HOUR | Cole & Diesel debate Upstate SC high school playoffs, CFP rankings with Bill Bender, Deion Sanders' comments, and caller picks

Harold (0:01)

Upstate, an artisan sports station.

SPEAKER_2 (0:06)

You ready?

Cole Bryson (0:06)

Let's go.

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From the fields to the courts, and the gridiron to the tracks.

Cole Bryson (0:17)

Electrifying sports talk from start to finish. You're going wire to wire.

Delvin (0:21)

With Diesel and Cole Bryson.

SPEAKER_2 (0:23)

On The Fan Upstate.

Diesel (0:26)

Well, it feels cold like we just did our high school previews for the season, both Spartanburg and Greenville counties. And now here we are already going into the playoffs. Goodness gracious. The high school football season just flew by.

Still a lot to get to, Cole. Still a lot of games to be played and championships to be won. But our next guest Jed Blackwell of Prep Redzone joins the show. Jed, does it ever feel like it slows down or does it always feel like it gets faster and faster every year?

Jed Blackwell (0:58)

It always feels like it gets faster every year. It's ridiculous and now that the high school league has stopped using week zero, this will be week 12 and it feels like yesterday.

It's hard to get my mind around.

Cole Bryson (1:14)

No, you're right Jed, it does. It's not a fun thing. It does go by fast. I want to ask you this.

Same question Jed that I asked of Charlie Wenske of the high school league on Saturday, on the Saturday scramble. How would you cover a lot of different teams both in Spartanburg and Greenville County and Cherokee County as well, how would you say now that the regular season is done, how would you say that the new classifications, the new regions were received, we see the stat, the scores, right? And that's obviously the most important thing, what happens on the field on Friday night. How would you put into perspective what you saw in year one of a lot of newness with the regions and reclassifications?

Jed Blackwell (1:59)

If I'm grading it as a C minus, there are some regions that are very, very good. There are some regions that are terrible. You got to witness one of those every Friday night, Cole. You saw an awful, awful region. And Burns is no better because of it.

Chapman is undefeated, and they have not played a soul since about week four. And that's going to tell on some folks in the playoff. And to me, that's a disservice to some of these schools.

I think where it's right, it's very, very right. I love the big region where you've got Dorman and Northwestern, and it's just a slugfest night after night after night. I think Gaffney deserves better than to be in a region with Greenville and nobody else that hits back. So I think it's very, very uneven.

Diesel (2:50)

Jed, a big game that we talked about last week when we had you on. It started off in Boiling Springs' favor, and then, oh boy, did it turn on them in the second half.

10-7 halftime lead, then they get beat 37-0 in the second half. What in the world did Fort Mill figure out against Boiling Springs, who had been pretty solid defensively the last few weeks leading up to that game outside of another big loss to Northwestern?

Jed Blackwell (3:16)

Well, they got a couple of defenders hurt. Tyveon Hall got hurt Friday night.

Dennis Glenn was out to begin with, so when he's gone, that takes a huge component of what they like to do, particularly up front on defense. And Fort Mill is a good football team.

They pushed Dorman to the absolute limit. They played really well in that region. I think that Fort Mill is probably third best in the region, it looks like. So I don't know if they figured things out as much as they figured out what they wanted to do. Fort Mill got a little bit more comfortable, started marching it, hit a couple of big plays, and things I think just kind of snowballed on Boyle and Franks.

Cole Bryson (4:00)

Yeah, I saw that score, and if you would have told me, Jed, that Fort Mill beat them, I wouldn't have been surprised, for it to be lopsided, you're right. Snowball is a good term there, because it got away from Boyle and Franks. Let me ask you about the Hillcrest Rams. They've won a couple of games, three games in a row now. They beat Malden 27-7 on Friday. Where are you on Hillcrest? Are you in the boat, in the camp that says, hey, they've won three games in a row, there'll be a tougher test for teams in the playoffs, like Chapman potentially this Friday, or Burns potentially next Friday?