In only its second year of varsity competition, Signal Mountain High School's football team has joined elite company among some of Tennessee's most talked-about programs.
With last week's lopsided semifinal win over Boyd-Buchanan, the Eagles reached an accomplishment all their own by advancing to a state championship game in less time than it has taken any other program in state history. The team also went 10-0 this year in the regular season.
"That's something that's just unheard of," said former Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association Executive Director Ronnie Carter, who has worked with the state's governing body for high school sports for more than 30 years. "I don't know that anybody would have thought it was possible for a second-year program to not only get to the state championship game, but to be undefeated."
There are 132 programs that have played for a state football title in Tennessee since the playoff format began in 1969. That leaves 193 programs that have never played in the title game.
"There were always great athletes on the mountain. They just didn't have a high school before now, so they used to scatter all around the city," said Signal Mountain coach Bill Price. "Now those kids have a community school and they take a lot of pride in that."
Signal Mountain will play Trinity Christian in Saturday's Class 2A championship at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville at 1 p.m. EST. Two other local teams also will contend for state championships in Cooke-ville this weekend, with Baylor playing Ensworth in Division II-AA at 8 p.m. EST Thursday and South Pittsburg playing Jo Byrns at 1 p.m. EST Friday.
Baylor is back in a state title game for the first time since 1977, while South Pittsburg is in its third championship game in four years.
In Georgia, Calhoun hosts top-ranked Carver in a Class AA semifinal on Friday.
The program that had previously reached a championship game the fastest was Brentwood Academy in Nashville, which won the 1974 Class A title after only four years of varsity competition. Brentwood Academy went on to become a perennial power, winning 10 titles in 24 trips to the state championship game.
But Brentwood Academy's championship total trails that of Alcoa and Maryville -- each has 11 state titles.
"Most people don't understand just how tough it is to ever even make it to a championship," said Alcoa coach Gary Rankin, who will be making his 14th state title appearance and fifth straight. "I know all the hard work that goes into getting a program to this point, so for Signal Mountain to get here after just two years is pretty phenomenal.
"It seems they got the players, the facilities and the community support necessary to build that program up in a really fast manner," he said. "I've never heard of anything like it."
Signal Mountain already owns two state titles in girls' golf and another in volleyball. The school began playing football three years ago with a junior varsity program. But Price made sure all 10 games were treated with all the atmosphere and intensity of varsity competition.
That prepared the team for the Friday-night experience that followed, beginning last season when the Eagles lost just once in the regular season -- to eventual Class 1A state runner-up South Pittsburg -- then fell by just one point in the second round of the playoffs at Cascade.
This year, Signal Mountain is not only unbeaten, but has won 10 games under the state's 35-point mercy rule -- once a team is 35 points ahead, the time clock doesn't stop until the end of the game -- and goes into Saturday's game with a two-year record of 23-2.
"I know there's a lot of people talking about them and it may not all be good, but I've learned jealousy follows success most times," said South Pittsburg coach Vic Grider, whose program has won an area-leading 58 playoff games.
"People don't talk about teams that aren't winning. I've got nothing but respect for those guys because they've proven themselves on the field.
"There's a lot of flash around their program, but they don't get near enough credit for just being a sound, physical football team," Grider said. "They're a very hard-nosed bunch and that comes from Bill [Price]. He's very structured and has gotten those kids to buy into his philosophy of the game and his way of building the program."
Signal Mountain was also one of only two public schools to have more than one finalist for the state's Mr. Football award, with Hogan Whitmire a finalist for Back of the Year and Gervell Morgan up for Lineman of the Year.
Because of the school's growth in student enrollment, Signal Mountain will move up in classification next year and has chosen to play up two classes in the playoffs, moving to 4A.
"It really helped that first year that we treated our JV games like we were playing a varsity schedule." Price said. "The kids that transferred in didn't have to sit out a year, and all of them felt like they were coming together and building something special."
Price said the team hasn't even talked about the speed of their success.
"I'm sure the kids know, but we won't even bring it up until after the game, if we win," he said. "We've still got one more real big game left to play, so that's where our focus is. After that, hopefully we can celebrate things like that."