Mike George

Last year I started the tailgate thing beginning the third game of the playoffs. That's my intent for the third game.

I purposely would not want to do a tailgate at a home game because it hurts concessions. You guys are asking where the Booster Club is, well the Booster Club has a tailgate at every game - it's called their concession stand so go get a turkey leg or something else and help the Dayton Bronco Booster Club and the Dayton Band and others who have the concessions rather than devising a way to cut into their business. When you're at a neutral site, then fine and next week, there will be a tailgate.

At least that's how I feel about it.

First of all let me admit that Livingston was a much better team than I gave them credit. I'm at a loss as to why they weren't undefeated leading up to this game. Kudos to Brandon McGowen and Jordan Nixon who had great games. I did take exception to the gestures made after early scores by QB Dustin Harris when he slapped his arm across his chest and pointed to the Dayton bench in taunts. To him and others who may have felt the way he did, the following is so submitted:

Only COUNTING high school varsity high school games past five years - 76

From Nederland take 365 west all the way through Hamshire-Fannett, over 10 and to Nome. TL on US 90. You miss Beaumont and your'e app 30 miles from Dayton. TL

First of all, games played early in the season don't mean a dad-gum thing. It's just like Stewart said many of his interviews: "it matters not how you start a race, it's the finish everybody remembers."

22-4A dominated 21-4A the past two years in the playoffs because they were playing each other, and that IS a factor. I doubt anyone on this board or anywhere for that matter, will disagree that Dayton is head and shoulders better than any team in both districts, save for a couple of LHS diehards. That being said, the other playoff teams from 19-4A have played Dayton, whereas none of the 20-4A teams have. They know from experience of having played Dayton what 20-4A only knows from each other.

I think that will have the same influence with this year's playoffs and give the edge, maybe 4-0 or 3-1 to 19-4A in that first round. Now, to be fair, I'll reverse it. Three years ago, when Dayton was playing week in and week out with a weak district (at the time the one we're in now minus Barbers Hill who was 3A) we played at the level of our competition and it showed in the loss that first week against Ozen. Look what we did to Ozen, and the rest of that district, after moving in amonst them, elevating our game, and being better. I think, across the board, the teams in 19-4A might be a bit better.

OK< there you have it.

and unfortunately not for now, I DO REMEMBER when teachers could, TOO!

i believe, without question, at least for 4-A, the strongest teams are in division one . . .

Reading the boards over the past few weeks has revealed a repetition of something every school, high or college (and I'm a Baylor guy so I should know), goes through and that is to blame a lack of success of a football team (in these cases) on the coach or coaching.

Once upon a time I believed teams were based on 75% talent and 20% coaching and 5% to other. However, over the past dozen or so years I've come to realize that it's probably closer to 50-50 because if the coach doesn't know what or how to do with the talent, then it doesn't matter how much "displaced" talent you may have.

Fortunately I'm at Dayton where coaching makes up for, in some cases, a lack of talent and especially numbers. On those ocasssions where we have had (do have) the talent, it's even better, or maybe I should say, easier.

I just did the roster for this week's game and Dayton will take 43 players who may see the field. Yeah, they'll probably throw in some others (fish or jv) for reward and for show, but "the team" will be made up of the main 43. Last year it was about 10 less, and Stewart ain't much "for show."

But for those coaches who have been successful and then the team goes down or doesn't make the playoffs (heaven forbid), there are other reasons and fingers can't be just conveniently and easily be pointed at the coach.

How would you like your job to depend on 15, 16, 17, with very few if any 18 year olds? Sometimes a coach is interferred with. I've known of cases such as where a "dad" didn't like his son riding the bench or not getting enough playing time and actually pressured a friend on the board to do something about it. Thankfully there are coaches, like Stewart at Dayton, Price at Barbers Hill, Neuman at Nederland and several others, who'd tell them what for and where to stick it, but some, desperate to keep their job will play the game (as well as the inferior athlete) to keep things status quo.

There are other reasons as well, and we're not always privy to that. Believe it or not, there have actually been cases where two key players, fighting over a skirt (pardon me ladies) and took it on the field and were unable to be supportive of each other and otherwise put forth the effort. Stranger things have happened, believe it.

In my learned opinion there are 4 questions and if you can answer yes to each one, then you should have no reason to want to be rid of your coach. I'll give one: 30-60 years ago everybody played football, were respectful, did what they were told and played as hard as they can. Today we have a bunch of primadonnas who think they are minature pros that should only concentrate on playing one sport and to do that will make them better at it, when to be honest, they might not be "that good" at all. Then you have kids out there, not for themselves but for a parent or relative, and what's worse, you have some out there because they literally have nothing else to do.

1. Does he have a firm grasp of the concepts of the games, full knowledge of offense and defense and the ability to know how to execute or defend them, respectively?

2. Does he care about the kids (genuine) and put them, their safety and their well-being first?

3. Do he and his staff put in the time necessary to have a winning team, and folks, we're not talking just 40-50 hours a week here. (i.e., is he dedicated)

4. Does he continuously study the game to find ways to make his team better and instill the same values throughout his coaching staff?

That's my thoughts, FYI.

"broadcasted?" check you verb tense 

#6 runs a 4.3

#1 might run a 4.4, but in either event, #1 is back on the roster for the playoffs.

FYI

The Friendswood game - kinda of compares to last year's game with "you know who." Dayton was out of sync that game. Receivers dropped more than half a dozen passes, and defensively no way we had recovered from the loss of five defensive starters in August that were being heavily depended on. This, as then, is not the same team that lost to Friendswood.

