Eagles on familiar course

Playoff possibilities abound for Seymour in final month of regular season By Chris Silcox chris@theheraldnewspapers.com Similarities between the current Seymour Eagles and last season’s Region 1-3A runner-up team are beginning to surface. At this point a year ago head coach Gary Householder’s Eagles were 4-3 and coming off a 10-3 victory of Pigeon Forge. This year’s version of the Eagles is 3-4, but is coming off a 48-0 clobbering of the Tigers last Friday night. Householder directed Seymour to four straight wins to close out the regular season last year before suffering a first-round playoff loss to Fulton. With the resounding victory over Pigeon Forge last week, the Eagles are off to a nice start in finishing the regular season on a similar note as last year. At this point the Eagles control their own destiny for once again finishing second in the conference and securing a home game in the first round of the state playoffs. Contrary to last year when state power Fulton lost some early games in Region 2-3A, the Falcons this year appear to be headed for a top-two finish. If the Eagles do repeat last year’s performance and close out the regular season by knocking off Union County, Claiborne and Gibbs, and Fulton continues to win in the sister region, Seymour should end up with a better playoff match-up this year. But on the other hand, it’s also still a possibility that Seymour could not even make the postseason. Should the Eagles drop any of its final three conference games, the second place finish would be in serious jeopardy. More than one setback in October and the Eagles could play themselves right out of a shot at the postseason. The Claiborne Bulldogs are having their best season in years. At 6-1, the Bulldogs are currently the team sitting in second place behind undefeated Carter. Seymour’s toughest game left on the schedule is the October 20 trip to Claiborne to face the Bulldogs. Should the Eagles defeat Union County Friday at Benton Householder Stadium, the match-up with Claiborne County would pretty much be for that coveted second place spot in the regular-season conference standings. Householder mentioned after watching his team throttle Pigeon Forge that the Eagles might be playing the best football of the season. “We didn’t play Seymour football (during a 27-0 loss to Carter the week before),” Householder commented. “We talked all week about getting pride back in this program and playing with class. “We haven’t controlled the line of scrimmage in the past few weeks. (against Pigeon Forge) we had a lot of room to run and I think we had a pretty good balance. It all started up front with the offensive line.” The Eagles final regular-season contest of the year will be on October 26 at home against Gibbs. The senior night regular-season finale’ will be held on a Thursday night.