Staff Photo by Allison Kwesell The McCallie football team runs through fire extinguisher smoke as their entrance onto their home field for their game against Ensworth.

The Times Free Press high school football game of the week is a rivalry between local teams that goes back more than a century. However, the past decade is foremost in the minds of McCallie and Baylor fans now.

Baylor’s Red Raiders will try to halt McCallie’s 10-game series winning streak Friday when the teams play in a Division II-AA East/Middle game at Finley Stadium at 7:30 p.m.

Most of today’s high school seniors were in first grade the last time Baylor won in the rivalry. Red Raiders senior wide receiver and defensive back Brett Murray has another reason for not remembering the last Baylor victory in the series. He lived in Athens, Ga., at the time.

Murray’s family moved to Chattanooga when he was in fourth grade. He has been at every loss to the Blue Tornado since. The 20-17 game last year and the 21-20 game in 2004 were particularly disheartening.

“Hopefully we can turn that around,” Murray said. “We’ve come so close in so many years. As a senior it would not only be great to beat McCallie and end the streak, but it’s a must-win game. It’s a must-win game for them, too, as far as making the playoffs. We’re in the same league.”

Bragging rights mean more for some. Rick Whitt is in his second season as McCallie’s head coach after one year as defensive coordinator — a job he also held at Baylor during part of the current streak.

“For me when you win as part of a big, big ballgame, it’s a relief, because you put so much effort into it,” Whitt said. “You get one and you just want to kind of catch your breath. You celebrate, but it’s more of a relief. Losing’s hard.”

Until the current streak, neither beat the other more than six consecutive times in the series, which dates to 1908 by the Red Raiders’ records and 1905 by McCallie’s. Baylor does not acknowledge the first two games in the series as being varsity games, and the teams did not play in ’07, so the overall series record stands at 37-34-3, or 37-32-3, depending on one’s outlook.

The Blue Tornado’s previous long winning streak was from 1985 through ’90. The Red Raiders went 37 years without losing to McCallie, although their winning streak within that span was also six games.

The teams went from 1941 through ’70 without playing. Baylor had gone 3-0-1 before the stoppage, then won the next four when the series resumed. The last win in that streak and McCallie’s victory that stopped it were in the same season. The Red Raiders won 31-14 during the 1974 regular season before losing 29-7 to the Blue Tornado in a playoff game.

The only other time the teams met in the regular season and playoffs was 1997 — the season before the beginning of the current streak. Baylor won 9-7 and 21-7 that year.

Last year’s ticket at Baylor’s Heywood Stadium was a tough find. That won’t be a problem Friday, which also will be McCallie’s senior night as its last home game.

The last time this matchup was at Finley Stadium, it drew one of that venue’s largest crowds. The Blue Tornado featured quarterback B.J. Coleman, and running back Kevin Cooper was a standout at Baylor. They now are teammates and roommates at the University of Tennessee.

Oddly, each team is coming into the game off a one-point loss in double overtime. After host McCallie (3-3, 1-2) missed an extra point, Ensworth made its after scoring the tying touchdown and won 37-36. Baylor (2-3, 0-2) lost 21-20 when visiting Knoxville Catholic ran for the winning conversion. Each coach made an effort to see that his players put that episode behind them.

“Looking back as a coach you can dissect film and say, ‘Take this play away’ or ‘Execute this play,’ and we could be 4-1 or 5-0 at this point,” Baylor coach Phillip Massey said. “I’m extremely proud of these kids’ heart and effort. They play hard and try to do everything the coaches ask of them. They’ve handled the setbacks. We tell them that’s going to set them up for comebacks.”

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