Our Look at Metro 4-A Conference Football for 2008

Page is going to win it all. Page won it all in 2007 with their (5-0) Metro Conference mark and an overall record of 7-5. The Pirates welcome back QB Will Newman who is in line to sign a college scholarship sometime very soon. Newman will be joined by Kicker/Punter Matt Millsor who has been named to the NC Preps Football News Pre-Season All-State team as a Punter. Millisor is also on the 4-A Pre-Season All-State team and his foot and leg are major weapons in the Pirates’ attack. Millisor averaged over 40 yards per punt last season and he was 37-39 in extra point attempts, plus he kicked 7 field goals for Page in 2007. Millisor is another Big-Time prospect.

Will Newman’s numbers last year read 1,520 yards passing with 18 TD’s and 708 yards rushing with 8TD’s. Page will be strong with Lenny Gordon at RB, 5’11/215 and Tony Rustin at FB, 5’11/240. The Pirates also have Chris Jasperse up front to block at 6’4/260 and when you turn to the defensive line there’s Gabe King at DE 6’5/255, and I said last year that this kid reminds me of a young Julius Peppers. Chris Knight will hold down a linebacker spot at 6’2/170 and he likes to run to the football, while TJ Todd will anchor the secondary, last year Todd had 65 tackles and 3 interceptions.

Page is packed and they will go as far as Newman and Millisor can take them and Gordon and Rustin will need to stay healthy for the Pirates to advance far in the 4-A playoffs.

Ricky Dowdy of High Point Central is also on the Prep Football News Pre-Season All-State Football team and Dowdy holds down a spot on the 4-A All-State team just like Millisor of Page. We will talk more about HPC later in this preview.

Back a few weeks ago we had East Forsyth and Grimsley tied for the second spot in the early August talks about this upcoming season. Grimsley has placed it’s focus on a ground-oriented attack and they have shown solid results with that ground game in the pre-season. We now lean toward Grimsley as our #2 team but just like with Page, Grimsley’s backs must stay healthy and they will need to keep fresh legs in that offensive backfield if they want to challenge Page for the title in the Annual Gate City Battle at Grimsley on October 17.

David Ray and Lay Lay Brown are Grimsley’s key backs and new quarterback Josh Patterson can scoot with the best of them. Ray ran for over 600 yards last year and Brown rushed for 554 as a freshman in the Whirlie backfield. The big men up front; Jordan Patterson, Will Stern, Zach Hermann, and Terrell Clark are all college prospects. Michael Dotts WR/DB, will help out on offense and defense and the two defensive head-hunters are Andre Oliver LB and DB James Scales III. Oliver was the second leading tackler on the team in 2007 and Scales is being touted as one of the top players in the state at his position by the writers at Rivals.com.

According to what Coach Todd Willert is putting out there, East Forsyth will be loaded in 2008. East went 5-7 in 2007 and they open up 2008 at Rocky Mount and RM is ranked #1 in the state in the 3-A Top Ten poll at NC Preps and that puts the Gryphons ahead of Western Alamance, Charlotte Catholic, and Dudley in that order. East Forsyth returns Danny O’Brien 6’4/200 QB who has verbally committed to Maryland. O’Brien threw for 1,900 yards last season with 14 TD’s and he ran for 7 touchdowns. East also has college prospects in A.J. Perea, Christian Smith, David Collins 6’7/290, Ian Thompson, Edwin McCray, Jeff Harris, Trent Perry(6’2/200-74 tackles and 6 sacks in 2007), C.J. Wilson, Kevin Jones, Josh Kellum, Ryan Amos, and Edwin Allen.

High Point Central went 4-8 last season but Coach Wayne Jones is hoping for a turn-around this time around with sophomore Drew Adams taking the spot under center as the new Bison quarterback. Adams played very well for the JV’s last year and he was equally impressive in the 7on7 drills this past spring. He will try and get the ball to Terrance Isley 6’1/175 and to Desmeion Kennedy 5’9/160, both of whom are listed as college prospects. The man we mentioned earlier, Ricky Dowdy with the verbal committment to N.C. State will lead the HPC defense. Dowdy had 13 sacks last year for the Bison.

Northwest Guilford was 3-8 one year ago and that was under first-year head coach Joe Woodruff. This season NWG will try and move toward the .500 mark and they will need big performances from RB Chris Kennedy, 5’9/170 4.65 40 time, to pull that off. Kennedy will be the key to the NWG offense and he get help in the backfield from sophomore Sean Pless, a big bruising back in the 225 pound range who powered his way into the Viking starting lineup last year, and he is a tough man to bring down. Combine Pless’s power with Kennedy’s speed and you have a solid one-two punch. The big lineman who will have to open up the holes up front will be Dash Wyatt 6’5/285 with a 5’1 40 time.

The Smith Golden Eagles were 0-11 in 2007 and they have a new leader in Coach Rodney Brewington. All Coach Brewington is saying early is that Smith has 55 underclassmen who are developing for the future and that he is working on win number one and the first chance at that goal will come on August 22 in the Eagles opener at WS Atkins.

Metro 4-A for 2008
#1) Page2007:(7-5/5-0)
#2) Grimsley2007(11-2/4-1)
#3) East Forsyth2007(5-7/3-2)
#4) High Point Central2007(4-8/2-3)
#5) Northwest Guilford2007(3-8/1-4)
#6) Smith(0-11/0-5)

*****In from Rivals.com this week is the news that Northen Guilford runningback/defensive back/kick return man Keenan Allen will verbally commit to Alabama from the Southeastern Conference on September 1. Allen, who spent the past two years at Grimsley and will be a junior at NG this season, impressed many universities at the summer combine camps.*****

+++++Many of the numbers and parts of the news that we use in our previews comes fron NC Preps News and ncpreps.com.+++++

2 thoughts on “Our Look at Metro 4-A Conference Football for 2008

  1. Nice read there Andy. I might be going to the Page @ Eastern Alamance Scrimmage tomorrow evening. If i do, i will def. hook up greensborosports.com with all the info on stats and the big plays.

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