A Spartan hope

[66Spartan2001]

Looking forward to the game Friday I was thinking about how this years team reminds me of the 2000 Salem squad. The 2000 team was riding a 28 game win streak and had seen Salem win the title 3 out of 4 years. Expectations were still pretty high but most people knew that the 2000 Spartans were not as talented as the previous few years.

Things got worse as the starting QB was lost for the season in a scrimmage with a broken collarbone. The second game of the season the win streak was snapped as Pulaski beat Salem 35-21 at Salem stadium. The Cougars featured two stud backs in Calfee and Cobbs and future Hokie/NFL tight end Jeff King. Pulaski won that game without a single pass attempt.

The next week was just as bad as Salem lost to Cave Spring 23-19 for the first time in 17 years. The win was later forfeited as Cave Spring had used an inelligible player that season. That was terrible news for the Knights as they were having one of their best seasons ever. They were Division 5 then and had beat Pulaski 49-14.

After 4 weeks Salem was 2-2 and ready to begin Blue Ridge District play. After beating Blacksburg 7-3 they lost the following week at Lord Botetourt 10-7. This was the first and only time Salem had lost to the Cavaliers.

The next week they regrouped and beat William Byrd 27-6 only to lose the following week to Northside 16-6. This Northside team featured future UVA lineman Jon Copper and future UCLA linebacker Justin London.

8 weeks into the season and Salem was 4-4 with thoughts of missing the playoffs. The coaches made some personnel adjustments on both sides of the ball and Salem finished the regular season strong beating Allegheny 35-7 and Christiansburg 52-0. The chips fell the right way and Salem was fortunate enough to make the playoffs.

The first playoff game Salem travelled to Lord Botetourt and completely dominated the Cavaliers. The hard hitting Salem defense knocked LB's record setting QB out of the game and left Daleville with a 41-0 victory.

Round 2 of the playoffs saw Salem travel back to Northside with a shot at redemption. On a very cold night in North Roanoke Salem emerged victorious 10-6.

The state semi-final was in Ridgeway against a high-powered Magna Vista team that many people expected to beat Salem. Salem dominated from the whistle as the Spartan defense shut down the Warriors offense and won the game 43-0.

The only thing left was a rematch of the previous state championship of Salem vs. Park View. It was a close hard fought game but once again the Spartan defense stepped up and scored the game winning touchdown on a fumble recovery return.

I know this probably seems like I'm rambling but here are the parallels:

- 2000 and 2017 teams are on the back end of a great championship run
- 2000 and 2017 lost to highly talented teams they had long winning streaks against. (Botetourt, Cave Spring, Blacksburg)
- 2000 and 2017 lost to highly talented out of district teams (Pulaski, Dinwiddie)
- 2000 and 2017 had injuries to star players ( Chris Schwizer and Luke Owen)
- 2000 and 2017 had a shot at redemption in the playoffs against teams that they lost to in regular season.

I'm curious to know what other Salem fans think about this. Maybe it's all baloney but I hope that this years team can pull together like the 2000 team did.

End of crazy Salem fan rant. haha

 

[Shabutie]

In case anyone is interested, I can shed some light on the ineligible player from Cave Spring if anyone is still wondering after all of these years. This player was a Junior linebacker/offensive guard. For some reason, Cave would only play him on offense even though he was by far the best linebacker on the team and he was very frustrated. It had been recently that this player lost his grandfather who helped raise them. His grandfather was a very good football player and coach who loved the game and he loved going to watch Salem because of the way they played and the coaching. He never lived in Salem or had any connection to it but he really respected the program and told the player's Mom several times that it would be a good idea to move to Salem. Frustrated with the playing time situation and other issues, the family decided to move to Salem. On arrival, the AD noticed that the player did not have five credits passed for the most recent semester, making him ineligible. What happened was that he passed Spanish 1 with a bad grade so he was asked to retake it again... he was told by the AD at Cave that he would get credit again for passing but that is not the case and made him short on credits. The family wondered if Cave knew all along and if that is why they kept somewhat hidden on the offensive line. Either way, the AD took the heat for it later and I believe got fired over it. Eventually, that forced Cave to forfeit all of the games he played in and that really stunk because this was one of the best teams Cave ever had and probably would have made noise in the 3A playoffs.... 3A was the largest as this was the old format.

Another thing that is very interesting/ironic is that he helped make one of the biggest plays in the game on special teams to beat Salem that year. Then, later on, they find out he is ineligible, thus giving Salem the win and helping them make the playoffs. People said, "if it wasn't for him Salem wouldn't have made the playoffs" but if he wasn't playing for Cave in the first place, Salem might have won that game. He ended up playing his senior year at Salem (LB and then later DE/TE) and was one of the best players on the team... speaking of Jon Copper, he absolutely dominated him when Salem played Northside his senior year. Eventually, he got to go up against Cave the next year and the Cave student section was going crazy that game yelling at him. He went from one of the most popular people at the school to public enemy #1. Salem was able to defeat Cave his senior year in a very close game and he also injured Cave's star QB on a big hit (Seperated shoulder) that really hurt their season. Salem did not have a great team in 2001 and got beat badly twice by a very good Pulaski team, finally in the playoffs, to end their season.

This player ended up being a US Navy SEAL and is very well-known in the Roanoke area and further... he actually does a ton of work with the Pittsburgh Steelers and helps train SWAT teams all across Virginia among other things.

Sorry about the long post... I know this will not be interesting to most of the people on this board but it might help some people that have wondered about the details for all these years.

 

[66Spartan2001]

Dave is that you? Haha

 

[66Spartan2001]

Now that the season is over it appears the parallels between 2017 and 2000 were spot on. Even something small like both Park View Sterling and Louisa running the single wing. As far as points allowed this years defense was the worst ever under Magenbauer. At 19.9ppg a full point per game worse than the 2010 team that finished 7-4. Pretty amazing to win the championship with those kind of numbers. I think that showed just how explosive this years offense was.

 

[insidedog]

I think it shows how much better the defense got as the year went on. If you look at the playoffs, when theoretically they should have been playing the best teams, the defense played very well.

 

[1MoreHokie]

Now that the season is over it appears the parallels between 2017 and 2000 were spot on. Even something small like both Park View Sterling and Louisa running the single wing. As far as points allowed this years defense was the worst ever under Magenbauer. At 19.9ppg a full point per game worse than the 2010 team that finished 7-4. Pretty amazing to win the championship with those kind of numbers. I think that showed just how explosive this years offense was.

The parallels between White's 3-peat and Mags' 3-peat are virtually identical. Unstoppable, young team in year 1, a senior-drive team in year 2, and a complete re-tooling in year 3 to make it work. You can dig further and draw even more similarities as well as far as how the team's defined themselves, playstyle, etc.

Feel like it's fairly even as well. I'd take '98 over '15 (the lines for '98 oof) and '17 over '00 ('00 had nobody like Ramsey on it) but I think '99 vs '16 would be something to watch.

 

[southbottomU]

The parallels between White's 3-peat and Mags' 3-peat are virtually identical. Unstoppable, young team in year 1, a senior-drive team in year 2, and a complete re-tooling in year 3 to make it work. You can dig further and draw even more similarities as well as far as how the team's defined themselves, playstyle, etc.

Feel like it's fairly even as well. I'd take '98 over '15 (the lines for '98 oof) and '17 over '00 ('00 had nobody like Ramsey on it) but I think '99 vs '16 would be something to watch.

Truly amazing parallels. I would put them in this order 1. 98. 2. 15. 3. 99. 4. 16. 5. 17. 6. 00. Loved them all