A gamble made out of necessity wound up paying off for Howard’s football team this fall. Hustlin’ Tigers head coach Dedric Maffett believes the payoff should continue into next season and help the program gather its footing for the future.
Maffett and school administrators made the difficult decision last year to withdraw from region competition for 2025 and 2026 and play an independent schedule after being informed by the TSSAA that due to its continued rising enrollment, Howard would be moved up in classification for a third straight cycle.
That meant the Hustlin’ Tigers would be in Class 6A, where the largest public high schools in Tennessee compete, and they would have been placed in the same region as 17-time state champion Maryville, plus Bearden, Bradley Central, Cleveland, Farragut and Hardin Valley. The Knoxville-area teams in that group typically have close to 100 players each, which is more than triple Howard’s roster size.
The cost of longer and more frequent road trips for region games would also have been a financial struggle for the athletic department.
The Hustlin’ Tigers just completed their 2025 season, having finished 3-6 while facing opponents with similar size rosters. It marks their most wins in a season since 2020, and five of those losses came by one possession (eight points or less), including a seven-point loss to Sale Creek, which finished the regular season with nine wins and is headed to the Class 1A playoffs as a No. 2 seed.