TSSAA football Week 2 is here — and The Bootleg has a question for you

Do you ever think about how ironic it is that the driest place on Earth — the Atacama Desert in northern Chile — is located next to the Pacific Ocean, the planet’s biggest body of water?

We don’t.

This is The Bootleg , a newsletter about Tennessee high school football , and that's all we want you to think about while reading it.

Week 2 of the TSSAA season has arrived. Last week got a little bonkers .

Let’s dive in.

Have you ever seen this before?

If you stayed up late last Friday and missed CPA and Brentwood Academy’s Saturday night special, it was quite a spectacle. CPA won 31-24 .

CPA’s Weston Parker returned the opening kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown. Then Brentwood Academy’s Neo Clifton returned the ensuing kickoff 93 yards for a TD.

I’ve never seen a game begin with back-to-back kickoff returns for TDs, and asked everyone else I saw that night if they had either — most of them had not, and the others lied to me.

In all seriousness, if you've attended a game where that happened, email me at tpalmateer@tennessean.com. I'd love to hear about it. We might run your response in the next Bootleg .

What do the experts think?

Our USA TODAY Sports Network’s weekly statewide rankings are a must if you care about Tennessee high school football . You can see how our team of 10 sports writers ranked each classification , or, how they ranked our Super 25 regardless of class.

Predicting the outcomes of games is a bit of a different animal. But we tried our best to pick the winners of Week 2's top games .

Wishing good health to all

Oakland running back and USC commitment Daune Morris (ankle) , Montgomery Bell Academy three-star junior quarterback Hugh Price (collarbone) and East Robertson running back, and Georgia Tech commitment Isaiah Groves (knee) all suffered injuries last week.

The extent of those injuries isn’t totally clear. Either way, I hated hearing this news. Morris and Groves ― members of The Tennessean’s 2024 Dandy Dozen ― are seniors with college careers starting soon. Price, who has an offer from Michigan, was entering a key junior season.

Here’s to quick recoveries.

Changes in The Tennessean sports department

Here’s the kind of inside information we’ll bring you in The Bootleg.

Longtime Tennessee high school sports writer George Robinson was promoted to South Region associate sports director and high school sports editor at The Tennessean this week. He will oversee the USA TODAY Sports Network’s high school sports coverage throughout Tennessee and in Mississippi.

You’ve probably seen George around. He’s been writing exclusively for The Tennessean for the last year and a half, penning fantastic stories like Brentwood golf star Blades Brown 's rise and former CPA star and Georgia football freshman Ondre Evans' mom letting her son chart his own path . Before joining The Tennessean, he covered high schools for The Leaf-Chronicle in Clarksville for 16 years.

George will still be writing about high school sports, but you’ll also feel his impact from behind the scenes as he sets the best practices for our statewide high school team.

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: TSSAA football Week 2 is here — and The Bootleg has a question for you