Here are some notable numbers to know regarding this year’s BlueCross Bowl, which kicks off Thursday morning at Finley Stadium.
Nine TSSAA football state championships will be awarded during the three-day event, which Chattanooga is hosting for the fifth consecutive year. Three games will be played each day — at 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. — and there is the chance of an area team winning a title Thursday (Baylor in Division II-AAA), Friday (South Pittsburg in Class 1A) and Saturday (Marion County in Class 2A).
0: Number of interceptions thrown by Baylor senior quarterback Briggs Cherry in 201 attempts. The Louisville signee has completed 75% of his passes for 2,800 yards and 29 touchdowns this season without having thrown a pick.
3: Previous meetings between McKenzie and South Pittsburg with a state championship on the line. South Pittsburg has won all three of those, with the Pirates prevailing 14-7 in 2023 and 24-21 in 2021 at Finley Stadium, as well as 52-20 in 2007, when the BlueCross Bowl was held at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.
4: Consecutive Division II-AAA state championship games in which Baylor has appeared. After failing to reach the title game for a decade, the Red Raiders have now played for a championship every season since Erik Kimrey took over as head coach.
6: Consecutive DII-AAA titles won by Chattanooga schools. McCallie has won four of those, including the previous two over Baylor. The Red Raiders won their first state championship in 49 years in 2022 and dismissed McCallie in this year’s semifinals to earn the right to go for the program’s third title overall, this time against Brentwood Academy. Prior to the current streak, McCallie in 2001 was the most recent title team from Chattanooga in the highest classification for private schools, with the Blue Tornado beating BA 17-16 that year in a matchup played in Nashville at Vanderbilt University.
6: Consecutive years Murfreesboro’s Oakland has appeared in the Class 6A championship game. The Patriots are 4-1 in their previous trips in this current run, with the only season they did not take home the gold ball trophy in that stretch being 2023 as they lost 24-9 to Houston.
8: Unbeaten teams remaining. The list includes three games — Gatlinburg-Pittman (14-0) versus Westview (13-0) in Class 3A, Oakland (14-0) versus Ravenwood (14-0) in 6A, and Baylor (11-0) versus Brentwood Academy (11-0) in DII-AAA — in which both teams are undefeated. Class 5A’s Page (13-0) and DII-A’s Nashville Christian (12-0) also have yet to lose this season.
9: Defensive touchdowns scored by both Marion County and South Pittsburg. Both the Warriors and the Pirates have been opportunistic and disruptive on that side of the ball, especially with momentum-shifting turnovers taken back for scores. South Pittsburg has held 12 straight opponents to eight or fewer points, and its defense has not given up a touchdown in five consecutive games (the Pirates allowed a touchdown on special teams — via a punt return — in their semifinal victory last week), as well as six of the past seven. The 10 points that DII-AA’s Silverdale Baptist Academy scored while shutting out the Pirates in their season opener is the most they have given up in a single game in 2025. Meanwhile, the Warriors have held 11 of their 14 opponents to 14 or fewer points (including seven to single-digit scoring) and have yet to allow more than 20 points.
9: Football state champions crowned each year by the TSSAA, which trails only California (15) and Texas (10) for the most in the nation and is tied with Florida. The Georgia High School Association will award eight state championships this year, while the Alabama High School Athletic Association has seven.
10: Teams returning from last year’s BlueCross Bowl. Marion County (2A), Sevier County (5A), Oakland (6A) and Nashville Christian (DII-A) will all try to repeat in the same classification, while Alcoa takes aim at the 4A title after winning 10 straight in 3A before moving up this season. South Pittsburg (1A), Westview (3A), Page (5A), Battle Ground Academy (DII-AA) and Baylor (DII-AAA) were runners-up last season. This is the fifth straight season Page has reached the BlueCross Bowl, with runner-up finishes in each of the previous four, and the Patriots and Sevier County are also the only rematch from last year’s title games. South Pittsburg will become the first 1A program to play in the title game five times in a six-year span.
11: Number of players competing who had either a four-star or five-star recruiting ranking going into Wednesday. From the class of 2026, that includes two five-star prospects — Nashville Christian quarterback Jared Curtis (Vanderbilt commitment) and Baylor offensive lineman Gabe Osenda (Tennessee) — and a trio of four-star players in Oakland defensive backs Craig Tutt (Ole Miss) and Joel Wyatt (Tennessee) plus Baylor’s Cherry (Louisville). From the class of 2027, there are two each: five-star recruits in Baylor running back David Gabriel Georges and Brentwood Academy receiver Kesean Bowman, and four-star linebackers in Franklin Road Academy’s Omarii Sanders (Vanderbilt) and BA’s Kenneth Simon. Finally, there are two four-star sophomores: Baylor tight end Braxton Rein and BGA defensive lineman Ayden Woodruff. In overall player rankings, the state’s top three prospects for both 2026 (Curtis, Osenda, Wyatt) and 2027 (Gabriel Georges, Bowman, Sanders) will be playing at Finley Stadium this week.
12: Tennessee Titans Mr. Football finalists who will be competing this week. Those dozen players up for honors that will be announced Tuesday at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium: McKenzie’s Cole Brown and South Pittsburg’s Dayon Cooper (Class 1A), Westview’s Graham Simpson (3A), Alcoa’s Thomas Manu (4A), Sevier County’s Cooper Newman (5A), Oakland’s Tutt (6A), Nashville Christian’s Terry Ward and Curtis (DII-A), BGA’s Kaedyn Marable (DII-AA), Baylor’s Cherry and Gabriel Georges (DII-AAA) and BA’s Tommy Bauchiero (kicker of the year).
