It’s always a privilege to play high school football in November and for the 18th-straight season the Greeneville Greene Devils (7-2, 5-0) will be playing playoff football. Burley Stadium will be the host site as Greeneville welcomes in Knox Carter (4-6, 2-3) for Friday night’s Class 4A first-round game.
“It’s a special time of year when you get to this. It’s win or go home. Everybody’s got the same goal right now. Everybody wants to win the state championship. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to talk about Carter. We’ve got to be 1-0 this week. If you want to get to next week you’ve got to win this one,” Head Coach Eddie Spradlen stated.
The Greene Devils, fresh off their 4th-straight Region 1-4A Championship, open up the first round at home with the No. 4 seed Carter Green Hornets. Greeneville knocked off rival Elizabethton 41-7 last week in a dominant performance to earn the No. 1 spot in Region 1-4A and the ability to host the first two rounds of the playoffs. For Greeneville hosting isn’t anything new. It’s the 18th-straight season they’ve reached the playoffs and they’ve been fortunate enough to host the first round in each of those years.
Carter and Greeneville have playoff history in that time frame too. The Greene Devils swatted away the Hornets in the first round three-straight years from 2014 to 2016. They also met in the second round in 2011 which ended in a Greeneville victory. The Devils are 6-0 all time versus Carter.
Coach Spradlen is preparing for a team that many overlook, but should still be respected. They may have losses to three other regional opponents, but led at the half in two of those. They were tied 14-14 with Gibbs at the half and led Fulton 28-14 at the break. The Greene Devils have made sure to not overlook their opponents on Friday night.
“First and foremost, Carter is a dang good football team. They’ve been in some football games that they should’ve won and to be honest they’re probably the second best team in that region and we end up getting them in the first round,” Coach Spradlen explained.
Greeneville is riding a five-game winning streak after their loss to Alcoa on the road. Since then, it has outscored its opponents 281-42 in the five wins.
In last week’s win it was the defense who stood out and carried Greeneville to a comfortable lead going into halftime. Zaydyn Anderson and Isaac McGill’s pick sixes helped them sustain a lead before Carson Quillen turned it up a notch in the second half and scored his second a third touchdowns.
Carter’s offense will look to get past Greeneville’s stifling defense that rarely allows touchdowns. Coach Spradlen expects a spread offense that will look to run most of their offense through the air.
“They’re going to throw it a lot. They’ve got a quarterback that’s thrown for a lot of yards on the season. He throws a really good deep ball and a lot of those deep balls are 50/50 so it makes it really tough when a quarterback can throw a good deep ball so it’ll be a good challenge for our secondary,” Coach Spradlen stated.
Carter ended their regular season with a 49-14 win over Seymour.
Greeneville’s dynamic offense is averaging 373 yards-per-game this season. Carson Quillen has accounted for 27 total offensive touchdowns this season and has been their main weapon. His playmaking ability will be key in Friday night’s matchup.
“We’ve got to continue to run the football. For us to be able to run the football opens everything up for our offense,” Spradlen mentioned.
In nine regular season games Greeneville averaged 48 points-per-game on offense and allowed only 9 points-per-game on defense. They have held seven of their nine opponents to less than 10 total points.
Carter finished the regular season averaging 30 points-per-game with an allowance of 28 points-per-game. They have scored 27+ points in each of their last four games.
Kickoff is set for 7:00 PM at Burley Stadium on Greeneville’s campus.
