has suffered through 40 years of school closings and consolidations
Ohio, particularly in the east, north, and northeast, is dying
Ohio's biggest city (Columbus) produces the least college talent of any of the large cities
Ohio doesn't have spring practice

And so on.

So how do we do it? How do we, with thousands fleeing the state weekly in search of work, continue to churn out college-level football talent every single year?
 
#60
#60
nickknx865 said:
That wing-T is deadly if used correctly.

Here on the south side of town, you'd see guys that ran different offenses at different levels of play. For example, when I played 10 yo pee-wee, we ran a very diluted singleback offense set. The middle school ran an I formation. The high school team ran a West Virginia-like spread.
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The wing-T is a joke, which is why the only teams that have any problems with it fall into one of two categories:
1) Undertalented and undercoached, or
2) So undisciplined that every play is an adventure (basically, coached by John Chavis)

If there is one system, offense or defense, that I absolutely despise and would be glad to see exterminated, it's the wing-T.
 
#61
#61
The main problem with Tennessee highschool football is..........drum rollll!!!!!!!! Population density. We simply don't have the numbers here. One exception is the memphis area, but it's well documented that a bunch of other schools are actually closer to them than UT at Knoxville.
 
#63
#63
This just in ---- Obama Blames Bush For Tennessee's Lack of Football Athletes...

:post-4-1090547912:
 
#64
#64
Once again, we see the worst in Tennessee come before the public when we discuss high school football in this forum. Covert racism is abundant here, so for those of you particpating in it and continuing it day in and day out, divert your energies to the klan rather than college football ... seriously ... please. The Tennessee high school and feeder systems for football are not good. They are marginal at best. States with similar or less populations do better than TN does in producing SEC caliber talent. Some have noted here how in other states, the programs developing youngsters is much better. That is the key, basically in TN you have listless lazy hs coaches at listless lazy hs programs and in turn it should be no surprise to anyone who can fire more than one synapse at a time (that excludes you covert racists) it produces listless lazy hs players. My recommendation is dump the TSSAA. High school programs should move their athletic programs out from under the academic programs, localize their coaching staffs without their being on the academic staffs, and foster high level competition. Right now many hs coaches and coaching in Tennessee in the public sector is simply an employment program where to many are drawing paychecks for little success. Producing quality programs and quality athletes is very far down on their daily list of priorities.
 
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#65
#65
TheTennesseeTom said:
Until you get rid of daddy ball in youth football here in the Arlington area of Memphis...Our high school football will suck. Having played through college I have offered to help coach and offer pointers...Deaf ears are all I get because 5 of the 7 coaches do so so their sons get to play. Teaching of technique, reads, and basic instruction takes a back seat.
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Are they doing anything unique in Olive Branch, MS. Their HS turned out tons of linemen this year!
 
#66
#66
Ohio Vol said:
The wing-T is a joke, which is why the only teams that have any problems with it fall into one of two categories:
1) Undertalented and undercoached, or
2) So undisciplined that every play is an adventure (basically, coached by John Chavis)

If there is one system, offense or defense, that I absolutely despise and would be glad to see exterminated, it's the wing-T.
Click to expand...

Couldn't have said it any better myself. I am so tired of hearing "we've run this offense for 30 years" or "that's the way our daddys did it". The wingT is run by coaches that don't know any better and are too stupid to learn.
 
#67
#67
Cartervol said:
The main problem with Tennessee highschool football is..........drum rollll!!!!!!!! Population density. We simply don't have the numbers here. One exception is the memphis area, but it's well documented that a bunch of other schools are actually closer to them than UT at Knoxville.
Click to expand...

I don't know. I saw in the paper that Rutherford Co Tennessee, a pretty heavily populated area, had five players receive football scholarships, only one to a major player, Kentucky. There are some small towns in Georgia that matched that, not talking about some of the urban and suburban schools around Atlanta.
 
#68
#68
billbattle said:
I don't know. I saw in the paper that Rutherford Co Tennessee, a pretty heavily populated area, had five players receive football scholarships, only one to a major player, Kentucky. There are some small towns in Georgia that matched that, not talking about some of the urban and suburban schools around Atlanta.
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Your right. As competative as recruiting is these D1 schools find the diamonds. Look at Colt McCoy he came from a small (heard around 500 kids) school, he credits his coaching growing up. Until TN HS's start hiring coaches, not just teachers willing to coach this problem will not go away.
 
#69
#69
I totally disagree on the wing t part. All i ever played under before college. Won way more ballgames than we EVER lost. The coaches are not here anymore but the programs they moved on to have been very successful. All using the wing T!!!
 
#70
#70
billbattle said:
I don't know. I saw in the paper that Rutherford Co Tennessee, a pretty heavily populated area, had five players receive football scholarships, only one to a major player, Kentucky. There are some small towns in Georgia that matched that, not talking about some of the urban and suburban schools around Atlanta.
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The teams were trying to compete and beat, Florida, Alabama, even Louisana have much more dense populations. It's a numbers game and ours don't add up.
 
#71
#71
Cartervol said:
The teams were trying to compete and beat, Florida, Alabama, even Louisana have much more dense populations. It's a numbers game and ours don't add up.
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Outside of New Orleans and Baton Rouge where in LA is this dense population?
 
#72
#72
Merlin said:
I don't know about the Knox area, but I have never seen a youth program run a middle school program in mid tn.
Don't get me started on youth football. I think it is a zero factor in this debate and I think pee wee football should be done away with.
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I know that South-Doyle, Knox Fulton, Farragut, Bearden, and most in Knoxville and Knox County have the youth programs operate the middle school programs. The middle school has standards for joining those teams(2.0 GPA), but they themselves don't run it.
 
#73
#73
hog88 said:
Couldn't have said it any better myself. I am so tired of hearing "we've run this offense for 30 years" or "that's the way our daddys did it". The wingT is run by coaches that don't know any better and are too stupid to learn.
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You're talking to someone that got mad at Nebraska for canning Solich and "modernizing". I hate the wing-T so much.

As for the issue of "that's what I grew up with", we've exposed the real underlying problem with youth football programs.
 
#74
#74
I watched a few episodes for comic relief. The team chaplain tripped me out.
Sorry, this is in reply to the 2 a days episode. I'm still trying to figure how this site works.
 
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#75
#75
nickknx865 said:
Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina produce some amazing talent each year, and if I remember right, none of those states are as big as Tennessee, population-wise.
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Nope. And people are different every where. Genetics, ethnic background, you name it. Whatever it is, there is a combination of genetics that produce a lot of athletes. Coaching and especially training can make a big difference in performance, but there are a select few that have the genetics to compete at the d1 level.
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