12: Consecutive seasons the Chattanooga area has had at least one team play for a TSSAA football state title. The area has also had at least one finalist in 15 of the past 16 years, with at least one champion from the area crowned each of the past six seasons. However, it has been 24 seasons since the area had a public school play for a title in any class above 2A; Red Bank was the 2000 season’s 5A champion.
13: Consecutive years Alcoa has played in a state championship game, winning each of the past 10. Of their 25 prevous trips to the the finals, the Tornadoes have won a TSSAA-record 23 of those title games.
Staff file photo by Robin Rudd / Alcoa’s football program is a giant when it comes to TSSAA state championships. The Tornadoes’ record 23 titles are six more than second-place Maryville, and they’ll be going for their record-extending 11th straight title this weekend at Finley Stadium. Alcoa also ranks second on the consecutive titles list with seven from 2004-10. No other team has won more than four in a row.
18: The number of times Erik Kimrey has guided a team to the state championship game in 21 seasons as a head coach. Kimrey has taken Baylor to the DII-AAA title game all four years he has been in charge of the Red Raiders and prior to that led South Carolina’s Hammond School to 14 championship games in 17 seasons. (The former University of South Carolina quarterback was on staff at his collegiate alma mater for one season in between his leadership roles at Hammond and Baylor.) Kimrey’s teams have won 13 state titles in the 17 previous appearances. His first two Hammond teams lost in the first round, and the 2016 team was beaten in the semifinals. For his career, Kimrey has won 90% of his games as a prep head coach as he holds an overall win-loss record of 238-26.
18: Number of teams competing this week — that’s all of them — that has played in a previous state championship game. Of that total, only Page (Class 5A) and University School of Jackson (DII-A) have never won a title. Page has finished as a runner-up the previous four years, while USJ is back in a title game for the first time in five years.
29: Times that Brentwood Academy has played in a state championship game, the most in state history. The Eagles currently have 14 titles and 14 runner-up finishes, with their most recent appearance prior to this year coming in 2018, when they took the DII-AAA crown in a BlueCross Bowl played at Cookeville’s Tennessee Tech.
31: Years since Franklin Road Academy played for a state championship. The Panthers defeated Peabody 27-8 in the 1991 Class 1A title game.
49.9: Scoring average for South Pittsburg, which is the highest points per game among the 18 teams competing this week. What makes that stat truly remarkable is that the Pirates were shut out in their season opener by Silverdale Baptist Academy, then proceeded to score 698 points over their next 13 games. The Pirates have also allowed the fewest total points (58) so far among BlueCross Bowl qualifiers. That’s a per-game average of just 4.1. In eight matchups with fellow 1A programs this season, South Pittsburg has an average score of 57-3 with five shutouts. Lookout Valley and Copper Basin both scored on Pirates reserves, and Coalfield returned a fourth-quarter punt 39 yards for a touchdown last week, meaning the first-team defense has yet to allow any points against 1A competition.
53: Consecutive playoff wins for Alcoa, which hasn’t lost a postseason game since falling 7-0 to Nashville’s Christ Presbyterian Academy in the Class 3A final in 2014.
104: All-time playoff wins by South Pittsburg, by far the most among Chattanooga-area programs. Marion County is next with 73. The Pirates’ total trails only Alcoa (145), Maryville (142) and Brentwood Academy (111) among teams across the state. This is the 102nd season for South Pittsburg’s program, which has compiled an all-time record of 775-258-39. It’s also the only program in the state, regardless of classification, that has played in a championship game in all seven decades of the TSSAA’s playoff format.
135: Number of tackles for loss, including 44 sacks, by the Marion County defense. Four players have more than 15 tackles for loss apiece: Ashton Martin, Mason Mays, Caden McCrary and Garrett Tuders.
232: Total teams that qualified for the playoffs across the TSSAA’s nine classes, including 28 from the Chattanooga area (after subtracting Class 3A’s Central, which elected to forfeit its first-round game due to having so few players due to injuries). Of that total, 57 qualified despite having a losing record, including five two-win teams, six with one win apiece (including Central) and even one (Class 1A’s Red Boiling Springs) that did not win a single game but made the postseason because four teams from each region qualify and the Bulldogs compete in a four-team region.
279: Miles from Martin Westview High School to Finley Stadium, the farthest any of this year’s 18 finalists will travel to play for a state title. Baylor, at just 4.7 miles away, has by far the shortest trip to the BlueCross Bowl site.
435: Rushing yards, on 32 carries, by Baylor’s Gabriel Georges in last month’s semifinal win over rival McCallie. He ran wild in the 56-35 victory, scoring seven of the Red Raiders’ eight touchdowns.
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com.
Staff file photo / For the fifth straight year, Finley Stadium will host the annual BlueCross Bowl. Three TSSAA football state championship games will be played each day on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Chattanooga venue.
BLUECROSS BOWL 2025
TSSAA state championship games
At Finley Stadium
Thursday, Dec. 4
Division II-AA: Battle Ground Academy (12-1) vs. Franklin Road Academy (11-1), 11 a.m.
Division II-A: Nashville Christian (12-0) vs. University School of Jackson (12-0), 3 p.m.
Division II-AAA: Baylor (11-0) vs. Brentwood Academy (11-0), 7 p.m.
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Friday, Dec. 5
FOOTBALL
Class 3A: Gatlinburg-Pittman (14-0) vs. Westview (13-0), 11 a.m.
Class 1A: McKenzie (13-1) vs. South Pittsburg (13-1), 3 p.m.
Class 5A: Page (13-0) vs. Sevier County (13-1), 7 p.m.
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Saturday, Dec. 6
Class 4A: Alcoa (13-1) vs. Pearl-Cohn (10-4), 11 a.m.
Class 2A: Huntingdon (13-1) vs. Marion County (13-1), 3 p.m.
Class 6A: Oakland (14-0) vs. Ravenwood (14-0), 7 p.m.
