Mother Nature dominates on wild opening weekend
If the opening weekend of the high school football season is any indication of what we can expect in the next 15 weeks of the prep gridiron campaign, football fans in Tennessee have got a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks.
Loyal fans from one end of the state to the other packed stadiums in anticipation of their favorite team’s opening night. Some had very long waits before kickoff while others left the Friday action unsettled and had to return another time to witness the outcome of the contest. And still other fans never got to see the first play on Friday. Their games were rescheduled until Saturday, or even this past Monday in one instance.
It was, indeed, a crazy weekend that initiated the start of the 2007 season in Tennessee. Mother Nature ruled. She had as much to do with starting and completion times as did officials and administrators. Oddities occurred on a regular basis as more than half the teams in the state kicked off the season a week early in sweltering heat.
At the insistence of officials from TSSAA, water breaks were taken often as a precaution against the extremely high temperatures. Because of those cautionary measures, severe cramping and other factors that generally accompany games that are played in 95-degree weather were minimal.
The sweltering heat forced kickoffs back to the eight o’clock hour in Rutherford County. Other games across Middle Tennessee started at their regularly scheduled time Friday evening but experienced long delays due to storms that rolled through the area.
A handful of games were finished sometime Saturday or Monday, depending on agreed upon times by officials at the schools. At least one of the Friday night contests ended in a tie, something that has not occurred on the high school level in Tennessee for several years.
5A Franklin and 4A Hillsboro, teams expected to play deep into the postseason in their respective classifications, battled to a 14-14 tie in Nashville. Coaches and administrators from both schools huddled together when the stormy weather arrived. Their ultimate decision was to let the game end in a tie rather than risk an injury to players or fans that may have resulted from severe weather.
The new season also had its share of border wars. Tennessee teams had nearly as many victories as defeats in Week Zero against out of state competition. 1A schools Cloudland and Copper Basin both lost to teams from North Carolina, 4A Sullivan Central went down at the hands of a team from Virginia and 1A West Carroll fell to a Kentucky squad. Cumberland Gap, Richland and South Fulton all secured wins against out of state teams from Virginia, Alabama and Kentucky, respectively.
The opening week of competition was also extremely hard on new coaches. Nearly 20 percent of the state’s prep teams have someone new in charge of their football program. Out of 62 teams with new head coaches, only 18 enjoyed success on the gridiron this past weekend while 31 will have to wait another week in search of victory. And 13 other teams with new direction get their first chance at a win this coming Friday night in Week One.
Yes, the new season is finally here. It’s going to be a wild one!
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Murphy Fair has published ‘Tennessee High School Football’ for the past 20 years. His Website (murphyfair.com) gives high school fans further insight into the prep football scene.