Why isn't Tennessee HS FB better?

#1

Ancient Reptile

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#1
I drop in on you guys ocvcasionally and I hear, both from you and others, that Tennessee HS FB isn't very good. But I never hear why that should be. Tennessee is a relatively populous state and income is good compared to SE region, so why shouldn't the HS football be good? UT is certainly a major university with a solid academic reputation, so UT should dominate recruiting in Tennessee the way LSU does in Louisiana, shouldn't it?

I am just puzzled.
 
#2
#2
Because TN is mostly rich white kids who play golf and tennis instead of poor black kids who play football. Duh.
 
#3
#3
I do think that having a high population of white kids has a lot to do with it as does the type of offenses ran. A lot of high schools in Tennessee seem to be running offenses that have been around since players were wearing leather helmets.

Also, it seems that a lot of the Memphis schools are very poorly coached which is where most of Tennessee's D-1 talent comes from.
 
#4
#4
I do think that having a high population of white kids has a lot to do with it as does the type of offenses ran. A lot of high schools in Tennessee seem to be running offenses that have been around since players were wearing leather helmets.

Also, it seems that a lot of the Memphis schools are very poorly coached which is where most of Tennessee's D-1 talent comes from.



"A high population of white kids" has nothing to do with coaches wanting a run first offense.
 
#6
#6
I do think that having a high population of white kids has a lot to do with it as does the type of offenses ran. A lot of high schools in Tennessee seem to be running offenses that have been around since players were wearing leather helmets.

Also, it seems that a lot of the Memphis schools are very poorly coached which is where most of Tennessee's D-1 talent comes from.

Example please.
 
#8
#8
Why are the fightin' whities from Maryville always able to beat the talent rich memphis schools in the State Championship games? Exception being White Station two seasons ago (but with their talent they should have won by a land slide).
 
#9
#9
I do think that having a high population of white kids has a lot to do with it as does the type of offenses ran. A lot of high schools in Tennessee seem to be running offenses that have been around since players were wearing leather helmets.

Also, it seems that a lot of the Memphis schools are very poorly coached which is where most of Tennessee's D-1 talent comes from.

The population is pretty integrated. The reason lies behind the lack of emphasis on the sport (as far as a high school sport) and poor training facilities. Tennessee high schools just now started to revamp training facilities as well as how they train. In the next decade or so we should see a spike in the quality of recruits.

:twocents:
 
#10
#10
Well I can tell you I grew up in rural Tennessee and played football. There if you were one of the 40 or so that wanted to play you played

There was a Varsity and a JV. but all members of JV were on varsity as well.

Now I live in Houston and my son plays football. He attended a Jr. High last year that had 2 full teams an "A" team and a full "B" team. over 100 kids just 8th graders the 7th grade also had over 100 playing that is over 200 playing football at 1 Jr high This year he goes to High School along with 2 other Jr highs feeding in. That is 300 8th graders feeding in to hopefully be 1 of the 80 or so kids that makes the freshman team. His High School has 2 freshmen teams 2 sophomore teams a JV and last but not Least a Varsity. So by the time you are a Senior here the herd has been shrunk from 300 to the best 40 or so. In Tennessee if you can wear a jersey you are on a HS team.

Then Multiply that out that there are probably 6 High Schools with in 4 Miles of my home here. A lot of talent in a very small area. In Tennessee how large a radius would you need to encompass 1800 8th grade football players?
 
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#11
#11
Because TN is one of the fattest, laziest states and kids see their parents being lazy and they are lazy and they don't like to sweat and compete because they see their fat ass parents not doing either one, either?
A little exaggerated, but I see a lot of big kids walking around and they aren't doingsquat. If you were big or fast when I was in HS, you played football. If you were either and you didn't, you were basically ostracized. PC wasn't around in '87.
 
#12
#12
I can't speak for the other regions. Here in Knoxville, I began coaching youth football a couple of years ago. 11 year old kids who didn't know how to make a pocket for proper hand-offs. Honestly, I was a little shocked.

That was the least of it, really. Many kids start specializing much earlier. Baseball and basketball have become almost year around for middle school age kids. Many of those kids take football season "off". Soccer is really popular, especially the bigger highschool programs. Parents are also a little more educated on concussions and youth football.

Most importantly, most middle schools can't fund middle school teams. This would provide feeder systems for the highschools. One of the few successful example in my area is Webb. They begin teaching their system to 6th and 7th graders through their middle school program. They are a small private school but the middle school assures that they will have freshmen who already know the terminology and some can contribute immediately.
 
#13
#13
A simple phrase "That's the way my Daddy did it"......

Coach why do you still run that stupid single wing and a 5-3 base D all of the time??

"That's the way my Daddy did it and he won state in '65.....
 
#14
#14
Because TN is mostly rich white kids who play golf and tennis instead of poor black kids who play football. Duh.

Well, I wouldn't necessarily say 'rich' white kids..

History lesson - when I went to school in E. TN my HS had 1600 students, of which only 10 were black. This was 20 years ago, so surely things have changed. Not to play the race card, but there are a higher % of black football players at D1 level than white football players.

Also back then, all the talented football players got a waiver to attend Maryville or Alcoa, no matter which school in Blount Co. they were zoned for...

