Franklin Co. tough schedule for former Salem assistant

[mike salem]

I know this belongs on the 6a board, but I doubt anyone would see it there that may be interested.

Schedule
Date Opponent Result
08/28 7:00p @ Liberty
09/04 7:00p @ Fleming
09/11 7:00p @ Pulaski County
09/18 7:00p Christiansburg
09/25 7:00p George Washington
10/02 7:00p @ Bassett
10/09 7:00p Heritage
10/16 7:00p Magna Vista
10/23 7:00p @ Halifax County
10/30 7:00p Liberty Christian

These teams had a combined record of 74-39 last year, with 9 making the playoffs. Coach Edwards will have a tough task in front of him, with Franklin Co coming off a 1-9 season last year.

 

[numb3rs]

I wonder why PH and Franklin County aren't playing. I thought they would always want to play one another.

 

[freeatlast2013]

Franklin County is a hard place to coach. One high school in a huge land area county.

 

[DinwiddieProud]

Franklin County is a hard place to coach. One high school in a huge land area county.

I was wondering how big Franklin County is. Wow, 712 square miles. Dinwiddie, which has a single high school also, is 507 square miles. I thought we were large. Franklin is huge. And with twice the population. Mike and I were chatting the other day about Franklin. I was wonder why the population was so large and they were 6a? Well duh, Smith Mountain Lake. When you seldom visit an area, you can't appreciate the demographics. Thanks Mike, for putting up my dumb questions.

 

[freeatlast2013]

From what I understand busing from some parts of the county is well over an hour. This makes it difficult for after school activities like football!

 

[tommythecpa]

From what I understand busing from some parts of the county is well over an hour. This makes it difficult for after school activities like football!

Back in the day, FC had trouble getting kids out until school starting because they had to work in the tobacco fields. That no longersituation no longer exists.

FC has some talent and lots of community support. There are issues with the distance and roads. Some of the roads are terrible pig paths around the Ferrum Henry area.

 

[numb3rs]

There's no reason that FC can't be very competitive against local teams in the regular season. However, the odds are very long that they'll ever make any noise in the playoffs unless by chance they get 2-3 Division I-A quality players at the same time.

 

[pcken]

From what I understand busing from some parts of the county is well over an hour. This makes it difficult for after school activities like football!

I've always said just because a school has a large enrollment doesn't always mean that's a big advantage. I would rather have 1000 students located in a tight area as a city has than a big county with 2000 students where many of the kids you have can't get to practice. In places like Radford, Salem, roanoke schools kids can hop on a bike and be at practice in 10 minutes. That's the big advantage.

 

[cutnjump]

I've always said just because a school has a large enrollment doesn't always mean that's a big advantage. I would rather have 1000 students located in a tight area as a city has than a big county with 2000 students where many of the kids you have can't get to practice. In places like Radford, Salem, roanoke schools kids can hop on a bike and be at practice in 10 minutes. That's the big advantage.

I agree a tight geographic area is an advantage, all other things being equal. How big that advantage is depends on how it is leveraged with other underlying factors. Obviously, the areas still have to have some athletes of comparable ability but, the logistical challenges of practice, film study, treatment, etc. are all magnified in widely dispersed counties as opposed to tightly concentrated more urban areas. For example both Martinsville(early 1970's) and Salem(through 1986 I think) were old AAA schools that became AA powerhouses(not saying they weren't competitive in AAA just much more dominant after moving to a lower classification) in benefitting from the tighter urban setting to some extent and to a much larger underlying extent in the already established recreation league feeder programs that a lot of their more rural competitors had not or could not replicate.