The Bootleg is back with your must-read stories prior to the TSSAA football season

The Bootleg is back!

Welcome to our high school sports newsletter. I'm Tennessean sports editor Tom Kreager. Well, the high school football season kicks off in seven days. Yes, the offseason is over.

Our high school team has spent the summer break prepping for the 2024-25 school year and spent the last several weeks dropping stories on Tennessean.com .

One series I've enjoyed is a look at the top Tennessee high school football players statewide. George Robinson has ranked the top 100 seniors , the top 50 juniors , top 25 sophomores and top 10 freshmen . This series, which started a year ago, gives a glimpse at not only is the top college football recruits for the Class of 2025, but also the following three graduation classes.

Robinson spent countless hours sending emails to coaches statewide, looking at film available online and talking to people to compile these lists. It's a list we'll update, too. We'll update the seniors at midseason, end of regular season and end of season. We'll also update the other classes at the end of the season.

Mark your calendars

We'll begin narrowing our scope of coverage specifically to Week 1 next week and the start of the season. But before we do that, we've got a list of our top games for the 2024 Nashville area regular season.

This list can serve as your reminder to what we believe will be the top high school games involving Middle Tennessee programs. Here's a hint for one game on the list I plan to attend: Brentwood Academy at Christ Presbyterian Academy on Aug. 24. It's televised on MyTV-30, too. This marks the first game at Brentwood Academy for longtime Nashville area coach Paul Wade. It was also a must-see game that came down to the wire in 2023 with Division II-AA state champion CPA winning.

Here are our TSSAA football hot takes

Finally, here are some of our best hot takes , or bold predictions of the TSSAA football season. Full disclosure: None of these are from me. The one I'm most interested in tracking — as a dad of a high school football playing senior in Rutherford County — was the prediction that Oakland, which has reached the past four BlueCross Bowls, won't make the 6A championship game this year.

I think TT Hill and Daune Morris will have something to say about that one.

Thanks again for reading The Bootleg ! Our team will see you at a high school football stadium this season.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: The Bootleg is back with your must-read stories prior to the TSSAA football season