Rangers to face familiar path in 2018

Published 5:38 pm Wednesday, July 18, 2018

The 2018 high school football season is slowly creeping up, and the Unaka Rangers are putting in overtime in Stoney Creek to get ready for this year’s slate of opponents.

When it comes to what teams the Rangers will face in 2018 nothing has changed from last year’s schedule. However, with some coaching changes at three of the schools, the Rangers may be facing new offenses and defenses at North Greene, Jellico, and Sullivan North, which will all have new head coaches in 2018.

“Obviously, we will know the opponents as far as schedules go and locations,” said Unaka head coach O’Brien Bennett. “But we are playing against some new football coaches.

“So the teams when it comes to players may be the same, but they may be running new systems on offense and defense, and that poses a little bit of a challenge since we are not a hundred percent sure on what they are going to do” added Bennett.

According Bennett, both North Greene and Sullivan North promoted coaches within their existing staffs while Jellico hired a coach out of Kentucky.

“We will just have to break down film, and try to figure out what is going on there,” said Bennett.

The Rangers will open the season on Aug. 17 as they travel to North Greene, a game that was initially set to be played in Stoney Creek, but due to construction on the stands at Unaka High School had to be moved to North Greene.

The only Carter County team outside of region opponent Cloudland that the Rangers will play will be Hampton on Oct. 19 in Stoney Creek.

“Hampton is always going to be Hampton,” said Bennett. “They are always going to be tough. They are always going to be talented. And they are always going to be well coached.

“Just like Cloudland, Hampton has a tradition of having good football teams, and that is what we want at Unaka, for us to be talked about on the same level as those teams,” Bennett added. “We want to turn this into a competitive rivalry with Hampton. We weren’t too competitive with them last year, and we want to take make sure that we are taking the steps in the right direction.”

Like last year, the Rangers will face Region 1-A opponent Hancock County twice. The Rangers play at Hancock on Aug. 31 before hosting the Indians on Oct. 12. Only the first game will count towards conference records. Last year, the Rangers split with Hancock as Unaka fell 30-28 in the first game before topping Hancock, 48-44 in the second meeting.

Due to 2016’s forfeit to Greenback in the first round of the TSSAA playoffs, the Rangers will not be eligible to play in the 2018 playoffs. This will be the final season Unaka will face a playoff ban.

“We just take it one game at a time,” said Bennett. “Being on probation forces us to do that. We don’t have to sit back and talk about how we are going to get past Greenback this year. We are not in that boat. So we have to focus on North Greene and doing our jobs against North Greene. We have hopes for this season, and we want to make sure we are taking steps in the right direction. We want to take what were competitive games last year and turn them into wins.”

The Rangers have been hitting the weight room hard this year, and Bennett feels that the player’s strength gains in the weight room with transfer over to the field.

“We are a lot stronger than we were last year,” said Bennett. “We have taken a lot of strides.

“Our weight program didn’t get to show itself last year on the field,” continued Bennett. “This year, we have had kids who have been in the weight since January four days a week busting their tails. I think we are going to see some improvement on the field because of that.

“All five of our offensive linemen are, weight-room wise, physically stronger than they were last year, and our defensive line is strong all the way around,” added Bennett. “So our weakest kid on that front is stronger than our strongest kid at this point last year.”