With the show becoming more interactive this year I’m starting to go with some urges… much to the pain I’m sure of my producer and our director. This past week I had Langston in the studio off the top of the show, but he wasn’t suppose to appear until after 4 or 5 highlights had been shown. Langston was still under deadline and he had covered the Country Day/Latin game which was the Blitz Game of the Week and our lead story. I decided on the fly to pull Langston in and ask him about the game. There was a problem with his microphone but all in all I liked the spontaneity. I’m not sure how our director felt, and I almost didn’t pull the trigger on Langston because we try to script the show a little bit, but I decided to let it all hang out and go for it and she rolled with it great!

Trust me though, the director is someone who you don’t want to have mad at you.

Also this week, loyal viewer Lee e-mailed in to give his Charlotte Catholic Cougars some love and nearly as soon as we received his e-mail, Langston and I were talking about it on the air. We’ll continue to add to our play book on the Blitz and I’m really excited about how the show will evolve next year. But until then, we have 2 more weeks of highlights to share with you on Friday Night and then on Championship Saturday, December 9th, we’ll and have highlights from all our area teams.

I get a lot of questions about my brackets. I’m beginning to cool off after a torrid start. In the 4AA bracket, though, it’s all good. I correctly picked 3 of the 4 quarterfinal teams with Davie County being the team I had counted out. I correctly called the great match-up that is our Game of the Week in Butler and Providence, but let’s see if my pick of the Panthers upsetting the Bulldogs comes through. In the 4A I was also 3 of 4… but West Charlotte’s upset of Crest (congratulations to Coach Gilchrist and crew) knocked out my state championship pick, so now I’m thinking the Lions will wear the crown. In the 3AA 2 out of 4 isn’t bad. Catholic is my pick to roll and they are surviving just fine. And in 3A I’m also 50% and my pick to win it all, the Concord Spiders are alive and kicking. In 2AA 2 out of 4 is again where I’m at and the Shelby Golden Lions who are pick to win it all are looking good. In the 2A bracket while I’m also 2 of 4, Newton Conover’s upset of Maiden blew my brackets up! Newton Conover is my new pick to make it to Winston Salem. Thank goodness I don’t have anything on the line except my reputation as a prognosticator which isn’t worth much to start with.

Good luck in week 3 of the playoffs and we’ll have all the best highlights for you Friday Night on the Blitz! See you then.

Ira