Football season kicks off Friday. Start 2024 off with Turf Wars on Sunday

Thank you for reading The Bootleg, our high school sports newsletter . I'm Tennessean sports editor Tom Kreager .

Scrimmages and jamborees are over. Coaches are fine-tuning Week 1 game plans and depth charts. And school administrations are finalizing their check list to make sure open night home games run as smoothly as possible.

Folks, next up is the Tennessee high school football season and oh how we've missed it.

We at The Tennessean have created our check list for Week 1. We've circle the games we plan to cover. We have our story budgets for the week and have some special high school football packages you won't read anywhere else.

The first rolls out on Sunday. It's our Turf Wars package, where we look at how high school football facilities have become nicer than some small college football programs.

We have public and private schools that have beautiful artificial turf stadiums and video boards that fans will see on Friday nights. But some of these schools also have multi-million dollar indoor practice facilities, gigantic weight rooms, comfortable locker rooms and cold tubs to climb into after tough practices.

The Tennessean's Tyler Palmateer did a deep-dive report in this and what he learned is many TSSAA football coaches believe they must enhance their facilities to keep student athletes and attract others.

Be sure to pick up Sunday's print edition, or read this story package on Tennessean.com.

Who will win TSSAA football gold ball trophies in 2024?

Our statewide network of high school sports writers have released their Tennessee high school football state championship predictions for all nine TSSAA classifications. Our writers span from Knoxville to Memphis with a heavy dose of Nashville area representation.

There were two schools that we all agreed on. We all picked Alcoa to win its 10th straight Class 3A state championship and Chattanooga Baylor to win its second Division II-AAA state title in three years.

Now who do I think will win championships? Here is who I have winning:

Class 1A: McKenzie

Class 2A: Huntingdon

Class 3A: Alcoa

Class 4A: Pearl-Cohn

Class 5A: Page

Class 6A: Ravenwood

Division II-A: Nashville Chistian

Division II-AA: Boyd-Buchanan

Division II-AAA: Baylor

How do I compare to your predictions? Let me know via email at tkreager@tennessean.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Football season kicks off Friday. Start 2024 off with Turf Wars on Sunday