A Word From The Outlaw 012


We’re now five games into the reboot of the rivalry between Dyer County and Dyersburg across the team sports of the TSSAA.

Some sports have been fairly one-sided, others have not. But, they have all provided the better atmospheres to watch sports when the black and gold take on the orange and white.

If you made the trip over to J.C. Sawyers Stadium on Friday night, you, no doubt, saw this first-hand.

In our area of the country, football is going to be the one sport that leads the rivalry.

Fan pages talk about it for weeks ahead. Businesses runs specials and contests based on the game and on it’s results. The online chatter can be deafening if you know where to look. People ask members of pick’em panels – like the one JP Productions Sports is running this year – who they will pick in this game weeks ahead of time. It’s the biggest date on the calendar for a lot of fans.

Remember folks, I go to pretty much every game that has Dyersburg and Dyer County squaring off. I see the crowds. I watch the games. But, I love the atmospheres.

So far, for me, this current cycle of games between the Choctaws and Trojans on the gridiron is probably the best of the bunch.

It would be hard to beat the atmosphere we had in Dyersburg on Friday night. And the game we got to see was probably the best one we’ll see all year when you take into account all the factors playing in.

Sure, no steps were taken towards the postseason on Friday night and we all knew that coming in. But, the crowd last night was as engaged as any crowd I have seen in a long time and the boys on the field put on a show worthy of the ticket price those thousands of people paid to get through the gate.

The roar from the crowd at J.C. Sawyers Stadium when the teams ran out after the coin toss was the loudest I remember hearing for a high school football game.

Both sides – great job. Now, my challenge to you is to keep that up through the trials and tribulations of the 2025 season that is only one game old as you read this.

While I am sure both coaches will spend a few hours this week picking apart what was not the cleanest of games by their teams, what followed the coin toss was probably the best games to watch for Dyer County since the Choctaws win over Henry County in the 2019 playoffs and for Dyersburg since its battles with Covington in 2021 en route to the TSSAA Semifinals.

Some may agree with me and some may not. And I am open to discussion on this because that is the beauty of high school sports. Friday night shows just how good it can be for sports here when Dyer County and Dyersburg take the field/court/pitch against each other.

We’ve got two of those games coming up in other sports on Thursday at Dyersburg High School as the volleyball and girls soccer teams square off. And these are District 13AA games, too, folks.

I encourage fans to pack the stands in both J.C. Sawyers Stadium and in the Terry Glover Gymnasium on Thursday. Wear your black and gold or orange and white and rattle a few windows in those nearby neighborhoods with your cheers.

Time to make this rivalry one of  the best in all sports in all of West Tennessee.

See you there, ladies and gentlemen.

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