Step by step, year by year, grade by grade, Chattanooga Prep has been laying a foundation for success on the football field.
This season, with seniors in the fold for the first time, the Sentinels have raised the roof.
That doesn’t mean, though, that they’re done building what they hope is a championship program — a description they might live up to sooner than later.
Chatt Prep opened with a class of sixth graders in August 2018. On Oct. 24, 2019, the same day Peyton Manning was a guest speaker at the school, Joe Banks took over head coaching duties of the football program, and he has taken the Sentinels further faster than some might have expected considering that it was just two years ago when they fielded their first varsity team. A roster with no upperclassmen won a single game in that 2022 season, and while last year’s record was still just 3-8, the four losses by six points or less included a one-point defeat on the road in the playoffs.
This season, since providing a challenge in the season opener to Boyd Buchanan — which reached the TSSAA Division II-AA BlueCross Bowl state title game last year — the Sentinels have gone on to win six straight games while outscoring their opposition 218-14 and rising to No. 5 in Class 1A in this week’s Tennessee Sports Writers Association state rankings.