Hargis: Streak hangs over rivalry for Blue Tornado, Red Raiders

Staff illustration by Mark Wiedmer / Two Chattanooga prep football programs with a long history and state rankings will meet Friday night when No. 2 Baylor hosts No. 3 McCallie in a TSSAA Division II-AAA East Region game. Baylor is 5-0, including 2-0 in the region, while three-time reigning state champion McCallie is 4-1, 1-1.
Staff illustration by Mark Wiedmer / Two Chattanooga prep football programs with a long history and state rankings will meet Friday night when No. 2 Baylor hosts No. 3 McCallie in a TSSAA Division II-AAA East Region game. Baylor is 5-0, including 2-0 in the region, while three-time reigning state champion McCallie is 4-1, 1-1.

When Baylor lines up against visiting McCallie on Friday night to renew what is arguably Tennessee's best prep rivalry, there will be an undeniable third presence on the field with the two football teams.

The streak.

Certainly everyone who fills Heywood Stadium, whether they're wearing red and gray or blue and white, is aware of McCallie's six-game winning streak in the series, with four of those victories by double digits.

That recent dominance — compounded by watching the Blue Tornado win three straight Division II-AAA state titles — led Baylor to make a head coaching change during the offseason, hiring Erik Kimrey, who had been nearly unbeatable at South Carolina's Hammond School. Kimrey came to Baylor after compiling a 194-20 overall record highlighted by 12 state championships in 17 seasons — including six straight at one point — and spending last year in the Southeastern Conference as tight ends coach for the South Carolina Gamecocks.

While he has not yet experienced this specific rivalry's emotional roller coaster, which seemingly rises and falls and switches sides based on the success or failure of each snap, Kimrey does not shy away from acknowledging the significance of the losing streak he and his staff inherited.

"You have to address it," said Kimrey, who has guided the state-ranked No. 2 Red Raiders to an impressive 5-0 overall start, including 2-0 in the TSSAA's toughest region. "You understand that it's there, so you can't shelter the players from it, but you can teach them how to deal with it.

"There's legitimacy to neural pathways that exist because of success. It comes down to neuroplasticity, in my opinion. We've got to make sure it's a little more pliable this year so we can overcome some of those deep-seeded beliefs that one program has had more success than the other. Those are there. You can't ignore them. You just have to coach through them."

In case any of you are like me, and need to turn to Google to look up "neuroplasticity," just know that Kimrey — who also quoted German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche during his introductory news conference earlier this year — was referring to the brain's ability to modify, change or adapt in response to a certain experience.

Obviously in this case, the experience he and his staff have worked on is teaching the Red Raiders how to respond when a game's momentum, particularly when facing McCallie, swings against them. And as is the case when one team owns a rivalry for an extended period of time, it has been Baylor miscues — or depending on your allegiance, McCallie finding a way to make a play at a key moment — that have helped decide the outcome during the streak.

Whether it was an interception late in last year's game that sealed McCallie's eight-point win, a defensive stand by the Blue Tornado deep in their territory that allowed the offense to take over and run out the clock on a seven-point win in 2019, or a late touchdown off a turnover to pull away for a 21-6 win in 2018, the tendency for one team to take advantage of the other's self-inflicted wounds can become a mental hurdle.

And that is exactly what Kimrey has worked to address and correct since he arrived.

"The coaching change has really given us added confidence," said running back Caleb Hampton, who is part of a senior class looking for its first win over McCallie since middle school. "They set that standard for us, and just the way they believe in us and utilize all our weapons, it's made us believe in our ability to compete with anybody.

"We're a highly confident team now."

With Baylor having throttled its first five foes by an average score of 40-11 — in their two East Region games, the Red Raiders led a combined 84-3 at halftime — Kimrey is following the script that led to his wildly successful stint at Hammond. The next step in cultivating the championship culture he created at the South Carolina program is to end the streak, which could be the boost needed for a playoff run as well.

"The confidence we've gained through the first half of the season is incredibly important, and we've certainly seen the progression. There's a lot of similarities between that and how we built Hammond," said Kimrey, who is trying to become the first Baylor coach to win his inaugural matchup with McCallie since the man who now leads the Blue Tornado, Ralph Potter, led the Red Raiders to a 14-3 win in 1994 then left two years later to take over at his alma mater.

"First, you teach your players to believe" Kimrey added. "Believe in themselves and in their coaches. We also talk about toughness, which means your mental approach has to be what you're doing is more important than how you feel.

"I know from having coached in a lot of state championship games, when you have those big games there are things that will pop up that are out of your control. How you respond to those scenarios typically decides the outcome."

The series has been streaky through the past four decades as the two teams have traded the upper hand. McCallie's current streak came on the heels of Baylor's own string of six straight wins, which was preceded by the Blue Tornado's 11-year series ownership. Prior to that, dating to the mid-1980s, both teams have had runs of at least four straight wins.

Taking time to point out how each game is decided by its own individual execution battles, and having been on both sides, Potter was more reluctant to discuss his program's current run, although he did agree with Kimrey that monitoring body language early is a good gauge for who's ready for an environment that can be overwhelming for younger players.

"Honestly, we don't really talk about the streak or the environment or those type things," said Potter, who has an 18-5 overall record in the series, including 16-4 with McCallie. "What we're talking to our guys about is how to line up because the best thing for them to do is just focus on what they're going to do in the game.

"Early in the game, you always look for which kids aren't handling it well. The pressure can get to certain ones, and it's hard to predict who. You can explain it to the new guys, but until they get out there and experience it, nobody knows how they'll respond. Having a veteran team is a good thing, and the recent success is something we do hope plays a part as the game wears on."

Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.

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