Avery @ McDowell- McDowell 21-14 (Avery is better than usual, but playing Patton and ACA are no doubt scheduling wins. McDowell is far from elite, but should have enough to handle Avery. The higher scoring this game gets, the better chance Avery has. If Avery is able to turn this into a shootout, I give them the edge due to McDowell's lack of offense. Having said that, I expect McDowell's defense to give Avery a little bit of a wake up call following that ACA gun show.)
Hendersonville @ Erwin Erwin 38-28 (This should be a quality game. If you watch one game Friday on NFHS or plan on traveling in the Asheville area, this is the one to watch. Erwin will be able to match up athletically against Hendersonville better than most teams. Hendersonville had a pretty rough showing against East Hendo which makes me hesitant to pick them here. Talent won that game, not coaching. Having said that, they have an impressive and decisive win over West Hendo who beat Erwin by 13. Erwin has one of the best QB's in the mountains however and I expect him to pull this one out for them.)
Chase @ Madison Chase 42-7 (No shocker here. Madison has looked terrible offensively and a 3-0 Chase appears to be a very respectable team this year. Should handle business with limited issues. Throwing nearly 30 times a game, expect a big day from their QB and this one to get out of hand early.)
Robbinsville @ Mitchell- Mitchell 21-18 (This will be a quality game as well, but for much different reasons than Erwin and Hendo. Statistics indicate this will be a low scoring slug fest. Robbinsville has struggled to score all year already being shutout once and Mitchell's defense has been carrying them up to this point. With that in mind, Robbinsville will be on par with Mitchell athletically speaking. This will probably be the first game for Robbinsville where they do not feel outgunned athletically, so I expect their offense to show up a little better. Their defense up to this point has been pretty solid. Mitchell is coming off a blowout win against a poor Andrews team. Mitchell's offense so far has struggled against the teams not named Andrews and I expect similar here. The magic number for me is 20, because I do not see both teams scoring 20 in this game. This is one of those games where you give the notch to the home team in most situations, and that would be Mitchell in this case.)
Swain @ Mountain Heritage- Mountain Heritage by Forfeit (The fall of Swain should be studied. What is going on over there in Bryson City. How a team with 8 state titles is struggling to field a varsity team is beyond me. Something tells me they'll all be healthy for Andrews however.)
Owen @ West Henderson- West Henderson 35-14 (Owen is not awful and will beat bad teams. However they are not playing a bad team this week. West is a weird 1-1 as they have a really good win
@Erwin, but they have a bad loss at home to Hendersonville. Owen is noticeably worse than both of them, so this shouldn't be a super difficult game for West. Owen may keep it competitive in the 1st half, but the depth chart and coaching for West will show up in the 2nd half.)
Patton @ Polk- Polk 35-7- (Patton is bad. That really does not need further explanation. They are bad every day of the week, especially on Friday nights. Polk is coming in at 0-3, but have showed some life offensively in the run game. With 2 seniors averaging 7.2 yards a carry, that should be more than enough to handle Patton who has already been shutout twice this year. Patton is coming off a 38-21 loss to Owen which may sound encouraging, but that 18-0 loss to Avery is just glaring at everyone involved. Best case scenario Patton gets a couple TD's, but don't expect any miracles in Columbus Friday night.)