Despite Backing Into Playoffs, Trojans Confident Vs. Oak Ridge

Soddy-Daisy Lost Last Five Games Of Regular Season

Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Larry Fleming

Some high school football teams steamroll into the playoffs.

Some sneak in.

Some of them limp.

A few have to crawl.

Soddy-Daisy backed in.

The Trojans started the season winning four of five games against teams that finished the regular season with a combined 31-19 record. The first four foes – Hixson, Red Bank, Ooltewah and Cleveland – are also in the playoffs.

Soddy-Daisy’s lone early setback was a 40-0 shellacking at the hands of Ooltewah, now ranked third in the state among Class 5A teams.

Then, bad luck or poor play – perhaps both – jumped up and bit the Trojans over a disheartening closing stretch that saw them lose five consecutive games and fall into football despair after a 34-27 loss to District 5-AAA rival Walker Valley.

No other Class 5A team in the playoffs came anywhere close to matching Soddy-Daisy’s home-stretch slide.

Adding to the misery, the Trojans’ final five opponents – McMinn County, Rhea County, East Hamilton, Bradley Central and Walker Valley – could muster one winning record, that being the unbeaten, sixth-ranked and District 6-AAA champion Golden Eagles, and were a collective 25-25.

Yet, in an 11-hour emotional roller coaster ride, Soddy-Daisy – somehow, someway – slinked into its first postseason since 2010.

“It was tough Friday night after the game at Walker Valley,” said senior wide receiver Blake Smith prior to Tuesday’s practice. “The next morning I was working at the Lakesite McDonald’s and got a text from coach (Justin) Barnes. I started jumping up and down. People probably thought I was crazy, but I was really excited.”

Coach Justin Barnes was as surprised as anyone to learn Saturday that his second Trojans team had, indeed, found its way into the postseason.

“Going into that last game, we were sitting there in what we figured was 29^th place out of 32 spots,” Barnes said. “We thought there was a chance, depending on who lost, this and that. After Friday night, we thought we had gotten bumped out.

“In the locker room once we got back, I told the guys we would meet Monday to either turn everything in or watch film and practice.”

In all honesty, everyone in the room felt it was more likely the Trojans’ 2014 season was in the books.

Senior quarterback Hunter Maynor was certainly leaning in that direction.

“I was pretty down,” said Maynor, who broke the city record this season with 2,982 passing yards. “I thought I had just played my final high school football game. None of us thought we were getting in. Coach Barnes thought the same thing. He said, ‘Seniors, that was your last game.’ He told us we’d have to turn in all our stuff on Monday and that sucked.”

Said, linebacker Tyler Sullivan, “We didn’t like it one bit that we lost our last five games and that’s going to bother us for a long time. After Friday, we didn’t think we had a chance at all at the playoffs. Heck, we didn’t even break five-hundred.”

However, the team’s emotional high-speed express switched changed tracks a few hours later.

“Me, Tyler (Sullivan) and Charles Russell were eating breakfast at the Southern Restaurant and I looked at Twitter on my phone. There was a tweet and it said, ‘Soddy plays Oak Ridge.’ I said, ‘That can’t be right.’ A little later coach Barnes sent a text saying it was right. We got pretty excited and I started high-fiving everybody around me.”

So, instead of fighting depression, the Trojans jubilantly hit the practice field on Monday.

Soddy-Daisy’s new-found enthusiasm is tempered by the fact it will travel to play undefeated and No. 7-ranked Oak Ridge, a team with 606 all-time wins that include posting 10-0 campaigns 10 times and claiming four TSSAA state championships.

The Wildcats of coach Joe Gaddis, who was brought back to the sideline in 2013 because the fan base wasn’t satisfied with Scott Blade’s 28-11 record and four straight playoff appearances. Gaddis was 121-25 from 1988-98 with one championship in 1991 during his first stint at the helm.

