TS-RC

[I-Catching]

Valorian wrote:

"Haysi has tried to schedule Grundy before but with the way our games are set up Haysi or Grundy can never fit the game in. The Cove said that we have 300 or so people and its easier to get 11 players out of 300 people than 200. While this is true did you not stop to think about Gate City and how many more kids they have?"

So your argument is that if a Division 2 school has higher enrollment figures, they will be successful due to that reason? Here is a listing of Division 2 school within the state that either have a higher enrollment than Gate City (600 students in grades 9-12) or within less than 100 students than Gate City that will either finish near or at .500 or lower on the season against Division 1 & 2 schools with lower enrollments than their own. This information was provided by the vhsl.org website. Their enrollments are listed below with their regular season records up to this point:

Grayson County (4-5) 662
Wilson Memorial (2-7) 655
Randolph-Henry (4-5) 650
Arcadia (1-8) 646
Chatham (5-4) 640
Clarke County (5-4) 634
Washington & Lee (5-4) 633
Nelson County (5-4) 626
Mason, George (5-4) 607
Madison County (3-6) 593
Battle, John (2-7) 552
Kelly, J. J. (0-10) 511
Windsor (3-6) 503

I dare say I never have heard Honaker fans (not saying you are one, Valorian...Haysi, right?) complain about JSB's enrollment being higher than their own. I bet any Region C or D Division 1 playoff team this year would jump at the chance of facing the likes of the Trojans in the playoffs.
Given that Appalachia, within our own region with an enrollment of 174 in grades 9-12 usually more than hold their own against schools larger than themselves on an annual basis. In fact, didn't Honaker drop them from the schedule after suffering losses to them in the recent few years?
How about East Ridge, KY? I haven't heard complaints from Haysi about their enrollment. 680 students in grades 10-12, considered a Divsion 3 school by the VHSL for power point rating purposes sporting a 2-8 record this year & more than likely will finish the same or worse next year as we all well know. Where is the whining about East Ridge's enrollment from Haysi fans/players/et al? Anybody?
It's the program more than anything. Anyone who has been around high school football long enough knows this to be fact. Just because a school has larger numbers than others doesn't guarantee success. All one has to do is look at the information provided above.

Your argument doesn't hold water, buddy. Back to the drawing board for you.

[basketballjesus]

East Ridge was made up of three schools Elkhorn City, Millard, and Feds Creeks. Millard and Feds Creek didn't have football at the time of the consolidation so East Rigde will be a few years before they can be expected to produce any kind of a football team. So in a couple years if Haysi and East Ridge are still playing I'm sure you will hear complaints.

[hhstigerfan]

I never really knew the reasoning behind dropping Appy when we did, but now it kinda makes sense, since they haven't won many games the past couple of seasons.

[I-Catching]

With all due respect HTF, I don't think that Appy being dropped from the schedule was due to a crystal ball method of scheduling by looking into the future. Appy defeated Honaker in 2001 34-6 and in 2002 24-22 (when Honaker finished at 10-2). If you had seen Appy play this year, you would see that their future looks very bright. That being said, over the past 4 years Appy (24-23) has more wins than the following schools currently on Honaker's 2003/2004 schedules:

John Battle (4-36)
Castlewood (16-25)
St. Paul (22-22)
Tazewell (13-27)
Twin Springs (14-28)
Twin Valley (13-27)*
Hurley (11-29)*

*I realize these two teams are district opponents, but still wanted to show that Appy shouldn't be considered a weak opponent or an opponent that wouldn't be competitive in the future.
If Honaker would have played Appalachia this year and defeated them (which more than likely would have been the case), they would have picked up more power points for the win over the Dawgs (17 points) than they would have for wins over John Battle (16), St. Paul (15) or Castlewood (15).
In addition, over that 4 year period Appy has a 5-1 record against Rye Cove with their only loss in that period coming this year against the 8-2 Eagles by a score of 30-36. The Dawgs also have a 4-1 record against St. Paul over that same period. The other two teams that Honaker dropped were Rural Retreat (22-19) and Grayson County (22-19). Both of these teams have more wins over the past two years than 6 of Honaker's current scheduled opponents.
The three teams that Honaker played in 2001/2002 that they are no longer playing (Appalachia, Rural Retreat & Grayson County) have a combined record of 68-61 over the past four years. The 3 opponents that were added to Honaker's schedule (Tazewell, Twin Springs & St. Paul) have a combined record of 49-77 over that same time period.

This information is not a knock on Honaker's football team, mind you. I know as well as most if not anyone else that keeps up with SWVA football that the Orange Tigers are a very tough and formidable opponent this year. I expect that they will give Gate City all they want and more come Saturday November 20th. I just wouldn't try to rationalize Honaker dropping Appy from their schedule in the manner that you have, given the information provided above.

[The Cove]

Football tradition is one thing but enrollement does not hurt, i too had thought of appy in my post but they are one of the rare considerations. Also about the Grundy scheduling i know for a FACT that Grundy would like to play Haysi and there was no schduling conflict, the BDD has 4 teams which that means Haysi has 7 non district games to schedule. As for Grundy they only have 4 to schedule. I heard it straight from Coach Rowe's mouth he had tried to schedule Haysi and Colley wouldn't, as was the same for the Kelly incident, Colley wanted no part of either school, just like Hubbard doesn't want to play a big school, they'd rather go 9-1 or 8-2 beating easy teams than 7-3 playing against the same level of competition.

[hhstigerfan]

I didn't say that we dropped Appy becaues we "knew" they would have down years after '02, I just said now it kinda does make sense that we did. Last year, we picked up St. Paul in Appy's place, so last year we got more points from beating SP than we would have beating Appy cause SP won more games, but this year we woulda picked up more points from Appy. But read my thread about Honaker's new schedule, thats the direction in scheduling we should have gone in in the first place. I even remember in the Heath Miller years, we played Castlewood, Twin Springs, Rye Cove, John Battle, and Patrick Henry(even though PH but up a great game against us in 2000)

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 12, 2004 04:04 PM: Message edited by: honaker tiger fan ]</font>