South Pittsburg coach Vic Grider saw his team eliminated from last year’s playoffs by Trousdale County. He felt a tougher schedule this year would pay off in the postseason.

Boyd-Buchanan coach Grant Reynolds went through a year when the Buccaneers played Baylor, Red Bank, Knox Fulton, Cookeville, Tyner and South Pittsburg. They went 3-7 but got into the playoffs despite being overpowered. When the scheduling was done for this year and next he was looking for a blend of tough competition but always where the Buccaneers would be competitive.

“We were coming off three straight trips to the state finals and nobody wanted to play us, so that 2006 year was tough,” Reynolds recalled. “We had really good teams scheduled and we were awfully young.”

This time around he targeted tough teams but also teams more on the Buccaneers’ Class 2A level. “We really worked hard at trying to schedule teams that were competitive with us and teams that we could play with,” said Reynolds. “Still, it was creative scheduling and we looked from one end of the state to the other and we looked in North Carolina and Kentucky. But the more successful you are the harder it is to find teams who’ll play.”

Even McMinn County, which was left out of the playoffs two years ago but then knocked off top-ranked Kingsport Dobyns-Bennett in an early round last year, had trouble with its schedule. The Cherokees wound up scheduling Maryville.

“It wasn’t so much by choice,” Cherokees coach Bo Cagle said. “Nobody wanted to play them but nobody wanted to play us.”

South Pittsburg hadn’t suffered two losses in a regular season since 2004, but the district champion Pirates, ranked No. 1 in Class A, lost two games this year.

“Even though we have lost a couple of games it could be beneficial to us two weeks from now, three weeks from now; however far we go,” Grider said. “It will pay off, especially for the younger guys, to have had quality competition and a playoff atmosphere. We’ve had that four or five, even six times.”

Games that were certainly of that caliber included the annual battle with Marion County and games with Central, Boyd-Buchanan and Polk County. Central was state-ranked and 4-0 when the two met, Boyd-Buchanan was the second-ranked Class 2A team and Polk was ranked third in Class 3A.

“We experienced what we wanted several times but the last few years outside of the Marion and Boyd games we haven’t always been able to say that,” Grider said.

The Pirates lost to Boyd-Buchanan and Polk but in the long run the Pirates staff got what they wanted.

“I hate losing games and I would give anything if we were 10-0 instead of 8-2. But six weeks from now if we’re sitting in Cookeville and we’re 12-2 and state champs, who’s going to give a rip about 8-2?”

Each coach also had to walk the fine line between preparing for the postseason, meeting district requirements and looking for that extra win or two because of the new playoff tiebreakers and wild-card qualifications.

Sequatchie County’s final regular season game was against McMinn Central, which has been among ranked Class 3A teams all season. It is possible that the two — already playoff-qualified — could meet again in the near future.

“Don’t ask me about scenarios. We will travel or we might host if we get lucky,” Sequatchie coach Chad Barger said before coaches had to go through a number of changes to the playoffs that were first announced Saturday morning.

He also said the new playoff setup influenced his scheduling thoughts.

“I wanted to schedule up and to schedule great competition. Great competition will get you better for the future. Some teams went for the wins and I think that will hurt them come Week 1 of the playoffs,” he said. “If there is a tie-breaker they go to wins over teams that are over .500. We have played six teams that are .500 or better and three of our losses were by a combined 18 points.”

Two of those losses were to playoff-bound Bledsoe County, which won District 7-AA over the Indians, and 9-1 Signal Mountain.

Yet even the team’s first winning season in several years last season caused scheduling problems.

“Finding games was harder than I thought. Some teams we played last year didn’t want to play again because we had a little success,” Barger said.

Scheduling has always been tricky, but even more so with the new playoff scenario.

“You have to play district games so you’re locked in there,” Reynolds said. “You try to find a good balance. The schedule this year wasn’t as tough as it had been. Both CCS and Notre Dame (Boyd wins) came to us wanting to play.”

The Bucs’ lone loss was to Red Bank, the state’s top-ranked Class 4A team, and there also were wins over South Pittsburg and Marion County.

“You get better by playing better people, but you can’t overload it on one end of the spectrum or the other. You want teams with which you can be competitive along with teams where you have to stand on your tippy-toes to compete.”