Good morning: We’re down to 16 teams in the state high school football playoffs. And we have just two college football teams playing this weekend. The coaching carousel and the transfer portal keep zooming in high gear, and more players from the Old North State have been recognized as the best in their conference and region.
As the calendar rolls into a new month, here is your morning briefing for Dec. 1:
State championship match-ups will be decided tonight
The field of N.C. High School Athletic Association football playoff teams has been whittled down to the Sweet 16 — four from each of the state’s four classifications. Eight regional final contests tonight will decide who plays in next week’s 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A state championships. Here are the match-ups:
- 1A West: [2] Mount Airy (14-0) at [1] Robbinsville (13-1)
- 1A East: [2] West Columbus (12-1) at [1] Tarboro (12-0)
- 2A West: [7] Shelby (11-3) at [1] Reidsville (13-1)
- 2A East: [2] Northeastern (14-0) at [1] Clinton (14-0)
- 3A West: [4] Dudley (14-0) at [2] Hickory (14-0)
- 3A East: [13] Northern Nash (13-1) at [2] Seventy-First (14-0)
- 4A West: [23] Independence (11-3) at [1] Weddington (12-2)
- 4A East: [5] Cardinal Gibbons (12-2) at [3] Hoggard (13-1)
HighSchoolOT.com notes that 15 of the 16 regional finalists have made it this far in the playoffs before. Only West Columbus is making its first regional final appearance.
Wingate defensive end named region’s best
Wingate’s Marquise Fleming has added a bunch of honors to his resume as the season draws to a close. Fleming, a redshirt junior from Charlotte (Olympic HS), was named the D2CCA Super Region 2 Defensive Player of the Year on Thursday. That comes on the heels of being voted the South Atlantic Conference Defensive Player of the Year, being named a finalist for the Gene Upshaw Award and being nominated for the Harlon Hill Award.
Fleming leads Division II in sacks with 14 and ranks fifth nationally in tackles for loss with 22.5.
Other North Carolina players to be named to the all-Super Region 2 first team include: Shane Wells (Lenoir-Rhyne OL), Leondre Andreas (Mars Hill OL), Jordan Terrell (Barton RB), DeAree Rogers (Lenoir-Rhyne RS), Jon Ross Maye (Lenoir-Rhyne LB), Landon Honeycutt (Mars Hill LB) and Shane Perry (Barton LB). Second-teamers are OL Porfirio Acosta (Wingate OL), Tremel Jones (Wingate WR), Dwayne McGee (Lenoir-Rhyne RB), Andre Jefferson (Lenoir-Rhyne DL), Damipi Lamboni (Mars Hill DL) and Tre Morrison (Wingate CB).
UNC Pembroke competes in a different region. Jamae Blank, who earned Mountain East co-defensive player of the year honors, was voted to the Super Region 1 first team.
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App State QB named top Sun Belt rookie
Joey Aguilar began the season second on the Appalachian State depth chart for quarterbacks. He finished it by earning one of the Sun Belt Conference’s highest honors.
Aguilar, a junior from Antioch, Calif., was voted the Sun Belt Conference’s Newcomer of the Year on Thursday. He led the league this season with 33 touchdown passes (third nationally). He has thrown for 3,271 yards, ranking fourth in the league and 17th in the nation. Aguilar piloted App State to eight wins, including being the only quarterback to earn a victory against James Madison.
In all, Appalachian State put 14 players on the all-conference team, including first-teamers Isaiah Helms (OL), Bucky Williams (OL), Andrew Parker (LB) and Tyrek Funderburk (DB). For more on Aguilar and the Mountaineers’ all-conference picks, click HERE.
Mountaineers panning for more Sun Belt gold
Appalachian State will be the only FBS team from North Carolina in action this Saturday, visiting Troy in the Sun Belt Conference championship game. The Mountaineers (8-4) enter the contest on a five-game win streak. Troy (10-2) comes in as the defending champions.
The game will kick off at 4 p.m. with coverage on ESPN. Wet weather could be a factor. Weather.com projects temperatures in the 70s at game time, with a 90 percent chance of rain. App State will gun for its fifth Sun Belt title since joining the conference after moving up from FCS.
—> READ MORE: The Mountaineers’ official Web site, AppStateSports.com, previews the game HERE.
“It’s going to be a challenge for us to go down there in a hostile environment,” ASU coach Shawn Clark said. “We’ve played there before, and they have a great fan base with great support from their students. It’s one of those games, when you play at this level, you want to play for a conference championship and play in those types of environments.”
Lenoir-Rhyne facing 4-time national champ
The only other team from North Carolina playing football this Saturday will be the Division II Lenoir-Rhyne Bears. After two playoff victories, the Hickory school finds itself in the D2 quarterfinals against one of the top programs from the past few decades, Valdosta State.
Both teams have 12-1 records and extensive playoff experience. Valdosta State has won four national championships and played in the D2 title game six times since 2004.
This year’s Blazer lineup features the Super Region 2 offensive player of the year in Sammy Edwards.
—> READ MORE: Ten things to know about Lenoir-Rhyne vs. Valdosta State
Dizzying amount of QBs entering the transfer portal
This week brought an array of transfer portal news involving top players from North Carolina. Over the past few days, we’ve learned that Duke’s Riley Leonard, Wake Forest’s Mitch Griffis and Santino Marucci, NC State’s MJ Morris, East Carolina’s Mason Garcia and Campbell’s Hajj-Malik Williams all intend to transfer. And that’s just the quarterbacks.
Get prepared for some serious musical chairs over the coming weeks as the portal officially opens on Dec. 4. (Also in the portal is Coastal Carolina’s Grayson McCall, from Indian Trial, NC, who played his high school ball at Porter Ridge HS).
David Glenn from the North Carolina Sports Network is keeping up with the ACC’s transfer carousel. He’s noted at least 40 players signaling their desire to be on the move from ACC teams at this stage in the process.
Other big names from North Carolina schools include Duke defensive tackle Aeneas Peebles, NC State defensive lineman CJ Clark and Wake Forest running back Justice Ellison.
The North Carolina Tar Heels have already grabbed a key player out of the portal. Max Johnson, formerly of Texas A&M, announced his commitment to UNC earlier this week.
Coaching Carousel Tracker
Keep up with the latest coaching news involving North Carolina schools by following our Coaching Carousel tracker. Click on the link below.
