Tigers Continue Record Setting Play-Off Appearance
By Mark Darnell
The Macon County High School Tigers are set to continue the next part of their 2024 football season. They will enter the TSSAA play-offs next week at Soddy Daisy.
The Tigers will make a ninth consecutive play-off appearance in the football playoffs dating all the way back to 2016. This marks the longest consecutive play-off run in the history of the Macon County program. The deepest appearance, in these nine years, was the quarterfinals of the Class 4A division last season in a 14-17 loss to Upperman. In 2003 the Tigers made it to the semi-finals of Class 3A losing to Knox Fulton 0-26.
The Tigers completed the 2024 campaign with wins over Westmoreland (31-7), Trousdale County (42-0), Smith County (49-6), Cumberland County (35-7), DeKalb County (49-27), Livingston Academy (45-6), Watertown (49-7), and Stone Memorial (54-0). Their losses were to the #1 seeded and undefeated Upperman (34-35), and #2 seeded White County (18-34).
Macon finishes their regular season with an 8-2 record overall and 4-2 in Class 4-4A. With the two region losses the Tigers will finish as the #3 seed in their region and travel for the first round of the play-offs into Region 3-4A. They will face the #2 seeded Soddy Daisy Trojans from east Tennessee in the first ever meeting of the two programs.
The play-offs will begin with four teams from Region 3 playing four teams from Region 4 in Class 4A. A #1 seed in Region 4 will play a #4 in Region 3 and #2 Region 3 will play #3 Region 4. If the Tigers were able to win their first round match-up they would get a return shot at the Upperman Bees in Baxter.
Macon County enters the play-offs with an average of scoring 40.6 points per game against only allowing 12.9 points per game. Both the offense and defense have the capability to be elite in Class 4A and many fans believe that if the Tigers keep playing at a high level they could make another deep run in the post season.
For those traveling this Friday night the game in Soddy Daisy is scheduled for a 7 pm kick-off in Eastern time, so allow for the extra hour. The address of the school is 618 Sequoyah Access Rd, Soddy Daisy, TN.
