Damn the smack talk is starting early this year. Here are my predictions for 2015.
1. Asheville- I have picked them for 10 straight years to win the conference and nobody has finished above us in that time period so Im not going to change anything. Last year Asheville had the best defense in the MAC and return at least 8 guys including the best defensive player in the mountains Christian Green. They also return a 3 year starter and the fastest guy on Asheville's team outside linebacker Jose Daniels who is up around 200 pounds now and can periodically shut down one side of the field. He will also have Reggie Battle playing the other side from time to time.0 With Hutchins, Drummond, McDaniels back in the secondary and "little" Keota, Ratliff-Johnson, Pearson and new guy returning on the line, we should be pretty good on that side of the ball. Offensively they will return a 230 pound fullback (smith) and a 205 runningback who has over 2,500 rushing yards in 2 seasons in which he split time at RB. Shivers, the 210 pound tight end is back and his brother/cousin? returns to add a little depth at runningback. Christian Green will also get carries at runningback and fullback and I imagine he will be close to 200 pounds by next year too. Obviously Peter Leota at 285 pounds and the mountains most highly recruited player returns too. McDaniels, Drummond and Hutchins should do a good job replacing paulk and Ray on offense. Like ahsdynasy said, they probably wont be as explosive last year with the loss of Jave Jones, Ray and Alex Paulk but they should be good enough to put 30 a game. Playing Franklin and Pisgah will be cool.
2. Reynolds/Erwin- Rico Dowdle is who everybody talks about. Hes a great player, very explosive and needs to come to Asheville high, but that's neither here nor there. AJ Logan is very good too, but what does ACR have other than that? I have no clue. They may find themselves in a position where they were last year with CJ Allen where they have a running quarterback who is an ex receiver who doesn't have any experience at the position and therefore the passing game suffers greatly. I heard they lose alot on their defense.
As for Erwin, they return their QB who will probably break the all time WNC passing record if he has any decent receivers the next 2 seasons. Austin coming back is very good and although I never saw Poore do anything against us, he seems to be pretty good too. I think Isaiah Poore needs to go ahead and just move about 5 miles east and come play for us. Although the Erwin quarterback is very efficient in the passing game, Erwin HAS to have a running game. Last year they had about 5 running plays the entire game against us. Defensively they have some good players, will it be enough?
4. Roberson- I guess they are 4th by default.
I think at this point Asheville could make the BEST case for why they should be number 1 preseason and in WNC but it wouldn't surprise me if we struggled, especially early with a new QB. Also we are very thin, as are most high school teams around here.
I will say that after last year I don't really give a crap about Conference championships anymore. We have won the last 10 conference championships and in the last 7 years we haven't really done anything in the playoffs. If we win another conference championship, great, but I just want to see what we do in the playoffs.
