Oscar Smith Falls in National Game
by Andy Hilton, recruit757
Oscar Smith WR Quinta Funderburk (Photo: Andy Hilton/recruit757)
School’s back in session and reality has come home to roost at Oscar Smith. Coach Morgan and the Tigers have some work to do and you can be certain that the boys will be working extra hard this week.
The good news for Oscar Smith is that they won’t see another team like Pickerington Central until they get deeper into the playoffs this fall, assuming that Oscar Smith takes their usual role as regional frontrunner. Pickerington Central of Ohio is nationally ranked and was playing in front of a partisan home crowd. It is much like the advantage that Oscar Smith had when they hosted Venice High School of Florida at this point last year.
Central can tout the star power of their players. Safety Eilar Hardy has already verbally committed to Notre Dame. Cornerback Tamani Carter has been offered by Air Force, Arizona, Iowa, Minnesota, Stanford and Kent State. There’s really no one else on Oscar Smith’s regular season schedule that has that kind of college recruitment going on.
It’s not as though Smith fell flat. They performed well on a national stage against a highly ranked team. J.J. Williamson was 17 for 29 and 352 yards passing. Quinta Funderburk had seven receptions for an astounding 224 yards and two touchdowns (that’s 32 yards a catch!). The run defense for Pickerington was stellar as they held J.C. Coleman to only 39 yards on 15 carries.
Smith could have played better on special teams. They gave up way too much in terms of field position and put their defense in unenviable positions most of the afternoon. Still, midway through the third quarter, Oscar Smith only trailed 23-20. The game was in their grasp. The momentum moved away from our Tigers when Eilar Hardy ripped off a 55 yard touchdown run and the Pickerington Central Tigers never looked back.
The final score of 36-20 was a bitter pill for Oscar Smith. Beginning today, they’ll be back to class in more ways than one.
All in all, Oscar Smith got a lot of benefit from playing in a nationally televised game at a college facility far away from home. From here, the rest of the season is all too familiar. It should take a while before any of the Tigers take an opponent lightly, not that they did in this case. Upcoming games against Indian River and Kings Fork will be approached like games against nationally ranked competition, and that won’t bode well for the Braves and the Bulldogs.
Will the rest of the Southeastern District see Oscar Smith as the Black Knight with a chink in his armor? Many schools won’t have the personnel that Pickerington Central did, but you can bet that every coach on the schedule watched the game yesterday looking for holes in Oscar Smith’s schemes and execution.
Oscar Smith hasn’t lost a regular season game since their November 3, 2006 tilt against Hickory. Knowing Oscar Smith’s coaching staff, work started last night on a plan that will remedy yesterday’s miscues.
- Andy Hilton
Oscar Smith Hits National Stage Today
by Andy Hilton, recruit757
Oscar Smith Head Coach Rich Morgan (Photo: Andy Hilton/recruit757)
It’s not unfamiliar territory for Oscar Smith. They finished the 2008 season ranked in the top 10 nationally and that notoriety carried them into the 2009 season. With Blue Chip All-American Quarterback Phillip Sims at the helm, the Tigers carried a top 10 national ranking all of last year. That team opened the season with a home game against Venice, Florida that aired on ESPN. This year, the challenge will be greater.
This year’s Oscar Smith squad gets the challenge of hitting the road and playing one of Ohio’s top prep teams. They’ll play the game on national television, but this time they won’t have the friendly confines of their home stadium to do it in. They get to play in 102,000 seat Ohio Stadium. The Horseshoe. Home of The Ohio State Buckeyes.
Oscar Smith will also have to face this task without Phillip Sims for the first time in four years. Sims has gone on to the University of Alabama. In his place will be junior quarterback Jaylin “J.J.” Williamson. Williamson will not only play his first varsity game today, but he’ll play in front of a hostile crowd, out-of-state, in a major venue, against a nationally ranked team. Talk about a trial by fire.
