As another prep football season gets underway, I'm certainly thankful to have a job I still get excited about after 26 years. Here are a few things I'm less sure about but believe we'll see along the way this season:
- Meigs County will be the area's breakout team, giving Marion County a real challenge for the top spot in Region 3-2A. Led by 23 seniors - including Zy Moore, one of the area's top athletes - the Tigers have all the components to be special.
- Bradley Central quarterback Cole Copeland, who has committed to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, will win Tennessee's Class 6A Mr. Football award and make a lot of college coaches regret not recruiting him harder before he chose the Mocs. The connection between Copeland and junior receiver Lameric Turner, a 6-foot, 175-pound future stud, will cause opposing defensive coordinators to develop facial tics trying to find ways to stop them.
- After a winless season last year, Central will win at least three games under first-year coach Cortney Braswell and contend for the final playoff spot in Region 3-4A. The Pounders' first five games are brutal, but the back half of their schedule is manageable.
- Lorenzo Stewart, a 6-foot, 215-pound junior running back, will help East Ridge cope without 2015 Mr. Football award winner Traneil Moore, who will miss the first few games this season while recovering from a knee injury. Stewart has all the physical tools to be the workhorse on offense and still make plays at middle linebacker.
- Cleveland will be among the area's leaders in scoring plays of 20-plus yards. All four members of last spring's state meet-qualifying 4x100-meter relay team are a part of the Blue Raiders' explosive offense, giving them the potential for a quick score on every snap.
- Despite 65 percent of its roster being freshmen or sophomores, Chattanooga Christian will surpass last year's program-best eight wins and again reach the second round of the playoffs.
- With three stout senior linemen tying up blockers and allowing him to roam free, Marion County linebacker Alex Kirkendoll (6-3, 220) will lead the area in tackles.
- Polk County, which has dropped 21 straight games - the longest active losing streak in the state - will snap that skid. And for the sake of Wildcats coach Derrick Davis' sanity, I'll be glad when they do. Before the past two miserable years, he had averaged eight wins per season over a 13-year stretch.
- Red Bank's offense, which scored more than 20 points just once last year, will average at least three touchdowns per game under new offensive coordinator Drew Akins.
- Tracy Malone will guide Whitwell to the quarterfinals of the 1A playoffs, the deepest the program will have advanced in 25 years.
- When Baylor travels to McCallie to renew one of the best rivalries in the state, the teams will combine to put more future college talent - more than a dozen prospects - on the field than any game between area teams in recent memory.
- McCallie's defense will be much improved under the direction of new coordinator Ricky Ross. After great success as Calhoun's defensive coordinator and as both head coach and DC at Marion County, Ross will help the Blue Tornado lower their points allowed by at least a touchdown from last season's average of 29 per game.
- I'm absolutely certain McCallie coach Ralph Potter will form-tackle anyone who suggests making a hype video in the days leading up to the Baylor game. McCallie students and faculty released a sleek, trash-talking music video set to the hit Rihanna song "Run This Town" just before last year's game, which quickly became a viral sensation with hundreds of thousands of views. However, immediately after Baylor routed the Blue Tornado, the Heywood Stadium PA began blaring the song, much to the delight of Red Raiders fans.
- I believe five area teams - possibly six - will play for a state championship when December rolls around. But only one will bring back a title.
- Snapping a five-year absence, Baylor will return to the Division II-AA title game and earn a championship for the first time since 1973 by outscoring Montgomery Bell Academy, which is led by running back Ty Chandler, who has committed to Tennessee.
- After falling in the semifinals the past two years, Rhea County will ride one of the state's best rushing offenses, led by 1,000-yard rushers Cody Bice and Mason Stephenson, to the program's first title game since Andy Kelly was the quarterback more than 30 years ago. But Independence, which returns the bulk of a defense that allowed just 11 points per game last year, will win its second straight 5A championship.
- In a rematch of last year's 2A title game, Marion County again won't have an answer for Trezevant running back Cordarrian Richardson, a 6-foot, 225-pound All-American who has committed to Clemson and set a state title-game rushing record last year. Richardson will help the Bears defend their title and force the Warriors to settle for second for a third straight season. In 1A, after marching through the East bracket on a scoring tear, South Pittsburg will run into a buzzsaw from Union City and have to settle for another silver ball. Union City returns a ton of talent from a team that averaged a staggering 55 points per game last year and is on a mission for its third title in four years.
- Meanwhile, Notre Dame has the talent to make a run at its first title game, but perennial power Alcoa will be waiting in the 3A semifinals. Again. The Tornado, who haven't lost to a Chattanooga-area team since 1995, will make it three consecutive seasons of putting an abrupt end to the Fighting Irish's season one step shy of reaching the title game.
- In Georgia, Calhoun will make what feels like an annual trek to the Dome, reaching the title game for the seventh time in coach Hal Lamb's career. But an influx of talent at Atlanta private school Pace Academy, led by Georgia offensive line commitment Andrew Thomas, will be too much to overcome. Teams simply don't choose to move up two classifications, as Pace Academy did after winning last year's Class A title, unless coaches feel they have the talent to compete.
The only thing I believe more than this list is that more than a few readers will remind me just how wrong I was by the end of the season.