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Alcoa rolled to its ninth consecutive Class 3A state title Friday afternoon beating East Nashville 42-20.
First off I want to congratulate the Tornadoes and their fan base on another great championship season. Secondly, I believe it’s past time for them to move up a class or two.
There’s no denying that Alcoa year in and year out is the best team in 3A. Whether it’s Gary Rankin or Brian Nix, the Tornadoes have done nothing but control the class for the last decade.
Class 3A is under the Tornadoes at this point. Entering the day Alcoa had won its eight previous championship matchups by an average of 22.9 points.
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The last time Alcoa was even tested in a championship game was in 2018. That year they scored late to beat Covington 21-14. Outside of that, no game has been decided by less than 11 points.
Again, this is not a story meant to disrespect. You can’t disrespect a team who’s won nine straight state titles and 22 overall. However, it’s getting old.
What makes high school football fun is parity. There hasn’t been any of that in 3A for near a decade now which makes it hard to get excited for this game.
Alcoa’s also proven that they can play up with the bigger schools.
Just look at their non-region schedule. Every year the Tornadoes play their Blount County rival Maryville. Maryville holds a commanding series lead, but Alcoa plays them close every year. When the Tornadoes do win, it’s never really a shock.
You can also look at the last two years against Knox West. Last year West finished 15-0 en route to the Class 5A title. That 15-0 season included a 29-26 win over Alcoa.
This year West is back in the 5A championship with one loss on its schedule. That one L on the schedule? A 24-7 loss to Alcoa.
On top of those games, Alcoa opened the year with a dominant road win against Ravenwood team that finished second in its region and made the Class 6A quarterfinals. The next week they hosted Bearden and won 17-13.
You compare those games against their region schedule where they outscored those four teams 188-7, it’s not even a competition.
I’m not saying Alcoa needs to move up to 5A even if in my mind I do fully believe that they’ll be able to compete. A move up to 4A where they’re playing the likes of Anderson County, Elizabethton and Greeneville would be more than enough to give them the region and postseason challenges that have been lacking for the last decade.
A change has to come at some point because this continued dominance isn’t helping the class. Teams like East Nashville, Dyersburg, Covington and Milan have done what they can to make it to the final knowing well ahead what they’re going against.
Then there’s the crowd aspect.
In recent years the Class 3A championship has consistently been the least attended game of the nine. It’s easy to understand why. Why make the long trip to Cookeville or Chattanooga knowing what’s about to happen?
I’m from Indiana and up there they have a success factor where points are accumulated over a short period of time. Once teams hit a certain amount of points, that team will move up a class. If enough points aren’t accumulated over time, schools move down.
This needs to be implemented in Tennessee to give some parity. Imagine Alcoa being in 4A this year playing Pearl-Cohn for the title or 5A and playing Page.
As exciting as those matchups would be, we won’t be getting them any time soon.
Unless a success factor is added in forcing them to move up, this dominance isn’t going to end any time soon. Personally I’d like to see some new 3A champions crowned. I also want to see Alcoa competing for titles against teams more on its level.
This isn’t a story directed at the players or coaches who have built Alcoa into the powerhouse that they are. They’ve done a fantastic job in making the Tornadoes into one of the state’s perennial powers.
This is for the administration who refuses to accept a move up and makes excuses for why it shouldn’t happen. Don’t give me the excuse of enrollment or travel being an issue. It’s beyond past time for Alcoa to move up and until it happens, I won’t be getting excited about the 3A championship.
