Less than 24 Hours to Start of NC HS FB

PHOTO COURTESY OF DON CALLAHAN

Football version 2012 is just about here!  Yet another off-season has sped by and in less than 24 hours student-athletes from across the state of North Carolina will begin their first official practices of the 2012 season.  The last few years have been good for the local area when it comes to participation deep into the state playoffs.  Garner made it to the 4AA finals before falling short to a talented Summers'-led Greensboro Page squad, while the year before Hillside took home the 4A title and Wake Forest-Rolesville represented the East in the 4AA final against Butler.  As we look toward this season there is a lot of talk about possible deep playoff runs this year as well with a good bit of buzz surrounding the Hornets once again as well as a bit of chatter out of the CAP-8 where a very talented offensive juggernaut in the Wakefield Wolverines led by South Carolina commit Connor Mitch are garnering early attention [Choice plan helps Wakefield football]. It's real early still and even talented teams on paper have to benefit from a lot of things working out to reach the opportunity in the end to play for a state crown.  Regardless of how December turns out I have a feeling we'll see some exciting football here in the area so be sure to get out there and support our local student-athletes when you have the opportunity!

Our area is fortunate to have a number of news-outlets that work hard to support and report on prep student-athletes from around our area and as I understand it two of the larger outlets, WRAL-HighSchoolOT [HighSchooOT Coverage] and The News & Observer [N&O Prep Coverage] will both be accelerating into high gear to provide extensive coverage of the fall season and specifically the beginning of prep football.  HighSchoolOT is advertising 24 hours of coverage beginning at 12:01 AM on Monday, July 30 to follow the start of practice at Leesville Road High School [24 Hours of HSFB kicks off...].  Leesville Road's plan to have an early morning start were reported in the News & Observer by Tim Stevens earlier this week [Leesville Road to start football practice early].  Look for both outlets to provide extensive coverage with the start of practice through the end of the playoffs.  On the Durham scene, look to the Durham Herald-Sun to provide insight into local PAC-6 play.  As always, you can jump over to our FB News Now [FB News Now] page listed at the top of the page and find links to all of these outlets.  Finally, if you haven't checked it out yet, be sure to venture over to CarolinaPreps.com operated by Chris Hughes.  This site has developed over the years and Chris continues to work to introduce ways to interact with the North and South Carolina communities and is looking toward having a weekly radio broadcast focusing on football coverage news from throughout the state [CarolinaPreps.com].

CAP-8 Chaos For Third Place Auto Bid

PHOTO BY ROBERT WILLETT - THE NEWS & OBSERVER

It certainly feels like we are rounding that final corner and with just three games and in some cases two games remaining for most of the area teams, conference automatic bids are at stake and reaching the four win playoff qualification plateau is in the forefront for a number of teams.  Every Friday night during the fall is a great one to get out and watch a football game, but with the weather appearing to move even more into those 40's and 50's and with teams angling for a top three conference finish - tonight is guaranteed to be a great night for Football Friday.

In the following capsules (this post and others to follow and already submitted), we'll briefly hit on the 4A conferences around the area and talk playoff implications for this evening's games.

CAP-8

Leesville Road and Wake Forest-Rolesville are in the drivers' seat as we close out the season, both are 4-0 in conference with three conference games remaining for each and culminating with the match-up between the two to close out the 2011 regular season.  The Cougars are playing a Sanderson squad that is barely hanging onto playoff chances, as they'll need to win their final three to have a chance at being in a multi-team tie for the third position in the conference.  The Pride has a much more intriguing match-up against 2-2 in conference Millbrook.  The Wildcats along with Wakefield and Broughton all sit at 2-2 in conference play and essentially control their own chances of at the very least snagging a third place automatic bid or quite possibly scratching to a bit higher in the conference pecking order.  Millbrook sits in a great position, with Leesville tonight and WFR next week.  String together two wins and they are sitting in a strong spot to not only snag that third place finish put based on the LR/WFR game to close the season with a great shot at snagging the number two finish.  As for taking on the top of the conference to close out the season, why not, if you get the victories, most likely those will be the teams you have beat in tie-breakers at the end - so in affect a double win for Millbrook if they can pull it off.

Multiple Endowments, Oh My!

PHOTO BY LIZ CONDO - THE NEWS & OBSERVER

The following is an addendum to our post from yesterday entitled 'When Does 4 Wins Not Equal 4 Wins?' [Link to previous story].  Suggest you read that post prior to delving into the additional information below.

In further discussions since the original story was posted I was made aware (and went back to read the handbook a few more times) that in fact teams can actually have more than one endowment game (assuming NCHSAA approval)!  The key here is that any team can only have a total of 11 games in the season (there are only 11 weeks of playable dates).  If you play an 11 game schedule, you must have one of those games as an endowment.  If you play a 10 game schedule you can still have an endowment game.  So here are some additional points.  According to the NCHSAA football handbook, you must report a 10 game schedule at the end of the year.  So, if you are a team that has played only 10 games without an endowment, easy, you report that entire record, no games are dropped.  If you played a 10 game schedule and one of those games was an endowment, then you also keep that 10 game record. You don't drop the endowment in this case.  Or at least that is what it appears the handbook is saying.  It does not explicitly say this, rather the exact quote is as follows:

"Each school will only report a record indicating a total of 10 games and must drop the designated non-conference endowment game, provided they played an 11th game (endowment)."  NCHSAA handbook - section on football, page 53. [Link to NCHSAA Football Handbook Section]

As I read that, it looks to be saying what I wrote above for teams that played a 10 game schedule and also had one of those games listed as an endowment game.  You keep all of your games, the dropping of the game only occurs when you've played 11 total games and of course in that situation, one of them would have been an endowment.

Now, if you played an 11 game schedule and one of those games was an endowment.  You drop that game, the endowment game, again getting you down to a 10 game reportable schedule.

Where it may get a bit more interesting is that you can potentially play 'two' or more endowment games.  But, you had to designate prior to the season beginning which of those 'multiple' endowment games you chose to drop, win or lose.  This gets even more interesting due to at least one example that I've unearthed.  Jordan, Wake Forest-Rolesville and Panther Creek.  According to both the Jordan athletic sports calendar [Link to calendar posting] and Wake Forest-Rolesville athletic sports calender [Link to calendar posting], their contest that opened the season was an endowment game.  Not a big deal you say.  Sure, means that both teams drop that game.  Jordan gets rid of one of their losses, WFR has to give up a win (although that is tough on their end as it would have been nice to give up that East Wake loss instead, which would of been how it worked given last year's rules).  But, enter Panther Creek.  According to the article run by J. Mike Blake in the Cary News on Wednesday, 10/5/2011 [Link to article], it is reported that Panther Creek will play an endowment against Jordan, later this month.  Interesting or maybe not.  So, could the Jordan at Panther Creek game be an endowment, but simply not be the endowment designated by Jordan, but was designated by Panther Creek?  That's what it appears to be, at least based on all of the information.  And, it's important to note that as the NCHSAA handbook reads, there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with this situation - perfectly fine in fact.  Still, you can see how a very complex system is simply getting more complex and I can't help but think that this may lead to just a bit more confusion come Selection Saturday.  If everything runs smoothly, kudos to the NCHSAA and athletic directors and coaching staffs across North Carolina for being tuned into these new changes!

Photographs courtesy of newsobserver.com (The News & Observer)