The Chuckey-Doak Black Knights return back to Lower Afton and step into Region 1-3A play for the first time this season as they welcome the visiting Pigeon Forge Tigers to The Black Hole on Friday night.
Chuckey-Doak stole one away from the Tigers in last year’s 7-0 victory and would love to do the same this time around. Region wins are hard to come by in Region 1-3A and Coach Billy Kaylor knows Friday night’s challenge won’t be any different.
“They are an extremely well-coached football team. They’re extremely sound and they don’t make a lot of mistakes,” Coach Kaylor stated. “In high school football region wins are big and they’re not easy to come by. It doesn’t particularly matter in this region who you play, region wins are big.”
In this week’s TSWA football rankings, the Tigers fell just short of the top ten, but hold the most receiving votes out of non-ranked teams. Their record currently stands at 3-1 (0-1) with one region loss already on their record after a 35-14 loss to Unicoi County two weeks ago.
They have one common opponent in Grainger. Chuckey-Doak wasn’t able to overcome a half filled with turnovers and mistakes and fell to the Grizzlies 42-21. Pigeon Forge was able to leave Rutledge with a 49-21 win over them.
The Black Knights stand at 1-3 (0-0) and have endured a tough stretch over the last two weeks with multiple injuries. An already young team got even younger with new players stepping in to fill those roles. It’s been a tough two-week stretch losing two games to county rivals, but a win over Pigeon Forge would provide a huge confidence boost to a team hungry to prove themselves.
“It’d be huge,” Coach Kaylor expressed. “A win for us at home in our first region game would be big if we get the opportunity to steal that.”
The game plan going in is simple. Take care of what you can take care of and give yourself a shot to win the game.
“We’ve got to win the line of scrimmage, we’ve got to cut out the mistakes, we can’t have the snap issues and penalties that kind of stuff. Play cleaner, win the line of scrimmage, and play with great effort,” Coach Kaylor mentioned. “We’ve got to block, we’ve got to tackle, secure the ball, and play clean to give ourselves a chance.”
Pigeon Forge were in Chuckey-Doak’s shoes last year with a young roster. That roster has matured, developed, and learned the system that is being taught. “They’re very experienced and a talented football team,” Kaylor said.
Their offense consists of gun wing-t, buck sweep, and counter sets. The defense presents a three-down odd front with physical players all around. “We’ve got to be very clean and very physical because they are a very physical football team,” Kaylor stated.
We’ve seen what Chuckey-Doak’s offense can do when they get going. They put 71 points on Unaka, but have struggled to gain their rhythm the past two weeks putting up 13 & 14 points. They average 30 points-per-game and will stand opposite of a Pigeon Forge team allowing 26 points-per-game.
On the opposite side of things, Chuckey-Doak has struggled to get off the field on defense and allows 43 points-per-game going into Friday night. Pigeon Forge averages a modest 32 points going into the contest.
The Black Knights and Tigers are set for a 7:00 kickoff time in Lower Afton.
