We’ve made it. The last Friday night without any significant football prep action is behind us, and the schedule will get more exciting from next weekend through early December when the temperatures drop.
In addition to next week’s annual regional events – culminating in Finley Stadium hosting the three-day, 21-team “Prelude to a Championship” event – the actual regular season begins for more than a dozen Georgia teams in our area.
Rest assured that the Chattanooga Times Free Press editorial staff will once again highlight the best stories about the region’s teams and players this year. After nearly two weeks of daily publication, we have now released our region’s final preview, this time covering the TSSAA Division II-AAA East, arguably the toughest league outside of the Southeastern Conference.
Next, we’ll count down our list of Dynamite Dozen players, and on August 18, the annual TFP Prep Football preview will be included in the Sunday edition. This year’s 72-page preview will include in-depth information on what to expect from each of the 32 Tennessee teams and 13 of the Northwest Georgia schools in our coverage area. The pages also feature large photos and information on the Dynamite Dozen – the annual list of the region’s 12 best college football talents.
As a service to our readers, some of whom ask each year how we create this list, here is a brief explanation. It’s not a complicated formula. Each year, our staff gathers information from national recruiting services and reviews it with area high school coaches to determine the top-rated senior prospects.
At the beginning of the summer, the list may initially contain dozens of names, but we discuss it with several college coaches who recruit players in our area and then we usually have a pretty clear idea of who the top 12 seniors are.
It’s a list of college prospects – not “who’s the most statistically successful player” – based solely on input from coaches and experts in the world of player recruitment. The key stats are the same ones used by college recruiters: height, weight, speed, strength, and how much a player is projected to perform at the next level.
This is the 23rd year for the Dynamite Dozen, and only the second time in their history that each member has at least one college offer from a Football Bowl Subdivision program. Last season was the first time, and in fact, the group was so talented that we ultimately decided on a “Baker’s Dozen” to include all 13 players with FBS offers.
The fact that there is such a large pool of highly rated talent is likely due to two main factors: the amount of talent from other regions that has been added to the rosters of the private schools Baylor and McCallie, and the number of local players who have caught up with the rest of the state in terms of individual training and exposure to prestigious exhibition camps.
This first factor cannot be underestimated. Whether from the Canadiens’ ranks or from programs in or out of state, Baylor and McCallie have a wealth of talent.
Admittedly, this grant was necessary to compete with the rest of DII-AAA, simply because our area population cannot produce enough top talent to compete with opponents from the Nashville, Memphis and Knoxville areas.
How loaded with next-level talent is DII-AAA? Nearly half (19) of the state’s top 40 junior prospects compete in this league.
Since the Dynamite Dozen began in 2002, each year there have been multiple players from the same school on the list. So far, there have been three from one school – Baylor (2022, 2023), Bradley Central (2023), Calhoun (2015) and McCallie (2015, 2020, 2023).
Baylor has appeared in the BlueCross Bowl each of the past two seasons – it won it all in 2022, narrowly losing to McCallie last year – and is so well-positioned this year that there was simply no way to prevent it from breaking the record for the number of representatives by a team.
One could even argue that the Red Raiders, who have seven seniors with FBS offers, could have accounted for more than half of this year’s total.
Because I want to directly answer any questions about possible prejudices against private schools, I inform our readership that a total of five Red Raiders graduates will be included in the regional recruiting rankings this year. The rankings will be announced in the next few days.
While I understand the part of people who are exhausted by “Baylor envy,” trust me, as a graduate of one of our area’s rural public schools — and someone who simply enjoys watching, reporting on, and highlighting the best high school football teams, players, and stories — that it’s time to accept some things as fact.
We’ve reached a point where Baylor, McCallie, and the entire DII-AAA dominate not only on the field – where most public schools won’t put them on the roster – but also when it comes to the right to claim the state’s most impressive talent.
Contact Stephen Hargis at [email protected].
