What was Robert Anderson's prediction for Salem-FC game?
- Thread starter FCEagle90
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I laughed at that prediction. Salem looks really good this year, but I think Franklin County has improved just as much and will give Salem a closer game. We'll see
FC will be a very tough game for Salem. Edwards knows Salem very well and will have his team ready. I expect a physical game and the winner in the trenches will win this game.
I still say whoever scores the most points will win.
You are so wrong, I believe whoever scores the fewest points will lose
Thanks for letting me know, Anderson usually has a pretty good handle on how teams match-up. Franklin County looked really good against Liberty Bedford, but Liberty is not in the same class with Salem.
I did see that Franklin County JV's won a close game last night, 28 - 26.
You don’t have to pay to see it online. I read the “high school football predictions” article last night for free. After you’ve read a certain number of articles, I think they start asking that you take a survey in order to be able to access further articles. But all you have to do is click “Skip Survey”, and the article will be accessible. I hadn’t bought a paper edition in well over a year, and was flabbergasted recently when I found that the newsstand price for the daily edition is now $2.00. With less content than ever.
As for the game itself, I agree this should be a tough, evenly-played game. Probably low-scoring, by today’s standards. It should be a very good game.
ISP is what it says, the company that has their cable plugged into your wall e.g. Comcast, Cox, etc. What you mean is the browser.
Switching browsers does give you another 10 articles at RT each month but you don't even need to do that, just right-click the link and choose incognito/private browsing and you can read more without changing browsers.
You can also use outline.com or archive.org and copy/paste the links into there to get around more serious paywalls for bigger newspapers that might recognize incognito/private-mode browsing.
FC is a really solid team this year. They are extremely good up front defensively... #67 and #70 are going to give Salem a really hard time running the ball... 67 (Hairston) is one of the best DTs in the area that I have seen... they have three quality interior DL that are stout. The front 7 in general is very, very good with some OLBs that can run and a very good senior MLB in Parker Scott. They also have a lot more speed and athleticism in the defensive backfield than they have had in recent years and the entire defense is very well coached: Gap sound, understand leverage at all levels, how to spill when taking on pulls, recognizing down blocks/fighting through them, etc. In addition, they have the advantage of playing against a very similar offense (Their own) all summer camp. This defense has the potential to be one of the best if not the best that Salem plays against all year.
Offensively they made some slight tweaks this year. They are aligning that tailback much closer to both the fullback and the LOS this year and they are actually consistently running the fullback this year, which is not something they have done as much of in the past and makes their running game where more difficult to defend, imo. The fullback (Wright) is a freshman that is very talented and #10 Smith at tailback is a quality runner. They have good size and technique up front and the passing game has looked improved quite a bit from last year.
Another huge thing that they have going for them is that they only have one player that I have seen play both ways (#8 Stockton) and they still give him a lot of breaks on offense.
I cannot overstate how quality of a team I think they have.
Offensively they made some slight tweaks this year. They are aligning that tailback much closer to both the fullback and the LOS this year and they are actually consistently running the fullback this year, which is not something they have done as much of in the past and makes their running game where more difficult to defend, imo. The fullback (Wright) is a freshman that is very talented and #10 Smith at tailback is a quality runner. They have good size and technique up front and the passing game has looked improved quite a bit from last year.
Another huge thing that they have going for them is that they only have one player that I have seen play both ways (#8 Stockton) and they still give him a lot of breaks on offense.
I cannot overstate how quality of a team I think they have.
My prediction is.....if Salem blows them out, The RT, WDBJ 7 will spend all their ink and video tape in singing the Spartans praises. If FC pulls an upset ( which I doubt...I mean Salem is SALEM and they're almost impossible to beat at home, nothing but respect) the Eagles will be lucky to get a paragraph in tomorrow's RT.....and WDBJ's FFE MIGHT show the score and a short touchdown run....maybe. Last week FC shut out a team that beat them pretty well last season....and gets very little press from either outlet. But I digress...FC has never been a world beater or certainly in the class of the Spartans, but even in the Billy Miles/ Chris Jones eras when we've had some success, the local news outlets have mostly ignored it. I'm sure that won't change any time soon. Hope coach Edwards and the Eagles give them something they CAN'T ignore tonight! If nothing else, the matchup with the Spartans will be an excellent measuring stick as to what caliber of a team they have in Rocky Mount this year...but the same could be said about anyone playing Salem at their house!
Great game... FC has a heck of a team.
Fun game. Salem never felt out of control but FC wouldn't go away, they just lack a true scoring threat and it's hard to ask your O to grind it out all the time. They're not going to be an easy out for anyone, well coached and make few mistakes.
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Good football team. Salem just had a few more playmakers.
Hats off to Coach Edwards and the Eagles. I knew it was going to be a tough game, but they really left it all on the field! It was good to see Coach Edwards after the game and wish them the best for the rest of the season. They played very sound football tonight.
#67 Hairston for FC was as dominant up front that I have seen against a Salem OL in a very long time. The interior Salem OL is going to have nightmares thinking about him.
Gideon Driscoll was really good for Blacksburg a few years ago and gave Salem a lot of trouble as 0/1 nose but it was nothing like this. Its hard to image a Salem team having negative yards rushing between the tackles the majority of their plays and still winning the game. Chaney struggled some in the first half but played a very good second half and made some huge throws late in the game.
