High school notebook: Carolina Forest beefs up football slate

Carolina Forest just had its best season of football since moving to Class AAAA.

Repeating that 7-4 regular-season record with next year’s slate of opponents might be reason for a parade. To say coach Drew Hummel beefed up the schedule for 2012 would be an understatement.

The Panthers will play four Class AAAA opponents, including defending Class AAAA Division II state champion Goose Creek, Big 16 program Fort Dorchester, White Knoll and Beaufort. It was the next step for a football program with a non-region schedule deemed too weak to qualify for the playoffs the past two seasons.

“We feel pretty good about what we’ve got,” Hummel said. “We felt the last couple years, the schedule has hurt us some in terms of advancing and points. We had a lot of [Class AAA teams] on the schedule. They’re local and good for the rivalry, but for the points, we’ve fallen short both years.

“The way the system is, we were at a detriment. Is it fair? No. But that’s the way it’s set up. We have to maximize it.”

For Class AAAA teams that don’t finish in the top three of their region (outside of two Upstate regions that award four spots each), there is a strength-of-schedule points system to determine six at-large opponents. In both 2010 and 2011 – the last two-year block of game contracts the school had – simply playing a number of teams hurt the Panthers’ playoff hopes.

Prior to the 2010 football season, Carolina Forest had signed on to play Battery Creek, which at the time was a Class AAAA school. The Dolphins, however, moved down to Class AAA prior to the start of the year.

Then, when another team dropped off the Carolina Forest schedule, Hummel was forced to sign Kingstree, a struggling Class AA program.

Combined with games against Socastee, North Myrtle Beach and St. James, three local schools that had losing records each of the last two years, Carolina Forest had virtually no shot at an at-large playoff berth.

It was a lesson learned the hard way.

Now that Carolina Forest has had four seasons of football in the state’s largest class, it realizes the path to the postseason can be built before region play even starts.

The Panthers kept three of the local AAA rivalries. Carolina Forest opens the season Aug. 17 (Week 0) against Socastee before playing at St. James (Week 2) and at home against Myrtle Beach (Week 3).

The rest of the non-region schedule, however, is where the major changes will be seen.

One of the new opponents is Fort Dorchester (Week 1). The North Charleston school is considered a Big 16 program, and even a loss to the Patriots would give Carolina Forest more at-large points than beating a losing Class AAA team.

Hummel’s team will also play White Knoll (Week 4) and Beaufort (Week 5) before an off-week to prepare for region play.

The addition of Goose Creek is region necessity. Lugoff-Elgin moved out of Region VI, and without a replacement, Region VI and Region VII, which also has just five teams, have paired up. To fill that spot, Carolina Forest drew Goose Creek. The Gators won all five of their playoff games by double digits en route to the Class AAAA Division II title.

Conway, which has also completed its 2012 schedule, was cross-bracketed with Region VII school West Ashley, a Big 16 school that finished 6-6 and, like the Tigers, lost in the first round of the Class AAAA playoffs in 2011.

In terms of the rest of Conway’s non-region games, the Tigers have traded some of their regular opponents for others in the Upstate.

Coach Chuck Jordan’s team replaced Wando and Summerville with fellow Class AAAA opponents Northwestern and Rock Hill. The game against Northwestern will take place Aug. 25 in the Surf and Turf Kickoff Classic at Doug Shaw Memorial Stadium.

It pairs the Tigers against teams that don’t normally get much publicity on this side of the state. But Jordan isn’t worried about his players getting ready for those games.

“I like playing teams we haven’t played before. It’s a good barometer,” Jordan said. “Those kids, they know other teams’ reputations. They know when you’re playing a good team. And they know when you’re not. When you play teams that perennially have been competitive, they know it. With the internet and all that mess, you can’t fool those kids.”

Conway will open the season Aug. 17 at home against Georgetown before non-region games against Northwestern, Rock Hill, Socastee, Marlboro County and Myrtle Beach.

The Seahawks’ schedule will remain fairly similar to that of the last four years. Coach Mickey Wilson’s squad will take on Irmo in the Surf and Turf Kickoff Classic. That game will replace the three-year contract the team previously had with Class AAAA powerhouse Byrnes.

The Seahawks will also play regular opponents West Florence, South Florence, Carolina Forest and Conway in Weeks 2-5 before region play begins.

Football proposal rejected

Class AAA football wasn’t ready for another state championship.

A proposed change that would have added a second playoff division to the class was rejected Wednesday by the state’s coaches and athletics directors. The vote needed a two-thirds vote of Class AAA schools to move to the next stage of adoption. Wilson, whose school voted in favor of the addition, said the unofficial tally was in the neighborhood of 29-20 against the amendment.

“It surprised me. It really did,” Wilson said. “It had got a lot of momentum. Last year, when AA proposed theirs, it automatically got [approved].”

It will leave Class AAA as the only conference with one state football title.

The bigger issue that made the proposal attractive to many schools, however, wasn’t the playoff changes. The amendment would have also added an 11th regular-season game, something many schools across the state could desperately use monetarily.

The changes to the regular season may have also been the major hang up this time around. Unlike the Class AA playoff change – which had little impact on the regular season – finding an 11th opponent this time of year can be difficult. Schools would not have been able to officially sign a contract binding the games until after it was officially adopted, which would have been in March at the earliest.

Rejecting the amendment likely means any changes in the Class AAA format will have to wait until the 2014 season.

Most football teams from around the state have their regular-season contracts in place for the 2012 and 2013 seasons.

College signing

Carolina Forest offensive lineman Blaine Kowalkowski, a 2011 Toast of the Coast honoree and all-Region VI selection, has committed to play football at Franklin College outside of Indianapolis.

Kowalkowski, who anchored the Panthers’ line, allowed just one sack as a senior while grading out at 88 percent. He was crucial in the team’s offensive attack behind quarterback Danny Daly and tailback Harold Atkinson.

Franklin, a NCAA Division-III program, made it to the second round of the playoffs last year before losing Division-III national champion Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Attention coaches

Any coaches who have not submitted spring sports schedules thus far are encouraged to do so. Schedules can be emailed to sports@thesunnews.com.