When the new century began, the 1A classification in North Carolina was not subdivided, and the larger schools added to 1A dominated the state 1A.
The Smoky Mountain Conference had not had a champion since 1996. The last team that participated in the championship was Rosman in 1997, when the Tigers fell to North Edgecombe 38-28.
The N.C. High School Athletic Association subdivided the 1A classification at the start of the 2001 football season, splitting it into two divisions, 1AA and 1A. Teams with the larger enrollment would play in 1AA, while teams with smaller enrollments would play in 1A.
Swain County would put the conference back in the state winner’s circle in 2001, defeating Williamston 38-19 in the 1A championship game. Swain didn’t win the conference that year, as they lost to Murphy 24-7 in the de facto championship game back in those days. Murphy would play in the 1AA division playoffs, falling to East Surry 17-13 in the third round of the playoffs.
(Note: That game was played on the date of my son’s birth. I held him until about 5 p.m., then handed him back to my wife and told her I would see her about 10:30 p.m. My in-laws took a dim view of my actions.)
Murphy won the conference again in 2002, going undefeated, but the Bulldogs would fall to Starmount in the second round of the 1AA playoffs. A new 1A representative would advance to the semifinals of the 1A division that year, as Hayesville was one play away from playing for the Yellow Jackets’ first state championship ever.
Hayesville was playing host to Elkin in the semifinal game, had Elkin pinned deep into their own territory and led 13-12 with only seconds left. Alas, Elkin completed a “Hail Mary” pass on the last play of the game to end Hayesville’s hopes of a trip to Raleigh, defeating the Yellow Jackets 19-13. Elkin would go on to win the 1A championship, defeating Chocowinity 30-6.
Hayesville won the conference crown in 2003, beating Swain, Robbinsville and Murphy that year. Hayesville would lose in the second round of the playoffs to conference foe Rosman, a team the Yellow Jackets defeated 50-0 in a conference game earlier that year.
Meanwhile, Hendersonville knocked Murphy out of the 1AA playoffs in the third round.
Rod White took over the helm at Swain County in 1997, after Boyce Dietz departed to return to his alma mater in Sylva Webster. He had one state title in 2001 and would claim his second in 2004, as the Maroon Devils defeated South Side to claim the 1A crown. Swain would also boast an undefeated season that year.
Murphy would claim the conference crown in 2006, but the Dogs would fall in the fourth round on the 1AA playoffs to eventual champion Thomasville 41-0. Thomasville would go on to win the championship game the next week.
Murphy had won a one-point game at Cherokee that year, and the Braves were the 1A representative that went the deepest in the playoffs that year under new head coach David “Scooter” McCoy. The Braves fell to eventual state champion Elkin 37-7 in the semifinal game.
McCoy turned the Cherokee program around, winning 12 games at a school that had won only five games during the previous two seasons. He followed up that 12-win season with another, in which Cherokee claimed their first Smoky Mountain Conference crown.
The Braves lost in the third round of the playoffs that year. Swain and Murphy were both eliminated from 1AA in round one in 2007.
Murphy would claim the conference crown in 2008, going undefeated until facing a familiar foe in the third round of the 1AA playoffs in Hendersonville. Bulldogs coach David Gentry was going up against a gentleman he had faced many times before, Jim Fox.
B.J. Laughter was Hendersonville’s head coach that year, and he enlisted the help of his old high school coach to be one of his assistants. Fox was coach at Rosman in the early 1980s and, after taking jobs elsewhere, returned to the Tigers from 1997 to 2006, when he retired.
He and Gentry butted heads when Gentry was in Edneyville, then again when Rosman joined the conference while Fox was head coach. Fox won this battle, as Hendersonville knocked the Bulldogs out of the playoffs 27-20.
Hendersonville lost the next week 28-21 to Thomasville, which ended up winning the 1AA title that year. Cherokee lost in the third round that year in the 1A playoffs to Mount Airy 46-0.
The conference crown ended in a three-way tie in 2009. Swain got a better seed than Murphy via beating the Bulldogs in the last game of the season.
Murphy had a chance to claim the conference outright, having beat Robbinsville earlier in the year and the fact that Swain lost to the Black Knights, but the Bulldogs’ loss made it a three-way tie. Murphy was knocked out of the 1AA playoffs that year by Albemarle, which knocked out Swain the next week.
Robbinsville advanced to the to the semifinals in 1A only to lose 27-26 to Mount Airy, which went on to win the 1A title that year. The Black Knights had built a 13-point lead going into the fourth quarter, but Mount Airy came back to beat them in the fourth quarter. The winning points were scored on a fourth-and-17 play, in which the Granite Bears completed a 23-yard touchdown pass to seal their win.
Murphy was always going to be the smallest 1AA school or the biggest 1A school under this system, and in 2010 they were classified in 1A again. The brackets were not divided until the end of the regular season, when it was decided who qualified for the playoffs. Then the Average Daily Membership for each of those schools were taken into account to divide the teams into the two divisions.
The Bulldogs responded by sending a Smoky Mountain Conference team into the championship game. Murphy lost to Wallace Rose-Hill 22-21, missing all three extra-point attempts.
Seth Curtis, a current Murphy assistant coach, was the quarterback that year. He had a chance to win the game with a receiver wide open in the end zone late in the fourth quarter.
On a rain-soaked Kenan Stadium field, he slipped as he set his feet to throw, and the Dogs fell short in that game. Curtis was named Murphy’s most valuable offensive player after passing for 202 yards and a touchdown, while running in another TD from 56 yards.
The Smoky Mountain Conference owned the 1A state championships in the next decade.
Next week: The ever-exciting 2010s.