After sitting idle last week, the Greeneville football team is ready to get back on the gridiron on Friday night as it returns to Region 1-4A action by hosting Volunteer at Burley Stadium.
“We need make sure we made the most of our break. We need to play our best football, because you want to be playing your best at the end of the year,” Greeneville coach Eddie Spradlen said. “We need to get better this week. This is another region game, and we have to treat it like that. We can’t allow fall break to make us come out flat. We have to bring a lot of energy and excitement.”
Greeneville enters the contests with a 7-0 record and 4-0 mark in Region 1-4A, but the Devils still have work to do. To have a chance at the region championship and to secure a home playoff game Greeneville needs to win on Friday. Both Elizabethton (5-2,4-0) and Seymour (7-1,4-1) are keeping pace in the league race.
If Greeneville wins two of its last three region contests it will secure a home playoff game. One win and a Seymour loss would also guarantee a postseason home game.
Regardless Friday will be the final home game of the regular season for Greeneville and prior to kickoff the Devils will celebrate Senior Night.
“Every year I tell our kids that they are going to remember senior night more than any other game, just because of the emotions that come with it. It’s a memory that will last forever. We aren’t guaranteed another home game, we have to keep winning to earn that,” Spradlen said.
Volunteer enters the game with a 4-3 record but is 1-3 in Region 1-4A play. If the Falcons do not win on Friday their playoff hopes fall out of their own hands and they will have to root for Cherokee and Northview Academy to lose in the closing weeks.
The Falcons have been involved in a handful of nailbiters in recent weeks. They edged out Chuckey-Doak 37-34 last week, fell to Northview 32-30 the week before, and before that they fell to Seymour 17-14.
The Greene Devils and Falcons have met 19 times since 1993 and Greeneville has won all 19 of those meetings. In addition to that the game has rarely been close. The narrowest margin came in 2007 when Greeneville won 17-7. Only one other time has the game been decided by less than two touchdowns. Volunteer has never scored in the first quarter against Greeneville, and in the last six meetings Volunteer has been outscored 232-0 in the first half. The average margin of victory in the series is 32.4 points.
Last year’s 7-4 mark was the most successful season in program history for Volunteer. Going back to 1980 when the Falcons first started playing football they have more zero-win seasons than they do winning seasons.
The Falcons come into Friday’s contest utilizing a two-quarterback system where Jordan Reed is the more likely passer and Jameson Mowell is the better runner, but last week Mowell threw for 174 yards against Chuckey-Doak.
Defensively this season the Falcons have loaded the box to stop the run, a strategy they implemented last year that resulted in Zaydyn Anderson setting a Greeneville record with 245 receiving yards.
This year the Devils’ passing attack might be more dangerous and if the Falcons rely on man-defense in the secondary Taren Claridy and Kaine Ricker could have a field day.
Through seven games Claridy had 1,095 receiving yards with 17 touchdowns. Ricker has thrown for 1,992 yards with 24 touchdowns and no interceptions while completing 84 percent of his passes.
“Last year they tried to play us in a lot of man coverage, and Zaydyn was able to break the school record in receiving yards,” Spradlen said. “I expect some similar stuff. They will try to put a lot of pressure on us with a lot of guys in the box, and I guess make us throw the football.”
The Devils are outscoring their opponents by an average of 40 points per contest this season.
Kickoff is set for 7:30 PM on Friday. The game will be streamed live on the Greene Sports Zone Facebook and YouTube pages. It will also be on the airwaves on WGRV 99.5 FM.
