So in your opinion Advocate, is Appomattox going to stay on the ridgetop or will they dropoff some? Do they just have a good batch of players at Varsity, or is it pretty high level down to JV & MS? I really like their coach, I'd like to see continued success for Appomattox. This past year was just amazing with the talent they had, especially for 2A. They just popped up out of nowhere last year. Previously, they had (9) .500 seasons or below, and (7) winning seasons. I wonder if they will settle back to normal or if Smith has the horses and the program to contend year in and year out?
Here is something I wrote about 2 months ago:
Appo will be strong next year too! Will be better than last season? Well...we have to wait and see. JV only loss 1 game last year so we do have talent coming up. Somebody said in earlier post that the talent trickles at middle school. I have been to a few games and I have to agree. I say Appo should have 2 more strong years, but Coach Smith is a great coach so who knows what he can do when they get to him? Smith has middle schoolers in the weight room every year. They ride the activity bus over.
We only loss 1 O Lineman (matthan drew), the rest are Juniors with 1 sophomore (3 started in 2014 as Sophomores) . OLine will be strong for years to come. JV has a lot of promise at OL as well. We are going to lose Marquise Morgan whom is a great blocking TE, but Raiders have someone to cover that next season that played OL (Center) this year.
Buster Henderson will be missed at WR, but we do have a lot of talent that can be used at WR, but there will never be another Buster. All of our RBs are Juniors. Phillip Fleshman will probably be one of the best RB in the state next season. Fast and speedster Tre Walker will be that 1-2 Punch off that veer O. Phillip and Trey compliment each other because both look same in uniform. Short, stubby, and explosive out the hole.
QB, Matt Page will be a hard position to fill, he was developed from 9th Grade (camps and playing QB at JV). We have Matts backup Javon Scruggs (Sophomore that plays Safety on D) that shows promise. He has WR/CB Devon Graves (Sophomore) who has experience at QB during middle school years. He will be probably looked at to compete for the position. Graves is the fastest kid on our team and will give Scruggs competition. I have heard RB phillip fleshman will be used in a few packages as well. 7 on 7s and qb camps should help coach smith gauge who is going to take over next year. I have already told yall that I think we lost our rising JV qb to the "life." Its a shame, he is a heck of an athlete. Javon is the one committed to the qb camps and I feel he is going to grow in the next two years.
Also, this year, we had the luxury of having players play one side of the ball in most positions. I dont see that happening as much next season. If he uses Graves (NC STATE commit) or Scuggs at QB, Im pretty sure Coach Smith wont let them play on D as much. Going to be interesting to watch. He did let Page play CB and QB 2 years ago before AC joint sprain, when Page came back, he only let him play CB due to physicality concerns.
I dont see anyone taking All State Deven Dews spot at Safety, that is going to be a concern as well unless he puts a Kelso brother back there. We do have 2 kids at JV Ryan Jackson/ Omar Bailey that will help out tremendously. They may be somebody that can slip back there at safety as well.
CB will be a concern as well. We will lose CB/WR Deshawn Thomas as well. He probably has the best hands on the team and the most underrated player on the Raiders in my opinion. He made many crucial stops for Raiders at CB. If he uses Graves at QB, then there will be a hole to fill on strong side CB (thats if he only wants him to play one side of ball).
IM GOING TO ADD THIS:
Well we did pop up out of no where but the group that took state won all the way through from little league, MS, JV, and then Varsity. So we seen this team grow and it took a great coach like Smith to take them all the way. I have seen many teams in various sports be good on feeder teams and then get to varsity to BLOW IT HARD!
You know what happens when you win it all, everyone wants to play now. So we have attracted some athletes that gave up on football 2 years ago to focus on baseball, basketball and track. This is going to benefit the Raiders because the kids we got back this year were great football players in the past (JV, MS, little league).
I hope this helps....
