Christiansburg has a VERY solid football team this year. They are, in my opinion, the best team that Salem will play during the regular season. If I was a Christiansburg fan, here are a few things that I would be excited about for Saturday:
-Played Salem very tough for the entire first half last year at Salem.
-Christiansburg's JV team beat Salem last year.
-Have had more time to prepare as it is their first game of the season.
-Scrimmaged Franklin County about a week ago and FC is full of former Salem players/coaches and runs an almost identical offense and defense. They were very impressive in that scrimmage as well.
Very tough early season test for the Spartans. Christiansburg can run it and throw and it and have a very good dual-threat QB in MJ Hunter. They have a quality OL and DL with good size and run an offense that is difficult to prepare for and can really wear you down with the amount of lateral running they force you to do defensively... especially early in the season when conditioning is not very good, which this season is even more than usual. They have a couple of very nice receivers, a very good TE and about five players that will carry the ball (at RB, wingback and QB) that run hard and are all willing blockers. The defensive ends have the potential to cause a lot of trouble, especially Tyrique Taylor on the strong side. One of the weaker areas for Salem against Blacksburg was blocking out of the TE position and needs major improvement... CB has the potential to expose this even more, in my opinion. They are also well coached with a detail-focused staff, which you have to have when you play against Salem.
I'm not saying that is to overinflate an opponent for Salem. I think Christiansburg is going to be VERY GOOD this year and will make major noise in the playoffs... they are that good.
-Played Salem very tough for the entire first half last year at Salem.
-Christiansburg's JV team beat Salem last year.
-Have had more time to prepare as it is their first game of the season.
-Scrimmaged Franklin County about a week ago and FC is full of former Salem players/coaches and runs an almost identical offense and defense. They were very impressive in that scrimmage as well.
Very tough early season test for the Spartans. Christiansburg can run it and throw and it and have a very good dual-threat QB in MJ Hunter. They have a quality OL and DL with good size and run an offense that is difficult to prepare for and can really wear you down with the amount of lateral running they force you to do defensively... especially early in the season when conditioning is not very good, which this season is even more than usual. They have a couple of very nice receivers, a very good TE and about five players that will carry the ball (at RB, wingback and QB) that run hard and are all willing blockers. The defensive ends have the potential to cause a lot of trouble, especially Tyrique Taylor on the strong side. One of the weaker areas for Salem against Blacksburg was blocking out of the TE position and needs major improvement... CB has the potential to expose this even more, in my opinion. They are also well coached with a detail-focused staff, which you have to have when you play against Salem.
I'm not saying that is to overinflate an opponent for Salem. I think Christiansburg is going to be VERY GOOD this year and will make major noise in the playoffs... they are that good.
