Let's talk about some football. I'm interested in the Sherando defense. Anyone have stats? Opinions if you've seen them play?
Salem vs Sherando Football Discussion
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Sherando gives up on average 17.6 points a game and has lost two games this year, both by 3 points, to Martinsburg (WV) and Liberty (though for the Liberty game they played without their starting QB for most of the second half due to an injury).
Martinsburg is ranked in the USA Today top 25 national poll, and gives up 9 points per game on average while scoring 56.5 points on average. They needed a last minute field goal to put away Sherando earlier this year to win by the score of 31-28.
Sherando played without star defender JoJo Doleman in the win over Liberty last week. He was the Northwestern District Defensive Player of the Year. I haven't heard anything about his status for this weekend, so I can't comment there.
I haven't seen Salem play this year but from what I've heard they've made some massive improvements since August. Sherando has had some trouble containing quicker players when facing a team that can run and pass at a high level. However, they managed Millbrook's speedsters more than adequately, and in my opinion Millbrook fielded a much more well-rounded team than last year.
That being said, I can't remember seeing a Sherando team that has forced as many turnovers as this one. The past few years Sherando has capitalized off errors by their opponents, but this year it's more a case of them forcing the errors.
Martinsburg is ranked in the USA Today top 25 national poll, and gives up 9 points per game on average while scoring 56.5 points on average. They needed a last minute field goal to put away Sherando earlier this year to win by the score of 31-28.
Sherando played without star defender JoJo Doleman in the win over Liberty last week. He was the Northwestern District Defensive Player of the Year. I haven't heard anything about his status for this weekend, so I can't comment there.
I haven't seen Salem play this year but from what I've heard they've made some massive improvements since August. Sherando has had some trouble containing quicker players when facing a team that can run and pass at a high level. However, they managed Millbrook's speedsters more than adequately, and in my opinion Millbrook fielded a much more well-rounded team than last year.
That being said, I can't remember seeing a Sherando team that has forced as many turnovers as this one. The past few years Sherando has capitalized off errors by their opponents, but this year it's more a case of them forcing the errors.
The Sherando defense has a number of key players to watch for. SR. Safety #5 Aaron Banks is headed to Richmond to play ball. He's a playmaker on defense and on offense. Banks plays WR and had two touchdown catches last week against Liberty. SR. #7 Michael Perry is a speedy physical linebacker who is getting looks from JMU and Richmond among others. Perry leads the team with 8 sacks. SO. LB #33 Payne Bauer flies all over the field and made a number of big plays last week including a deflected pass on 4th down inside the Warrior 5 and a tackle on 4th down also inside the Sherando 5 at the end of the 1st Half.
Salem has had to deal with the injury bug (as do all teams) and have made great adjustments to compensate. They've lost their RB/CB/PR, WR/S, MLB, LB/TE & OL/DT. Hopefully both teams will have a hard fought, but injury free game.
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Game predictor has Salems chance of winning at 55 percent. That's not much. I think a lot of Salem fans are thinking that Sherando will be just another northern Virginia team that gets boat raced in Salem Stadium. I really think they are wrong. Sherando will be tougher and more fundamentally sound than those teams. I look for a very very close game with both teams in the twenties.
Very concerned about this. There gets to be a tipping point where those injuries really start to show.
Martinsburg is a good team but, I would be extremely surprised if they are anywhere near USA Today's national Top 25. Haven't seen them in person this year but, in their best years in the past they would be hard pressed to make an all class Top 25 in the State of Virginia.
They would be top 10 if not top 5 in Virginia this year and last year, regardless of classification. I know it's only 7-on-7, but they won the Airo 7-on-7 tournament over the summer which included Highland Springs, Heritage (Lynchburg), and Stafford, all of which are highly ranked teams in Virginia.