Pickerington Central is the top team in Columbus, Ohio and has won their division each of the past four years. The Central Tigers lost in the second round of last year’s playoffs to the eventual State Champions. That sounds eerily similar to Oscar Smith’s story. Oscar Smith has won the Southeastern District each of the last six years and lost in the State Semifinals last year to eventual State Champion Thomas Dale High School.
The style of the two teams are contrasting. Pickerington Central runs a multi-formation offense that is lead by two quarterbacks and relies on one main back for the running attack. Their line is big and strong. Oscar Smith on the other hand, will rely solely on Williamson to lead the way. Williamson has numerous offensive weapons at his disposal including a receiver corps that’s no less than five men deep. BCS recruit Quinta Funderburk will lead the way for Oscar Smith this year, and at 6-5 210, he provides a tall, rangy target.
The difference between the two may ultimately be size vs. speed. Oscar Smith might not be able to penetrate the Pickerington Central offensive line the way they’d like to without running around the size that Central will present. Central may try to bull their way through Oscar Smith’s defense. On the offensive side of the ball, Oscar Smith may find that they can utilize their speed to elude Central’s defense. That’s if Williamson can efficiently distribute the ball and keep mistakes to a minimum.
If Pickerington Central doesn’t knock Oscar Smith in the teeth with physical play early on, expect Smith to maintain their swagger and gain more confidence as the game goes on. If Oscar Smith is in the game late, they could easily find a way to win it. Pickerington Central’s best chance at a win may be an early round knockout.
Oscar Smith vs. Pickerington Central, 4PM today on ESPNU
- Andy Hilton
Conference Watch: ACC Now Solid With TV Deal
The Atlantic Coast Conference announced a deal with ESPN yesterday that bundles Football and Men’s Basketball television broadcast syndication rights and locks them up in a twelve year deal. The AP reports that the deal is worth $1.86B over the course of the contract.
This deal would take the 12 ACC schools from a current deal that nets them roughly $6M per school per year to an average of about $12.9M per school per year with the new deal. In other words, it’s far less likely that any ACC school is going to bolt from the league due to compensation concerns.
The conference shake-up is far from over, but there will be less concern now that an ACC school would bolt to the SEC for instance. The Big 12 will still want to expand to at least 12, the Big 10 might want to rename itself the Big 12, and the Big East may see a split along Football only lines and a subsequent expansion, but for now things are calm.
Don’t expect that to last forever.
Tarheel Football Ready For ESPN
Tomorrow’s the big day for Tarheel Football. In case you hadn’t heard, or in case you forgot, Carolina’s Spring Game will be on ESPN tomorrow at 3PM. Admission is free and they’re making quite a show of it.
There is a full day’s worth of activities planned including live bands, stuff for the kids, autograph sessions and giveaways. The day starts at 7AM with a four mile run that ends in Kenan Stadium. At 9AM the Carolina Volleyball tournament opens in Carmichael Arena. At 11AM, the #4 ranked Carolina Women’s Lacrosse team takes on Maryland at Fetzer Field. At Noon, Tarheel Town opens and all of the football festivities begin. At 3PM, the Spring Game kicks off and the day ends with Tarheel baseball taking on NC State at Bosharmer Stadium at 6PM.
The national coverage on ESPN should do wonders for the Tarheel football program. Coach Butch Davis has worked hard to get the program over the hump; even in a down year for ACC Football last year the Tarheels couldn’t capitalize on the weaknesses of their conference brethren. Carolina will look to improve on their 8-5 record from 2009.
The Heels lost to Pittsburgh in the Meineke Bowl last December and will look to be more than bowl eligible in 2010. Florida State is retooling, UVA is rebuilding and Maryland’s in the dumps. Miami, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech are solid, Clemson and NC State may have unproven quarterbacks, and Duke will look to continue improving. In other words, very few teams in the ACC will have it all put together next year. The Spring Game should be a spring board for an active recruiting season and a step toward improvement for the Tarheels.
