Tullahoma opens spring practice with many questions

The Tullahoma Wildcats will open spring football practice on Wednesday, May 2 and conclude with the annual ‘Red & White’ Game on Friday, May 18 at Wilkins Stadium. If weather or another school athletic event interferes with Friday then the game will be held Monday, May 21.

Tullahoma has won 17 games the past two years, winning District 8-AAA two years ago and finishing second last season. However, there are very few starters remaining that were on the 2010 team that advanced to the Class 5A quarterfinals.

On the other hand, the Wildcats freshman team was very successful last season. There are three returning offensive line starters and an outstanding tailback comes back. On defense there are a half-dozen returnees who played significant minutes, primarily on the defensive line.

Gone is QB Jared Davis, who started 30 games and accounted for 5,271 yards of total offense and 55 touchdowns over the past three years. The Wildcats have virtually no experience returning behind center.

Also graduating this May are most of the skill position players, secondary, linebackers, kickers, and two offensive linemen who were all-district players. There are a lot of holes for head coach John Olive and his staff to fill.

THS has had a tremendous run of talent the last couple of years, adding a district basketball championship and run to the substate, two baseball trips to the substate, region champion track and field teams, state tournament wrestlers, and more to the football success.

It will be interesting to see if Tullahoma can sustain that success during the 2012-13 athletic season. Olive always gets the most from the talent that is available, and although there are some great athletes in the school who don’t play football you can count on the Wildcats to be once again contending for a playoff spot when late October rolls around.

The serious work towards that goal begins May 2.

Division I Prospects Abound at Westwood, Knoxville West

The Top Prospects List, now known simply as ‘The List’, has grown to over 200 high school football players in its infancy. By the time he is finished, The Guru will build that list to 1,000 players on MurphyFair.com. There is nothing else like it in the state of Tennessee.

Each year as the list builds from March to July, its fun to learn which coaches are realistic in the ability of their players and which coaches think their guys are better than they actually are.

I’ll leave it to your descretion to decide which coaches fall on which side of that spectrum. In fact, its always enjoyable at the end of the year to go back to the list and see how close players were accurately judged as far as talent goes.

Two schools that jump out as far as listing a significant number of Division I prospects so far this year are Westwood and Knoxville West.

Westwood has returned its survey to Murphy, and on it are five players who are projected to play on Saturdays at the highest level.

Running back Randolph Zieh is 6′ 200 lb. and has already made a name for himself last year as a sophomore. Twin brother Guei Zieh is listed as a defensive back at 5-10 175 lb.

Wide receiver Nakia Cathey is a 5-9, 175 speedster, who along with the Ziehs is only a junior. Senior quarterback Jerome Gilkey III is 6-1, 185 and classmate linebacker Jereme Glass is solid at 6-2, 225.

Those five Division I talents headline a list of nine total prospects submitted by Westwood head coach Anthony Jones. He believes his Longhorns, who won District 16-A last year and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Class 2A playoffs, are on the verge of contending for a state championship.

Knoxville West has been making significant moves in the Class 5A playoffs since realignment happened three years ago.They barely lost to Powell in the semifinals last year, and this could be the year that Scott Cummings and his Rebels push through to Cookeville.

Three Division I prospects are listed by Coach Cummings, led by 6-1, 195 senior free safety Ryan Francis. His YouTube highlight video is featured right now on MurphyFair;com, and watching it will give you an appreciation of his considerable abilities.

Junior linebacker Cody Underwood is 6-1, 205, while senior linebacker Zack Stuart stands 6-3, 200 pounds. Those three defensive stalwarts are joined by four more players with chances to play on Saturdays, three of them on the defensive side of the ball. The Rebels should have a great defense this season.

As we watch the 2012 season unfold we will keep our eyes on Westwood and Knoxville West. Both are expected to be competing when the calendar begins approaching December.

CAK Early Top Prospects Leader

Ah yes. The smell of spring football is in the air. In five months we will kick off the 2012 high school football season. The countdown is on.

For Murphy Fair, the Guru of high school football in the state of Tennessee, spring means the beginning of the creation of the coming season’s Tennessee High School Football magazine.

The first step in that process is when Murphy begins to receive surveys from head football coaches across the state. Every head coach in the state was recently sent a survey, which upon its return will enter their team in Murphy’s 2012 magazine. If they don’t return the survey then they don’t get in the magazine.

But thankfully most do, and one of the items that Murphy asks them to include is a list of their top college prospects. The coaches are asked to guess as to what level of college football each prospect is expected to advance to, and for the most part history says the coaches are very knowledgeable in their ability to gauge the potential of their players.

The list, which will grow to around 1,000 players by July, is the only list of its kind in Tennessee, and is exclusive to MurphyFair.com. The low subscription price of $15 per year is easily justified by the top prospects list alone, not to mention the coaching changes list, exclusive statewide individual statistics lists during the season, previews and reviews by Murphy, and a whole lot more. The site is the best of its kind in our state.

The top prospects list already has almost 100 players in it, and without question the early leader in both quantity and quality is defending Class 3A state champion Christian Academy of Knoxville. The Warriors list eight top prospects, and Warrior head coach Rusty Bradley believes four of them can play at the Division I level on Saturdays.

Based on the performance of the offense in 2011 there is no reason to doubt Coach Bradley’s assessment. Starting with QB Charlie High, who threw for more yards in a single season than any player in state history, and two of his top receivers who also entered the all-time record book, the Warriors are loaded on the offensive side of the ball.

Josh Smith and Davis Howell will catch a lot of footballs for a bunch of yards this season, especially with players such as 6-5, 300 lb. junior Patrick Dalton, 6-5, 290 lb. senior Brett Kendrick, and 6-3, 260 lb. senior Alec North blocking on the offensive line; the Warriors should be able to provide good protection for High to once again pick defenses apart.

Speaking of defense, CAK also lists a pair of linebackers as top prospects, although they aren’t expected to play on the Division I level. L. J. Goodridge and Camden Winzenburg are both around 5-11, 200 lb. with good speed who can hit.

As the list progresses through the summer there will schools that send in more names than CAK. There might even be schools listing more than four Division I prospects. But considering the kind of numbers that the Warriors offense put up last year and the players they have returning, their might not be another team with as much quality as this CAK bunch has.

The View is Consistently Changing

Until now this blog has been primarily focused on Tennessee high school football and promoted on MurphyFair.com, the state’s premier site devoted solely to high school football. I am the administrator for the site and excited as we move into our ninth season with the guru Murphy Fair.

With the positive evolution of my broadcasting career brings change in how I use outlets such as The View from the Pressbox. The more events I work the more I want to write about them, and this seems the best place to do that writing; the best way to distribute my work.

High school sports has always been a passion for me, but during the past couple of years, based largely on my broadcasting work with the TSSAA, it has become something that I would love to be able to spend all my working time covering. I’m talking full time.

With experience in broadcasting, writing, managing web sites and gathering facts, the time has come for me to make a push to put my 25+ years experience into a job doing all those things in relation to high school sports in the state of Tennessee.