High School Football

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I think 2004 Rye Cove would have also beaten Burton

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Your joking, right?

In 2004 Burton and Rye Cove scrimmaged and it wasn't even close. In my post I wasn't knocking Burton, and I wasn't saying they weren't a good team. All I was saying is that before a a team or its fans can say "we could beat so and so" you have to look at the big picture. I mean really, how hard has Burton's road been to any of their State Finals appearances? (Castlewood, Rural Retreat, Hurley, Rye Cove and Appy)Appy is the best of the bunch but they have been mediocre for their standards in the past 3-4 years. Casltewood and Cove have had decent programs by Cumberland District standards, Hurley is flat pitiful even in their good years, and Rural Retreat isn't a world beater either. Furthermore, their regular season non-district schedule is more of the same (Football powerhouses St. Paul and Twin Valley in the past couple of years). With a schedule like this, even if a team is Division 1, if an argument is to be made that they can compete with some elite Division 2 schools, the schedule has to change. To me the most impressive wins that Burton has had over the past 2 years are over mediocre PV and GC teams. And really, beating those 2 teams in the past couple of years is nothing to really crow about. Granted they are good teams but on a scale of 1-10 PV was a 7 in 05 and a 6 in 06. (GC was just plain awful in 06). So, to sum it up if ya wanna run with the big dawgs schedule a few teams capable of getting you ready for em.

Logic dictates that with more numbers, you have a greater chance of success. Think of it in these terms, number of scholarships in college football. If the numbers didn't help the odds, why would anybody care if USC could provide for 10000 kids while Arizona could only provide for 100.

Now by no way does numbers guarantee anything, it just helps the pot. A lot of that comes from your feeder system. If you have a large number of kids who learn the game when they are young, learn how to actually play and enjoy the game, then that pays off later.

Rural Retreat has had some pretty good teams during that time period as well.

In H.S. football numbers is important as far as being able to wear an opponent down. Nothing more. You can have 800 to choose from in your school or 150, but the fact is that you can only use 11 on the field. Out of that 800, if you can get 55 players to come out and find 22 capable of starting you do have an advantage. By the same token if you only have 150 kids but you can get 30 players out to play but still manage to find 22 ball players capable of starting the larger school has no advantage. The problem in small schools is that normally you can only get 25-35 out to play. Out of those you may find 6 really good players. So you struggle to find another 5 that can perform well enough to be able to start. Then that team has 11 players going both ways. When that team faces a larger school with enough quality players so everyone on the team doesn't have to go both ways the smaller school is at a disadvantage. By the same token if a small school has 50 players out to play football, there is really no reason that more than 1/3 of the starters should have to play both ways. Thus, that school in my opinion is not at a disadvantage when facing a larger school.

On "normal" years the schedule that Burton normally plays is just fine. Over the past 3-4 seasons with the athletes that we have had there has been an exception and everyone thinks we need to quit playing cupcakes when the fact of the matter is on "normal" years for Burton they are not cupcakes they are normally half way decent games. You will see that in a couple of years Burton will back to what everyone has said "normal" which is a 6-4 or 7-3 team, which in the LPD is not a bad year by any means.

If Burton were to schedule some of the power houses in the area ( which in my opinion are normally PV, Gate City, and on some years Haysi, and Clintwood, and the 90's Appalachia teams, who we normally play year in and year out, with the exception of Haysi ) that is 4-5 [censored] good games each year. If we were to drop say Castlewood, Rye Cove, etc, and pick up a Giles or whoever you think we should play to beef up our schedule that would be fine with the teams of 04, 05, and 06 but when Burton gets back to the normal 6-4 or 7-3 teams where we don't have near as many athletes on the team that would be ridiculous, we would have no business playing schools like that.

I never said Burton had business playing those schools. All I am saying is that their non-district games don't prepare them for the state finals or semifinals for that matter. If I were making a trip up the road to play for the State Championship I would want a regular season experience against a team like Honaker, Haysi, Giles, Graham, Lebanon or Richlands. For a Division 1 school it doesn't hurt. If ya lose the power points will be there the same as if ya had beaten St.Paul 54-0. If ya win ya get a boost in points as well as confidence. The team might not go up the road with a 13-0 record, but the 1 on the record might just end up being a regular season loss and not a Championship loss.

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DB is 5A and the majority of their guys play football and baseball or football and basketball.

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Really? It's usually different at larger schools. With more kids, athletes are usually able (and choose) to specialize in only 1 or 2 sports. At small schools, the handful of athletes usually play every single sport.

Actually, wasn't that scrimmage a 1 TD game. I think it would have been an excellent matchup had RC been D1 instead of D2.

I see your point and do agree with you there. I wish we would play Haysi again or even Lebanon, Honaker, etc. When I played a long time ago, we did play Haysi every year and played Va High twice, and Lee High when they were pretty dang good.

If I am not mistaken Jimbo tried to schedule a couple of tougher teams for next year with Castlewood dropping us but I don't think he could get it done on the weeks we had open. I am not exactly for sure what our final schedule is for next year but I think we picked up Honaker and Thomas Walker, but I don't know this for certain, I may be totally wrong, maybe someone can clarify this.