Pinstripe Bowl Details Unveiled
The bowl once called the ”Yankee Bowl” has been unveiled. Details for the Pinstripe Bowl have been announced.
The first annual New Era Pinstripe Bowl will take place on December 30, 2010 and will be played at Yankee Stadium. The contest will feature the #3 Big East team against the #6 Big 12 team (excluding BCS teams) and will be televised by ESPN. The first football game scheduled for Yankee Stadium will take place this season when Notre Dame plays Army (of nearby West Point) on November 20. Future dates for the bowl have not been scheduled yet, but it was announced Tuesday that the game would always be scheduled between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
If the game had been held this past bowl season, Rutgers and Texas A&M would have been the participants.
News of the new bowl game begs the question, “Have we already reached the point where there are too many bowls?” We regularly have six win teams reaching bowl games. Some teams come into a bowl game with a 6-6 record, have lost their bowl game and finished the year with a losing record. Almost every team in Division I-A schedules a Division I FCS team in hopes of an easy win and an easier path to bowl qualification.
The Pinstripe Bowl won’t suffer much because it enters the Bowl Parade with enough clout to schedule a good matchup. Considering that the NY Yankees are involved, it shouldn’t be difficult to keep the Pinstripe Bowl matchup strong year in and year out. The growing glut of bowls will certainly affect the lower tier bowls that will end up scraping to come up with bowl eligible teams come December. This is not moving big time college football any closer to a playoff. It’s only adding to the number of hands that will be in the pot if a playoff system is ever created.
UNC Football Lands ESPN Slot in April
College Football is getting more and more attention each year. Next month, Tarheel football will get an unprecedented opportunity.
The annual Blue-White Spring Football Game will be televised live on ESPN. That’s right, a college football spring scrimmage on the biggest cable sports network around. On April 10 at 3PM, ESPN will broadcast the game. Coach Butch Davis is already rallying the Tarheel faithful to show up in droves. This opportunity for national exposure is priceless.
Carolina fans will watch on television. It’s an opportunity to get the football program out from the shadow of the basketball team, especially after the basketball program’s off year. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to get the football team and its fan base in front of every potential football recruit in the nation. Best of all, Davis’ team is guaranteed a win!
National television and guaranteed win? You can be sure that every assistant coach on the Tarheel staff will remind their recruiting targets to watch.
Oscar Smith Gets National Spotlight Game
For the second year in a row, Oscar Smith will play their season opener on national television. As a part of the Kirk Herbstreit Classic, Oscar Smith will take their game to Columbus, Ohio to play Pickerington Central High School in what will effectively be a home game for the Pickerington Central squad.
The game will be played at The Horseshoe, the on-campus stadium for the Ohio State University Buckeyes. ESPN will televise the game and will cover the expenses of getting the team to Ohio by bus; they’ll also cover meals and hotels for the team and coaches while they’re there for the game. It’s a fantastic opportunity to showcase 757 area football on a national stage.
Last year, the Tigers kicked off their season with a convincing home win against Venice High School. Oscar Smith spent the entire season in the national top 10 rankings, but fell to eventual State Champions Thomas Dale High School in the State Semifinals. Pickerington Central had a successful year as well, finishing 11-2 after losing in the State Quarterfinals to their eventual State Champion, Hilliard Davidson.
Pickerington Central brings several Division I prospects to the game including Safety Eilar Hardy who holds offers from no fewer than eight BCS schools. The strength of Pickerington’s roster comes from the 2012 class. Oscar Smith has a number of Division I prospects as well, headlined by wide receiver Quinta Funderburk who holds offers from Alabama, Florida, Virginia Tech, Maryland, North Carolina and Penn State. At least five other rising seniors for Oscar Smith should be signed to college scholarships after the 2010 season.
Oscar Smith brings back 14 starters from the 2009 team. All in all, it should be quite a competitive game.
The Oscar Smith at Pickerington Central game will be played on Labor Day, Monday September 6, at 3:30PM as part of a doubleheader.