Oak Ridge really rose to statewide prominence under Jack Armstrong and then captured the school’s TSSAA three state titles under coach Emory Hale in 1975, 1979 and 1980.

“We know they’ve had a strong program probably every year since they’ve been playing football,” Maynor said. “But if we go up there and execute and do our thing, I think we can play with them. Anything can happen in football.”

That’s what Barnes told his player during the Saturday morning meeting, Maynor said.

“He talked to us about the (New York) Giants being 8-8 and going on to win the Super Bowl (in 2012),” Maynor said. “The main thing is we’re in the playoffs.”

The Eli Manning-led Giants lost four of their last five regular season games, including the final three.

Smith, the team’s leading receiver with 53 catches for 1,135 yards and 11 touchdowns, said, “All we need is a chance. If we go in and execute and get hot, you just never know.”

However, the late-season collapse still haunts Sullivan, the team’s leading tackler with 52.5 tackles, including 39 solos and seven for loss.

Down-the-stretch losses mounted every year since the Trojans last reached the playoffs, a year in which they won three of their last four games and beat Lincoln County 26-17 before losing to Riverdale 56-15 in the second round.

“It bothered us every day that we kept losing,” Sullivan said. “After the games I tried to think if there was something I could have done better, or the team could have something to stop a play or two here and there that ended up with the other team scoring.

“But we have a new mentality now. We’re in the playoffs for a reason and we’re hoping to show everyone it’s not a joke.”

Obviously, Oak Ridge has consistently turned out winning teams that were state title contenders more often than not.

The Wildcats, however, should not be categorized as unbeatable.

Maryville is probably the closest prep team in Tennessee to have attained that level of respect.

Taking nothing from Oak Ridge, the Wildcats beat 10 opponents that had a combined 44-56 record, five are in the playoffs, but only three – Clinton, Campbell County and Anderson County – had winning records.

Like Maynor said, anything can happen in football that goes against all odds.

The football, by its very design, is subject to taking an odd or even peculiar, unexplained bounce at any given time.

According to NEWTON, an electronic community for science sponsored by Argonne National Laboratory’s educational programs that has the U.S. Department of Energy in its web site, recently had an on-line chat about a football’s 3D shape.

It was called an ellipse.

Dr. Ken Mellendorf, of Illinois Central University, said it is an ellipsoid.

Richard E. Barrans Jr., Ph.D., assistant director, PG Research Foundation, Darien, Ill., identified the football’s shape as a “prolate spheroid.”

Vince Calder wrote, “The football is too ‘pointed’ on the ends to be an ellipse. The general name for objects that have an axis of symmetry, like a football, ignoring the sewing and the laces, is an oval revolution.”

The bottom line: A football, because of its very design, can often and unexpectedly, take odd or even peculiar bounces in the heat of battle, thus creating wild swings of momentum that lead to huge, shocking upsets by lesser teams going against gridiron Goliaths.

Few people outside the confines of Neyland Stadium’s luxurious home-team locker room thought the Vols could go to South Carolina last Saturday and win, but that’s exactly what happened when the Vols overcame a 42-28 fourth-quarter deficit to pull off the stunning victory.

Unlikely as it may seem, Soddy-Daisy believes on any given night anything can happen.

Just look at what happened overnight less than four days ago. They were out of the playoffs and then they were in.

“We know Oak Ridge is ten-and-oh, big and athletic,” Sullivan said. “It’s not something we can’t handle if we play good. We know they’re a good team, but we’re a good team, too.”

First-Round Pairings

Chattanooga Area Schools

Games start at 7 p.m. Local Time

Class 6A

Bradley Central (5-5) at Science Hill (9-1)

Walker Valley (5-5) at Maryville (10-0)

Class 5A

Stone Memorial (6-4) at Ooltewah (10-0)

Soddy-Daisy (6-4) at Oak Ridge (10-0)

Clinton (7-3) at Cleveland (5-5)

Tullahoma (5-5) at Rhea County (10-0)

Class 4A