Tennessee high school football coaches try to make best of early postseason rematches

East Ridge running back Lorenzo Stewart, left, breaks around CCS defender Ian Gaines during their prep football game at East Ridge High School on Friday, Oct. 30, 2015, in East Ridge, Tenn.
East Ridge running back Lorenzo Stewart, left, breaks around CCS defender Ian Gaines during their prep football game at East Ridge High School on Friday, Oct. 30, 2015, in East Ridge, Tenn.

The last time

Sept. 18: Boyd-Buchanan 40, Tyner 7Sept. 18: MBA 33, McCallie 27, OTOct. 23: Columbia Academy 41, Whitwell 24Oct. 30: East Ridge 28, Chattanooga Christian 13Oct. 30: Stone Memorial 14, East Hamilton 7

While most Tennessee high school football coaches feel the current playoff system is an improvement over power ratings and computer-generated matchups, there still are faults.

One such problem area for coaches is meeting a regular-season opponent, particularly one from the same region, again after just one round in the playoffs.

"I know why they do it. It's to cut down on travel and expenses," East Hamilton coach Ted Gatewood said. "You know how I stand - draw the teams out of a hat and send them all over the state. Travel is part of the excitement of the playoffs."

Gatewood's Hurricanes are among six area teams playing this week against opponents they already have met this year. As a matter of fact, it was just two weeks ago that East Hamilton played at Stone Memorial.

Another such matchup this week finds Chattanooga Christian returning to East Ridge to play the Pioneers in a repeat of a Week 10 game won by East Ridge. The other three games have McCallie traveling to Montgomery Bell Academy, Tyner playing at Boyd-Buchanan and Whitwell going on the road to Columbia Academy.

Only Whitwell's game is a matchup of nonregion opponents.

McCallie also had a rematch last week, against Pope John Paul II, but because of classification numbers those are hard to avoid in Division II-AA.

The coaches involved have different methods for dealing with rematches, revenge and overconfidence.

"Our kids remember what happened in September," Potter said of the Blue Tornado's overtime loss to MBA, "and it might be motivation, but what really matters is what happened since then, how healthy you are and whether your kids want to keep playing."

On Monday, Whitwell coach R.C. Helton handed copies of a Columbia Daily Herald article to his team. He used the headline and accompanying story reporting the Tigers' loss to Columbia Academy, to make sure he got the focus and discipline he sought. The headline and article were, to his mind, demeaning and in no way representative of Whitwell football.

"It's another football game, somebody we've already seen and would like to get another shot at," he said. "To be honest, the team that showed up (the first time) against Columbia Academy wasn't the team that showed up (last week) against Moore County. There's not a glaring weakness on Columbia Academy's team, but we didn't play well - hurt ourselves with stupid penalties and lack of execution that allowed them to play with a short field most of the night."

East Ridge is facing a team coached by Rob Spence, a former offensive coordinator at the collegiate level with an assistant (Mark Mariakis) who's acknowledged as a defensive guru.

"We're facing a guy that's coached a ton of big-time college games, and I know when they played us last time Spence and Mariakis had stuff left in their game plan that we didn't see," Pioneers coach Tracy Malone said after acknowledging that it was tougher to win a second time against the same team. "Playing someone you've already played is a lot of pressure on coaches."

Most all of the coaches in the rematches have shown the first-meeting game videos to their teams.

"The biggest thing about playing repeats is to look at the things you have to do better, whether you won or lost," Gatewood said. "You have to control what you can control."

There is, of course, more on the line now, Boyd-Buchanan coach Grant Reynolds pointed out.

"Tyner is playing really well right now. I think their seniors have stepped up and taken control of that team," he said.

As for his approach, it's simple - perhaps time-worn but still true.

"I told them they had reached step one last year (reaching the playoffs) and that this is step two," Reynolds said.

Boyd-Buchanan won going away (40-7) over Tyner, and Reynolds also addressed that issue.

"We try to impress upon them that it's now sudden death. There's no room for overconfidence," he said. "You can't think about what you did the last time, or last week, or what you might do next week."

It's a point each coach has stressed in some form.

"It's like 'Jimmy V' (Valvano) used to say: Survive and advance," Gatewood said.

Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.

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