Commentary by Stephen Hargis
It isn’t often that one of the area’s traditional powers can be an afterthought. Imagine if Brainerd was overlooked at the state basketball tournament or Bradley Central wasn’t the story of any state wrestling event.
That’s pretty much the feeling around the Boyd-Buchanan football program these days.
You remember the Buccaneers, right? Last year’s state runners-up in Class 2A. A program that has missed the playoffs just once in the last 15 years and advanced at least to the quarterfinals 10 times during that span, including a state championship and four runner-up finishes. Yeah, those guys.
Signal Mountain, in only its second year as a varsity program, has posted video-game-type offensive numbers, and Baylor owns two wins over rival McCallie and is just one win from reaching a state-title game for the first time in 33 years. That makes those two programs easy storylines.
Four regular-season losses made it easy to overlook Boyd-Buchanan as the playoffs began. But the Bucs are not just flying under the radar going into the third round; they actually haven’t even been on the screen at times.
“I was on the treadmill and two local television stations were talking about the playoff games for this week, and they mentioned about every team except us,” Bucs coach Grant Reynolds said. “There was a story in the paper that talked about all the upcoming games, and it left us out, too. We’ve been completely forgotten, which is something us coaches don’t mind because it gives us easy motivation for the kids.
“It’s an easy sell to make the kids believe it’s us against the world right now.”
After graduating 16 seniors from last year’s team, the Bucs were thought to be in a major rebuilding year. A rugged regular-season schedule that included five playoff teams left them with an unimpressive record at first glance. But look closer and you’ll notice that even with just two returning starters on defense, Boyd-Buchanan has allowed one touchdown or less eight times, including each of its last four games.
Linebackers Hayden Meadows and Ross Keasler were the only returning starters from last year’s defense and have provided the experience necessary to help guide this unexpected playoff run. Keasler’s father, Jeff, was also a linebacker during the program’s infancy of the late 1970s and now has the double enjoyment of watching his son continue his alma mater’s success. During the elder Keasler’s time as a player, Boyd-Buchanan had just two players who weighed more than 200 pounds. The Bucs’ offensive line this year averages 297.
“When I played, we had to beg our parents to come watch our games,” Jeff Keasler joked. “Of the 10 games, I think we probably saw nine homecoming queens get crowned. Everybody wanted to play us on homecoming. I remember Coach Gus Stone had planted grass, and one of the things we would do before practice was to go work on the field as players.
“It was pretty neat to see the program take off during the 1990s, and I couldn’t be prouder of Ross now to be a part of carrying on the winning tradition. I don’t think these kids ever mentally accepted that it’s supposed to be a rebuilding year. They wanted to measure up to the standard that’s been set, and now we’re one win from people saying that we’ve done everything but walk on water.”
Maybe that would at least get people talking about the Bucs once again.