Roanoke area schools have very good football right now.

[freeatlast2013]

Checkmate

 

[rainman17]

I am not disagreeing and I would have thought the same but let us look back.
Heritage lost to Amherst by one point and to Rustburg by 1 point . and beat Hidden Valley by 6 points while Hidden Valley had lossed to PH by 17 , to Pulaski by 18 , to Salem by 53 and beat Liberty by 40 .

Brookville had a close loss to Heritage and a close win over Amherst but was blown out by 30 to Blacksburg .

Blacksburg lost to Hidden Valley by 1 , beat Pulaski by 4, lost to Patrick Henry by 11, beat Heritage by 7 and lost to Salem by 36.

Glass and Liberty were not very good but Glass is improving . They beat Fleming by 3. Fleming beat nobody.

JF played in a lot of 1 or 2 score games because of their offense but maybe they were playing against mediocre teams in Seminole.

I am going to touch on a sensitive issue because everybody likes Amherst and they are first class. Did Amherst beat Salem or did Salem not play against Amherst. Salem shredded Amherst in the first game but our defense was like swiss cheese in that game. They made a couple of throws that by grandson could have caught . There was nobody in site of receiver . Salem had major breakdowns.
The purpose of these comparisons is not to bad mouth Seminole or to say we are better than them but maybe the River Ridge was not as bad as people think and Salem was elite team as they proved against a great team in Dinwiddie . Everybody in Seminole kept on throwing Appomattox out there , an elite single A program , who probably would have won Seminole. Appomattox would not have come close against Dinwiddie or any elite team in Division 4 , in my opinion. That being said , Appomattox reminds me of Gretna in their heyday, a great program.

Remember this is a one year comparison . Amherst , in my opinion had elite Division 4 talent but they never got any better and teams usually improve during the year. They did have a big injury to their QB but never rebounded . Just because there were close games in the Seminole does not justify saying they were extremely good when Hidden Valley, Blacksburg and Pulaski and Patrick Henry were just as competitive against those same teams . I do not think they beat each other up but merely were teams with gaping holes. Remember one other score comparison . Byrd shut down Staunton River , a team that very likely would have won the Seminole, was shut down again by Blacksburg. There are numerous examples to back up my points but things change year to year and Salem may not be elite next year . We will see.But in 2016 the mid teams in the River Ridge were just as good or better than any team in Seminole and that is proved , not by one game but by the whole season.

Hopefully, did not hurt any feelings out there because that was not my intention but merely to touch on some of the talk on here that Salem played a weak schedule and plays one every year . I think maybe things change every year and sometimes that is correct and sometimes not.

Gretna in it's hey-day with Vic Hall won AA state championships to throw that caveat in there and would have competed if not beat ANY team in the state that year.

 

[Shabutie]

Gretna in it's hey-day with Vic Hall won AA state championships to throw that caveat in there and would have competed if not beat ANY team in the state that year.

No they wouldn't have. That was an awful defensive team.

 

[southbottomU]

Gretna in it's hey-day with Vic Hall won AA state championships to throw that caveat in there and would have competed if not beat ANY team in the state that year.

Ive been told that all opinions should be respected, but that statement is just straight out nuts. They would have been crushed by the AAA teams

 

[SpartanOfYore]

Gretna had fine squads those two years. The Hawks were state champs in Division 3, the lower of the two AA divisions. VHSL-Reference.com, though it's not the be-all-end-all, does provide some objective comparison between teams. It has Gretna's state rank those years as 29th and 33rd. Given those rankings, and the fact that there were plenty of very good teams at the top of each of the three divisions of larger schools, I'd say it's likely that Gretna would have struggled against a significant number of hypothetical Division 4, 5, or 6 opponents in '03 and '04. They proved on the field that they were the best in their division, and that should be all that matters.

 

[shauntclair]

But you were predisposed to make those picks. You knew a little about the football where you lived, and you thought it was good, but you knew nothing about Salem. The team has enjoyed giving you an education.

I have every respect for Salem. I have gone on and on on their balance, preparation and Coaching. Most impressive of all is how they perform in the big games. No one is ever perfect but when the curtain goes up, Salem is. Of course, the players have to execute but this is the Coach.

They've been underdogs the last two years in the Championship game and rightfully so. They didn't play that way. So far over their heads, the noses were bleeding. And to do it two years in a row is amazing. But they did it. They won. Congrats to them.

 

[southbottomU]

You know last year you said Salem would win one game out of ten against Lake Taylor, but it just happened to occur in the game that mattered. Could never happen again. This year the same thing happens. One chance out of ten two years in a row. You best never go to Vegas. Since the statistical possibilities of that happening are very low, there must be something else at work. Maybe just maybe the guy doing the evaluating and determining the odds is wrong. Might be long overdue that you admit that you don't know as much as you think you do-----its gotten to the point now where Salem fans feel much more confident when you pick against the Spartans---so keep it up

 

[close2salem]

C'mon Mike. I talk regular season and you guys want to add post season to make yourselves feel better. I have given Salem every righteous kudo for what they have done in the post season.

My contention that you don't know who Salem actually is till the post season and that their path is far easier to get there and gives them a measurable advantage when they get there stands.

Actually, it can be a disadvantage for starters to have less game time experience than other players who get significantly more minutes during the regular season.

 

[redzone4us]

Actually, it can be a disadvantage for starters to have less game time experience than other players who get significantly more minutes during the regular season.

Yes that could be a disadvantage come play-off time. Amazing how people choose to ignore that. Salem's opponent's would generally have move experience going into the play-offs, thus should have the upper hand.