That being said, Dayton is focused and will take them one game at a time. If you want to read more about it:

Specifically, someone was saying Dayton and Lumberton had only played three times. Someone else two. It was ludricrous given that the information necessary to be factual is right here on this website.

Someone else keeps saying it's Dayton's 14th trip in a row to the playoffs, but it's hard to remember when we went to the playoffs BS. Stewart has been at Dayton since Jan. 1996, so thus numbers the playoffs. I just wanted everyone to have the facts and be a bit more accurate in their statements.

I don't post much, but when I feel a great need, well . . .

It's like this, a year ago at this time Dayton was still hearing about it - "Lumberton is the only team in 22-4A (at the time) to beat Dayton . . . Dayton, 8-7, get over it and on, and on and on, adnausium.

There is no doubt, at least in any sane mind that Dayton was not the same team after that. Enter Gregory Charles at QB, a jumbling of the offensive and defensive fronts with some changes on both sides of the football and everyone is quite aware of what happened. I mean this "new" Bronco team totally annhilated Nederland 63-0 at their place. Did Dayton go on and on and on about it? No, we got ready to play the next week. We were on a march to where no Bronco team had gone before.

Dayton thought they might be able to prove their point in the playoffs, but one party didn't hold up their end and lost to Waller while Dayton was devastating Livingston. Even after dispatching Livingston, there it was, "8-7 Dayton, get over it."

I see this week's Lumberton vs. Nederland game as pretty much a struggle of priorities. I really think Nederland would like to win with a very tiny part of that being to be the team that sent the Raiders into the stampede known as the Dayton Broncos. I actually think, no matter what "the fans" think, that Lumberton coaches want anything but to face the Broncos this season, again. I mean the two met in a "meaningless" scrimmage, and even though Cody and AJ sat out the entire second half, and not to be confused with last year's statement: this is a much better, much improved Bronco team than what Lumberton saw in August. Now, Dayton's defense, which was missing five of its projected starters have learned to play on their on merits and those merits are pretty good - ask CE King, Crosby, et al.

. . . and that's just the way it is, in the words of a friend of mine.

Dayton and Lumberton have played 20 games since Lumberton became a school in the mid-1960's.

Dayton leads that series 14-5-1. The tie occurred in 1978. Dayton's largest margins of victory have been 57-0 in '98, 55-7 in '06 and 42-0 in '76. Lumberton's largest margins of victory were 24-7 in '93, 45-36 in '92 and 20-18 in '73. The remaining two were by one-point each.

One more thing: 96, 97, 98, 99, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08 = 13 consecutive playoff appearances.

FYI, out of those 13 years the Broncos either shared or outright won their district championship NINE (9) times.

13 straight

Here is a link to an article about the upcoming game between Dayton and C.E. King, but the main reason for linking it is because it identifies most of the defensive players and shows them in the fifth photo attached to the article.

The only glaring thing with this stat comparison is that CE King has yet to face two other top contenders, Dayton and Crosby. Dayton has met Crosby (49-13) and of course Dayton only practices against Dayton.

The two haven't met yet to figure out this year's cellar dweller, but King's stats include games against both Baytown Memorial and Kingwood Park. Dayton still has Kingwood to play in Week 10.

I feel Dayton's defense will figure out King's offense after a couple of series. Also, Jerry Stewart's "specialty" (like he only has just one) is defense. On the other end of the spectrum, every team King has played has scored easily into the double digits except for Galena and Kingwood Parks (7 each). Just can't imagine what the King defense is going to do with stopping or slowing down the Dayton offense. And, whether you've noticed or not, with contributions like those from Stapleton, the Bronco defense is vastly improving each week.

Barbers Hill vs Lumberton moved to Sat. night. Check respective schools for time.

It not his 100th career win. It was his 100th win at Dayton, 12 years plus one game.

Yeah, it was hurrying. I was thinking 85 - 87 rather than 87-89. I was thinking we quit playing Barbers Hill in 87 and Liberty in 85. The '87 was correct. That was the last year we played BH, but it was two years later after Dayton stayed in 4A and Liberty fell to 3A the two teams quit playing.

Which means that if they schedule games for the next realignment period, and play again in 2010, in will have been 20 years since they have played, and just like a bowl full of Auxtex Chili, THAT'S TOO LONG.

Somebody might need to check, but the six day thing is not holding water. For example, several teams played on Saturday and are playing on Thursday. Many of the 5A schools sometimes play on a Saturday and have to play the following Thursday.

I think it may have something more to do with not having a day off. Maybe it's six days if you don't have a day off. Just throwing something out there for one of you with time on their hands to look it up.

While we were there, Warren never threatened. Meanwhile, Hull-Daisetta scored two or three times.

It really wasn't close, which is why Coach Slack probably never mentioned anything like a "score." Besides, "scores" are overplayed in scrimmages, IMO. The key is to get to see what you need to see in order to make decisions about your football team and what's the best fit physically, mentally and psychologically to create your best team for the season.

Actually, it's all about perspective. Coaches come from various schools of thought and teachings. It's nothing sinister, nor is it poor sportsmanship. A coach going into scrimmages this time of year have different goals and things they need to look at. It's all about each coach's perspective and priorities. They are hardly ever the same.

i.e. You hardly ever find a scrimmage where the opposing coach want to practice his defense against exactly what the other coach runs offensively, and vice versa.

pics favor Hardin players

Pics favor Liberty players.