And while I think these lists are made off of consistent success at the state level rather than a poll like what we have in college, they are ranked nationally:
http://www.journal-news.net/sports/local-sports/2017/11/bulldogs-ranked-in-top-25-nationally/
Yea like that's neat and all but those types of national rankings mean nothing. They would get absolutely decimated by so much of the top of many states it wouldn't be funny. I'm sure they're amazing and phenomenal and Salem's best team ever is 40 points worse than Martinsburg's worst teams ever but you guys continually mention how great they are to help soften the blow of the loss and you've been doing it for years.
Sherando's played that team since 2010 it seems and there's been two blowouts, a 13 point loss, then three 7 point losses and this year's 3 point loss. You've essentially been a play away from beating them 4 of 7 times. Either Sherando belongs in the national top 20 on a yearly basis since Martinsburg is an unstoppable juggernaut and barely beats Sherando or they're a very good team in a very, very bad state for HS football.
These national rankings are fluff garbage. Amherst ended up there once in like the top 50, Salem was top 75 in one a couple years ago and I'm telling you that without a shadow of a doubt there's 75 teams between Texas, Florida, and California alone that would beat the brakes off Salem in a given year to say nothing of far superior HS states like Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc.
Martinsburg does the best it can with what it has and they do it well but they are in actuality not remotely close to one of the top 25 teams in the country in a given year. If I had to guess I think the school is mostly a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point.
There's nothing wrong with losing to Martinsburg but you guys sell it like you're playing De La Salle or Allen or American Heritage and Martinsburg just isn't that good.
Sherando's played that team since 2010 it seems and there's been two blowouts, a 13 point loss, then three 7 point losses and this year's 3 point loss. You've essentially been a play away from beating them 4 of 7 times. Either Sherando belongs in the national top 20 on a yearly basis since Martinsburg is an unstoppable juggernaut and barely beats Sherando or they're a very good team in a very, very bad state for HS football.
These national rankings are fluff garbage. Amherst ended up there once in like the top 50, Salem was top 75 in one a couple years ago and I'm telling you that without a shadow of a doubt there's 75 teams between Texas, Florida, and California alone that would beat the brakes off Salem in a given year to say nothing of far superior HS states like Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc.
Martinsburg does the best it can with what it has and they do it well but they are in actuality not remotely close to one of the top 25 teams in the country in a given year. If I had to guess I think the school is mostly a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point.
There's nothing wrong with losing to Martinsburg but you guys sell it like you're playing De La Salle or Allen or American Heritage and Martinsburg just isn't that good.
I agree. Salem, Blacksburg, the top 4 region 4B teams, and most of the good Richmond and NoVA teams would beat Martinsburg this season. It would be very interesting to see what playoff seed Martinsburg would get if they were in VA.
Martinsburg is ranked 493 in CalPreps' rankings. For comparison, Louisa is 441, Lafayette is 536, Salem is 570, and Sherando is 1,222. The best team that Martinsburg defeated was a 49-28 win over #1,114 Capital (Charleston, WV).
Louisa is actually the #2 team in Virginia behind #168 Colonial Forge. (Not saying I agree, just what their algorithm calculates.)
Martinsburg would be a solid contender in Virginia Class 4 this year, but they're definitely not one of the top 25 teams in the US.
Louisa is actually the #2 team in Virginia behind #168 Colonial Forge. (Not saying I agree, just what their algorithm calculates.)
Martinsburg would be a solid contender in Virginia Class 4 this year, but they're definitely not one of the top 25 teams in the US.
Since 2013 Salem has played quite a schedule in the playoffs. 20 games so far in five years. Here they are starting in 2013: Sal. 49 Fauqier 27, Sal 52 Dominion 26, Sal 42 Woodgrove 25, Sal 0 Sherando 7, Sal 52 C-ville 13, Sal 38 Woodgrove 28, Sal 49 GW Danville 28, Sal 34 Liberty bealton 17, Sal 16 Lake Taylor 41, Sal 35 Amherst 7, Sal 34 John Champe 7, Sal 42 Jefferson Forest 21, Sal 17 Lake Taylor 14, Sal 59 Millbrook 14, Sal 24 William Byrd 17, Sal 38 Dominion 22, Sal 31 Dinwiddie 27, Sal 70 C-ville 34, Sal 42 GW Danville 13, Sal 33 Blacksburg 32
This is a record of 18-2
This is a record of 18-2
Is it just me or does anybody else want Sherando to beat the brakes off of Salem?