This meant we had two good football schools in the county and the others sucked. So all the talent was relegated to only those two schools and the administration of the other schools knew to focus their athletic departments on other sports than football...
 
#15
#15
Why are the fightin' whities from Maryville always able to beat the talent rich memphis schools in the State Championship games? Exception being White Station two seasons ago (but with their talent they should have won by a land slide).

uhhhh....GQ?
 
#16
#16
Well, I wouldn't necessarily say 'rich' white kids..

History lesson - when I went to school in E. TN my HS had 1600 students, of which only 10 were black. This was 20 years ago, so surely things have changed. Not to play the race card, but there are a higher % of black football players at D1 level than white football players.

Also back then, all the talented football players got a waiver to attend Maryville or Alcoa, no matter which school in Blount Co. they were zoned for...

This meant we had two good football schools in the county and the others sucked. So all the talent was relegated to only those two schools and the administration of the other schools knew to focus their athletic departments on other sports than football...

Maryville wasn't worth a crap in football until the late 90's and they didn't become good by giving kids waivers to play. Your story is fantasy.
 
#17
#17
uhhhh....GQ?

Right. He is a good coach that can get a bunch of under sized less athletic white kids to win 90% or more of their games. Since it is regularly known that the Memphis area is so rich with talent, wouldn't that mean that a well coached team would be able to at least hang with Maryville? Since that doesn't happen on a very consistent basis, it is my conclusion that coaching in the Memphis area is not so good.
 
#18
#18
I'm sure the reason is a combintion of a lot of these answers. This same question was raised a few years ago as well. Someone commented that the Tenn. HS coaches were only part time and had to teach a subject as well. Don't know enough about it to know how detrimental this is, but Im sure also that we have some intelligent posters that can shed some light on this for us.
 
#19
#19
I drop in on you guys ocvcasionally and I hear, both from you and others, that Tennessee HS FB isn't very good. But I never hear why that should be. Tennessee is a relatively populous state and income is good compared to SE region, so why shouldn't the HS football be good? UT is certainly a major university with a solid academic reputation, so UT should dominate recruiting in Tennessee the way LSU does in Louisiana, shouldn't it?

I am just puzzled.

If UT were centrally located in the Nashville area, UT would own the state. As it is, UT is the 7th closest SEC school to the most talent-rich part of Tennessee. Arkansas, Ole Miss, Miss St., Vandy, Alabama, and Auburn are all geographically closer to Memphis than Knoxville. The idea of "staying home" doesn't count for the city of Memphis.
 
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#20
#20
I'm sure the reason is a combintion of a lot of these answers. This same question was raised a few years ago as well. Someone commented that the Tenn. HS coaches were only part time and had to teach a subject as well. Don't know enough about it to know how detrimental this is, but Im sure also that we have some intelligent posters that can shed some light on this for us.

Coach Quarles is the Athletic Director for Maryville now because the school had to give him a raise to keep him there, and had to give him that title to justify the raise. Before that, he was a driver's ed teacher. Not exactly a stressful teaching gig that requires a bunch of homework grading. Coach Gaylor and Pinkerton were remedial math teachers. Coach Ellis was an ecology teacher. Coach White was a middle school english teacher I believe. And Coach Thompson was the conditioning coach. So, it's not like these guys were teaching AP physics or something. I don't know the rest of the school's situations, but that was Maryville while I was playing.
 
#21
#21
Because TN is mostly rich white kids who play golf and tennis instead of poor black kids who play football. Duh.

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#22
#22
I drop in on you guys ocvcasionally and I hear, both from you and others, that Tennessee HS FB isn't very good. But I never hear why that should be. Tennessee is a relatively populous state and income is good compared to SE region, so why shouldn't the HS football be good? UT is certainly a major university with a solid academic reputation, so UT should dominate recruiting in Tennessee the way LSU does in Louisiana, shouldn't it?

I am just puzzled.

Less African Americans than Florida, Texas, and California? Those are the best athletes
 
#23
#23
Well, I wouldn't necessarily say 'rich' white kids..

History lesson - when I went to school in E. TN my HS had 1600 students, of which only 10 were black. This was 20 years ago, so surely things have changed. Not to play the race card, but there are a higher % of black football players at D1 level than white football players.

Also back then, all the talented football players got a waiver to attend Maryville or Alcoa, no matter which school in Blount Co. they were zoned for...

This meant we had two good football schools in the county and the others sucked. So all the talent was relegated to only those two schools and the administration of the other schools knew to focus their athletic departments on other sports than football...

Heritage or William Blount?
 
#24
#24
IMO, while it is a combination of all the things listed here, the main reason is population density and feeder programs.

I still live here in East TN - and while a few small schools can compete with the bigger ones by having the right coaching and mix of talent, usually that isn't the case. Your big schools do have more students, ergo, more potential players to pick from, leading to an enhanced likelyhood of having multiple great players on one team. If those bigger schools have decent coaches, they'll be your best teams by default. A High School with 1,500 students is BIG (on average) in TN. When College Scouts come to a game, it's common for them to discover some star that no one has ever seen play. When the teams are small, that is much less likely, so less offers come to small-school TN kids because few Scouts show up to see them.

Also, where in Texas kids start with good coaching at 5 yrs old, most (rural) kids don't touch a football in organized play until 11 or 12 yrs old. It makes a big difference.
 
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