1A Contenders
- Thread starter Gentle Knight
- Start date
Hard to say in 1a west when some of the elite threats are bubble teams most years. Doesn't appear to be much outside of Robbinsville and maybe Elkin that are guaranteed 1a in the west. If Mitchell and Murphy are in the 1a bracket, there will be some good games in the playoffs.
I think Murphy and Mitchell will be small. Just going by previous years. Murphy only went up once this decade and Mitchell has been small 3 straight yrs. If either go AA it would be Mitchell. Another factor is how many charters are starting football this year? None I can think of.
If there was such a thing as influence, Tarboro would have been trying to stay in 2A regardless the numbers. Tarboro fans still show up, but there's very little interesting in pounding a 1A conference year after year. At least when we were 2A, SWE was a threat. We had some good games with Kinston, Goldsboro, Beddingfield and Greene Central along the way. It's actually kind of embarrassing that there is all this (hush, hush) discussion about East Surry vs Tarboro in the 1AA championship. The championships Tarboro won in as a 2A meant so much because there were usually at least 2 playoff games prior to the championship that were gut checkers. If any program that would politic themselves down so they can dominate lesser competition is doing their entire school a disservice. That doesn't stop the snarky, cynical troll posters from tossing such garbage around on the forums, but some people are just hell bent on embarrassing themselves.
Idk why but this made me chuckle quite a bit. Just imagining checking on the price of rooster eggs in China for discussion cracks me up.
I agree with everything other than the 2A championships meant more. I’ve left Carter-Finley the past two years with the same feeling of pride and satisfaction as I did in 09,10, and 11.
I can respect that. It just feels like every year there are 3-4 teams in 1A/1AA that would probably be competitive in a 2A or 2AA championship game. The rest of the playoff field is so far behind those few its sad. At least in 2A, there are so many meaningful playoff games and there are always surprises. The playoff script in 1AA the last 5-6 years was written before the first game was even played. 1A is a bit less predictable, but even then once you see the seedings, its not hard to figure who will be in the title game. There are just way too many 1A football programs that have no tradition, no facilities, no community involvement, no student interest, no funding. Those people would rather watch a movie, go fishing, head to the beach, anything but go to a high school football game where the team on the field representing their school can't compete. It's not an indictment on those programs. They need to be grouped together where they can compete on a level playing field with each other. The upper 1/4 of 1A should be in 2A playing against schools more similar to their size.
I will add also about a 1/4 of the low 2A should be in the 1A. Not teams like Tarboro and Edenton that have recently made 2A title appearances and continue to pound teams in 2A from the 1A chair. Any team can request to be in a higher classification. That's one thing I'm critical on Tarboro about. They should make that request like Cardinal Gibbons did from 3A to 4A.
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Nobody is moving up. Fans say that stuff but you dont hear coaches saying that. I dont think the state would allow it anyway.
The Cardinal Gibbons thing is a bit different. CG's ADMs are on the rise. As of the last run of ADMs they are only 45 students short of being 4A legitimately. They are competitive in all sports at the 4A level, not just football. They are a better geographic fit at 4A than at 3A. Their facilities are top notch. I also can't stress this one enough. They have a lot more stroke financially and politically. Tarboro's only argument is the football team is a better fit at 2A and that's not enough to go on.
I agree with everything you said about CG. If I'm not mistaken they still compete in 3A in some prep sports. I know it's not unheard of for a football team to switch classification for 1 sport. Especially in Tarboro's case where 2A conferences are abundant geographically unlike the 4A.
I don't know about y'all, but I wish Mitchell, Murphy, and Robbinsville would all go 1AA. You talk about some real playoff matchups. Polk and Avery will also be hiding in the background to put people on upset alert. I'm just one of those people who wants to have a bunch of good matchups to go watch.
That would be tough for us. Those around 500 and above could do ok but 350 kids in 1aa would be hard.
Murphy fans would be mad. I remember in 2009 they was mad as hell about not getting to play small A.
Blamed Robbinsville. I never figured that one out.
Murphy fans would be mad. I remember in 2009 they was mad as hell about not getting to play small A.
Blamed Robbinsville. I never figured that one out.
It's not going to happen, i'm just a selfish football fan who wants to watch great games. It's not often that the SMC and the WHC each have 3 1a/1aa teams with high playoff hopes.