Yeh keep talking... didn’t even think we would be here this year... but the more Salem people run the mouth.... the more I think we do.
Lots of ruffled feathers around here lately. I was just stating the fact that they are ranked nationally. I said in my post that those rankings aren't comparable to something like the AP or Coaches' polls, but someone said they'd be surprised if they actually were ranked so I thought I'd give them the source of my information. Do I think they could go toe to toe with the best teams from say, Texas? No, I don't think so. That doesn't change the fact that they're ranked.
And at least in the 7-on-7, they did beat some of the top teams from NoVa and the Richmond areas. Highland Springs won the 5A championship last year and couldn't beat out the Bulldogs over this past summer.
And at least in the 7-on-7, they did beat some of the top teams from NoVa and the Richmond areas. Highland Springs won the 5A championship last year and couldn't beat out the Bulldogs over this past summer.
Sherando fans have been acting like Martinsburg is the greatest team of all-time since you guys started the series. Look, I get why you do it, because at least if you lose you lost to a team with a great rep and two of those first few years when they blew your doors off that was fine but every year one of you guys pulls the defeatist "well, we'll never beat Martinsburg" act out follow by "because they've been the best in WV for the last 93 years with 248 state titles and every team they beat actually burns their stadium to the ground and salts the earth" and you guys come within like a play of beating them.
I would just assume everyone rolls their eyes at this point to see you guys bending over backwards to kiss the ass of a team you by all intentions are mostly equals with anyway. I mean take as much offense as you want but Sherando hasn't been beating down the door to the state title in 4A in the past few years and Martinsburg has struggled to beat you during that time. Christ, you were 6-4 last year and they only won by 7.
That is just bad logic. Salem posters "running their mouth" won't have any effect on who wins the game. If Sherando wins, it will be because they were better, not because a Salem poster correctly pointed out that a completely different team isn't as good as some people think.
Interesting, my post concerning the game have all been predicting a close hard fought game. Have repeatedly pointed out Sherandos victory over Salem in 2013. So who are the Salem people running their mouth?
Especially funny since as usual in the POs, fans of opposing teams key in on the 1-2 people who always post "Salem by a billion" and go "see, Salem thinks they're invincible!" What's equally funny is how often the people posting that aren't even Salem fans.
It's sad but it's the norm for Salem opponents at this point, to invent some disrespect campaign so if they win they can come running back to the boards to throw it in the faces of a bunch of people who never said those things. Do you remember how bad it got when Salem played LT?
You're grossly exaggerating to the point of it being a straw man argument. The last time Salem played Sherando I had nothing but good experiences with their fans, and I hope for more of the same on Saturday.
The away crowd has filled the opposing stands for every away game so far this year, but I doubt it'll be a massive turnout. Maybe around the amount that showed up to the Dinwiddie game a few years ago. The band isn't scheduled to go and hasn't been at the playoff games, so unless the director puts together a last minute thing I doubt they'll be there. The funds haven't been there for a few years now.
That's a shame. Salem is
Fortunate to always have the band at all away games and playoff games. Salem fans should realize that they are lucky
Fortunate to always have the band at all away games and playoff games. Salem fans should realize that they are lucky
I am not sure what rankings you think you are looking at but, in both the online and USA print versions Martinsburg is not in Top 25. In fact the online version has ONE team from Va and Eva in the Top 100 and that is Colonial Forge. As I said Martinsburg has a good team but not Top 25 in USA. As far as them being Top 5 in Virginia and trying to use 7 on 7 to justify that it is laughable. Martinsburg would get spanked by any number of 5A and 6A teams in Nova, Richmond and Tidewater in my opinion.
I'm sure you'll have another good one this Saturday. 7 points either way is how I see it.