I can't understate how good this front is for FC. They have the ingredients to make it tough for any team but especially Salem's offense with a dominant nose and stout 3 and 7 techniques. Salem's OL still has a ways to go with their steps up front. They had a lot of false steps/crossovers and are just not getting off the ball fast enough. FC's OL was quite a bit better in this regard and had a lot of success on their inside running game in the second half.
Great win for Salem to find a way to pull it out and I think it was the perfect game for them to learn from going into their bye week. I can't say enough about this Franklin County team. They have a much different challenge next week that won't play into their strengths as much but Glass better come ready to play if they want to pull it out.
Gideon Driscoll was really good for Blacksburg a few years ago and gave Salem a lot of trouble as 0/1 nose but it was nothing like this. Its hard to image a Salem team having negative yards rushing between the tackles the majority of their plays and still winning the game. Chaney struggled some in the first half but played a very good second half and made some huge throws late in the game.
I can't understate how good this front is for FC. They have the ingredients to make it tough for any team but especially Salem's offense with a dominant nose and stout 3 and 7 techniques. Salem's OL still has a ways to go with their steps up front. They had a lot of false steps/crossovers and are just not getting off the ball fast enough. FC's OL was quite a bit better in this regard and had a lot of success on their inside running game in the second half.
Great win for Salem to find a way to pull it out and I think it was the perfect game for them to learn from going into their bye week. I can't say enough about this Franklin County team. They have a much different challenge next week that won't play into their strengths as much but Glass better come ready to play if they want to pull it out.
Thank you for posting. That play was really close to being a pick 6. Great game by FC!
It's hard to tell from the video, but a case could be made for Offensive PI on the play. It appears that the Salem player who is down on the field impeded the DB progress.
As good as their interior play was, we're either very fast around the edge or they're just slow sideline-to-sideline because every time we kicked it outside we chunked them big. I don't know if JR was just determined to take away our bread and butter inside or if they have problems on the edges. Probably find out real quick next week with Glass.
Definitely not.
The Salem player tripped and fell and then the defender had to jump over him. Unfortunate for FC as that defender would have possibly had a shot at the ball and their was no Salem player on that side of the field if the ball got intercepted.
Last clip for tonight. Full game will be uploaded tomorrow!
Quick edit of all the scoring plays from tonight
Quick edit of all the scoring plays from tonight
That change to a 40 second playclock is going to be death for a lot of teams in games with mismanaged TOs. FC got stuffed on 4th with 2:40 left and gave the ball back. Salem ran once for a first down and with 1:47 left after that (long run of 8-9 yards and solid scrum for another 3-4 yards that caused the play to run long) they simply kneeled the game out because FC had used all 3 TOs already. Definitely going to be something to think about for coaches going forward because that is a full 2 minutes you cannot stop the clock for otherwise now.
Like I said, hard to tell from the video, and I wasn't saying it should have been called. I just saw the guy on ground and the defender veered for whatever reason
A case couldn't be made. That is what I was saying "definitely not" to. I understand what you were saying though.
In my opinion, Salem’s biggest area of concern, and perhaps area for room for most improvement is special teams. Opponents will start catching on, and the teams with more depth will have better short receivers that will take advantage of those short kickoffs. It’s rather vexing anyway, as Grepiotis is capable of reaching the end zone - his first kickoff last week did. But the kickoff return TD given up last week seems to have been the death knell for any further deep Salem kicks.
Most of the long snaps have been weak, thus far. A bad snap on Salem’s final point after attempt left the door open for Franklin County in a big way. Punting has not been too good, either; last week it didn’t matter, but tonight a shanked punt gave FC excellent field position, leading to the Eagles’ first TD. Putting Logan at punter was an interesting wrinkle. After that first bad effort, he did all right punting (and had the forty-some yard run on fourth down).
The good news is it’s still quite early, and I know none of this has gone unnoticed by the coaching staff. I look forward to seeing how the Spartans improve in special teams in the weeks to come.
Most of the long snaps have been weak, thus far. A bad snap on Salem’s final point after attempt left the door open for Franklin County in a big way. Punting has not been too good, either; last week it didn’t matter, but tonight a shanked punt gave FC excellent field position, leading to the Eagles’ first TD. Putting Logan at punter was an interesting wrinkle. After that first bad effort, he did all right punting (and had the forty-some yard run on fourth down).
The good news is it’s still quite early, and I know none of this has gone unnoticed by the coaching staff. I look forward to seeing how the Spartans improve in special teams in the weeks to come.
I think Logan punting was the gameplan period, it just unfortunately happened that his first was in our EZ and a bad snap forced him to rush it and shank it. However, because of that when they put him in again the next series he was able to easily make his long scramble and set up Salem to even the score. His other two punts were honestly fine for the most part. Totally agree about kickoffs but who knows what we'll see in 2 weeks anyway, I'm curious if any of this was done to throw FC off since their staff is so intimately acquainted with the Salem way of doing things.
Work to be done but there's a lot of good pieces in place for Salem.
Since it is like you described, no no case could be made, but the split second I saw and without the full view it looked as if something could have happened.
Glass will have a challenge this week, and they better not look past Franklin County.
