High School Championships

[Dawg-gone-dawgs]

I don't get the high school championships being played on university fields...It's just something about the near empty stadium that takes away from the passion and hype for a championship game. Why don't they alternate between different top JUCO fields? At least then, the kids could play in front of a full house. I am curious to how much it affects the players. Each week they play in front of near full high school stadiums and then they are put in 60,000 seat stadium, that looks empty. It has to be an awkward transition.

[dawgpound]

I think the kids love the opportunity to play in these stadiums though and get dressed in the locker rooms used by the college athletes.

[mic]

Best decision ever made...
Ahsaa has been doing it for a number of years now.. Rotating between Tuscaloosa and auburn..

[Liverpooldawg]

The players and fans love it. It's a wonderful thing for them, esp the smaller schools.

[BrunswickDawg]

Georgia does ours at the Georgia Dome. Kids love that "big time" field even if the atmosphere is a little less. My only beef with it is that the playoff structure in GA is heavily tilted to North GA teams due to population, and South GA teams have travel insane distances during the playoffs, then turn around and go to the Dome. Does MS have that same issue?

That being said - I am stoked about my Glynn Academy Red Terrors taking on the Ware County Gators tonight in the 5A Semi-finals, at home, in front of 13,000+. Going to be off the hook!

[MSUDawg99]

Best decision ever made...
Ahsaa has been doing it for a number of years now.. Rotating between Tuscaloosa and auburn..

As do other states in the SEC that rotate games among SEC or college stadiums

[I seen it dawg]

Louisiana been in the dome for a long time. Awesome time.

[Valyrian Steel]

There will be many more people in the stands for the 6A and 5A games played at 7p.

[BulldogBear]

Scores from earlier games today????

[Liverpooldawg]

Simmons 25 Resurrection 9
Bassfield 39 East Webster 20

[InTheIttaBenaHotSun]

Georgia does ours at the Georgia Dome. Kids love that "big time" field even if the atmosphere is a little less. My only beef with it is that the playoff structure in GA is heavily tilted to North GA teams due to population, and South GA teams have travel insane distances during the playoffs, then turn around and go to the Dome. Does MS have that same issue?

That being said - I am stoked about my Glynn Academy Red Terrors taking on the Ware County Gators tonight in the 5A Semi-finals, at home, in front of 13,000+. Going to be off the hook!


No, South MS and North MS teams play in their part of the state until the state finals. Don't understand why GA does this - it's just insane. Glad to hear after having to travel to NW GA the other week that y'all won.....Good Luck to the Terrors and go take care of the Gators!

[moss818]

AJ Brown is killin it! Do we still feel good about him?

[BrunswickDawg]

No, South MS and North MS teams play in their part of the state until the state finals. Don't understand why GA does this - it's just insane. Glad to hear after having to travel to NW GA the other week that y'all won.....Good Luck to the Terrors and go take care of the Gators!
That trip to Dalton was a killer - my kids got home at 8:30 the next morning after all night on school buses.

And the Red Terrors won 24-16. We're going to the Dome!!

[Westdawg]

When I coached in New Mexico, they just ranked the entire state out for each classification and you played out the bracket at the higher ranked team's home - unless the last time the team's faced each other, then they played at the other's place. And New Mexico is a big dang state. We had to travel on Friday and play at noon each Saturday. Long dang playoff stretch

[Thrill1]

It's an absolute no-brainier and should've been done years ago. There is no juco that could put on something of this magnitude. At State & UM think of the luxuries you have - real locker rooms, tons of support staff, ample restrooms, concessions & parking. Not to mention press facilities, the jumbo tron(s), playing surface and sound system making it a big time atmosphere.

I went tonight to see Starkville play and, honesty I was disappointed in the Starkville crowd. Looked like way more from Petal showed up. So I'm not buying the "South teams won't travel" argument.

An interesting tidbit I heard last year on the State/um rotation was that initially usm didn't submit a bid to host the championships. That's why it's at Starkville and oxford the first four years. Then out of the blue, usm gets added to the mix. Would really love to know who cried about the buzzards being left out, when at first it appeared they wanted nothing to do with it.

[Jarius]

AJ Brown is killin it! Do we still feel good about him?

I know that kids say a lot of things on Twitter, and it is tough to know what a 17 year old really means/thinks, but I just don't get the feeling from him that he really wants to stay in Starkville. Hopefully it is just him wanting to be recruited, but he really seems to go out of his way to let people know that his options are wide open and Starkville is not somewhere that he is tied down to.....

[dickiedawg]

I thought the same thing about the Starkville crowd. Petal's crowd was huge. Also loud. The SHS faithful didn't make a lot of noise- you could hear the band director on his PA the whole time.

[War Machine Dawg]

It's an absolute no-brainier and should've been done years ago. There is no juco that could put on something of this magnitude. At State & UM think of the luxuries you have - real locker rooms, tons of support staff, ample restrooms, concessions & parking. Not to mention press facilities, the jumbo tron(s), playing surface and sound system making it a big time atmosphere.

I went tonight to see Starkville play and, honesty I was disappointed in the Starkville crowd. Looked like way more from Petal showed up. So I'm not buying the "South teams won't travel" argument.

An interesting tidbit I heard last year on the State/um rotation was that initially usm didn't submit a bid to host the championships. That's why it's at Starkville and oxford the first four years. Then out of the blue, usm gets added to the mix. Would really love to know who cried about the buzzards being left out, when at first it appeared they wanted nothing to do with it.

Considering the Governor is a Mustard Buzzard, you really have to ask?

[Taog Redloh]

I played in a state championship game when it was at the Vet. It's not an issue.

Great decision to play them at the college fields.

[Thrill1]

Considering the Governor is a Mustard Buzzard, you really have to ask?

Good point. And they'll find a way to screw it up.

[BulldogBear]

That trip to Dalton was a killer - my kids got home at 8:30 the next morning after all night on school buses.

And the Red Terrors won 24-16. We're going to the Dome!!

I wanted them to win just because of the knickname. Where did it come from? Is it a knick name for a particular local Civil War or Revolutionary War unit or something? Or just one they developed because they were awesome and wore red?

[Really Clark?]

Wow. Collins with an amazing come back. Down big time at one point in the second half. Behind with 38 seconds left and return the KO to go back up.

[BrunswickDawg]

I wanted them to win just because of the knickname. Where did it come from? Is it a knick name for a particular local Civil War or Revolutionary War unit or something? Or just one they developed because they were awesome and wore red?

Glynn Academy is pretty unique. It is the 6th oldest public high school in the country, chartered in 1788. According to legend passed around the students, they were supposed to be the Red Terriers and they misspelled it on a uniform order and it stuck. That is more a comment on our towns education level historically - and the city tends to misspell things on street signs constantly (kind of like our baseball scoreboard a few years ago). Our mascot is the "Red Terrors" and this mascot was created in 1918 by Glynn Academy student, Cormack McGarvey. He chose this name based on a phrase that described the political and violent campaigns of "Red Terror" by communist movements, potentially the scariest concept to Americans at that time. The mascot didn't have a visual attached to it at the time and Glynn Academy students have actually used numerous depictions to represent the "Red Terrors" over the years. The mascot is depicted as a fierce devilish creature with horns and accompanied by the interlocking letters G & A. It's a unique name. I've always thought is was cool.