Kevin Carver
Thursday, July 27, 2017 8:34 am

Let's take a quick look at how I believe the Southern Piedmont 1A Football standings will shakeout this season.

8) Highland Tech - A short roster and no depth at all will make for another difficult season.

7) Community School of Davidson - Quarterback Luke Watts combined for almost 1500 yards last year, but doesn't have much around him.

6) Pine Lake Prep - Kris Petroski is their best athlete returning, but they lost their two best backfield players due to graduation.

5) Union Academy - They have a lot of defensive players back, but most of the offense graduated. They could finish third or further back. Maybe the most intriguing team. The toughest deal is that they are in Monroe. That's 180 miles round trip for a conference game at the end of the season for TJCA.

4) Bessemer City - Jarkevious Love will pace the offense while Tre Corry (lineman) leads the defense. There isn't a big roster nor is the depth on this team.

3) Cherryville - Justin Lemons (over 1,000 yards last year) returns as their leading rusher and safety. No doubt Lemons is one of the best athletes in the conference. They did lose some key seniors though.

2) Mountain Island Charter - Running back Elijah Burris (over 900 yards rushing last season) and quarterback Kyle Holcomb (over 3,000 yards passing a year ago) return, but lost a ton of seniors from last year's team. They lose Aapri Washington, still have enough parts and pieces to make a run at the top of the conference.

1) Thomas Jefferson - The Gryphons have a lot coming back and two kids that are solid athletes which had to sit out a year before they were eligible to play among the group. Senior running back, Bill Lay (1340 yards last year) leads the rushing attack, while Nomi McMullens (over 1600 yards passing last year) and Max Robbins are key returns offensively. Josh Mellon, Ethan Jackson, Caleb Camp and Josh Camp each had six or more tackles for loss last season. The biggest loss will be defensive end Hogan Modirzadeh.

As for the Brickyard 400, the Kasey Kahne holding off both Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski was huge for him in order to win the race. However, Sunday was the Kyle Busch Invitational until Busch was accidentally erased by Martin Truex Jr. on the first lap of the final stage.

Busch has every right to be frustrated, but Sunday, Truex and Busch were both going for the win. Not many cautions had fallen at that time, so both thought that which ever driver came away with the lead at that point was the odds on favorite to win. Instead they take each other out. That's just racing!