When the brackets for the state playoffs were released on Oct. 31, they were immediately dissected and discussion about the best matchups or most competitive quadrants soon followed.

And while the case could be made for several games and quadrants, I'm not sure there's a more even quadrant from top to bottom than the Class 2A Northeastern quadrant and that two more evenly matched teams could've met in the first round than Tellico Plains and Oliver Springs.
If you were one of the lucky people to see that game, you saw what might go down as one of the most exciting games in Tellico Plains history.

But if you look closer at how the game played out, there was more to it than exciting plays, big stops, and plenty of big hits.
One three separate occasions, the Bears could've folded their tents and played out the string.
But this team has no quit in them.
The first bad break was on the first play from scrimmage when Deion O'Dell fumbled.
 It looked like Oliver Springs would scoop the fumble and score, but after the ball changed hands at least four times, Tellico recovered.
Later on the drive, the Bears scored.

The second time the Bears could've broke was right before the end of the half when Tellico couldn't score, despite being on the Oliver Springs 2-yard line.
It was a big momentum shift and when a team has 20 minutes to celebrate a stop of that magnitude, like the Bobcats did, it's usually bad news for the other team.
The final critical moment the Bears had to overcome was late in the fourth quarter when Oliver Springs looked to be driving towards a potential game-winning score.

I must admit, during a timeout after the Bobcats moved inside the Tellico 10, I looked at the scoreboard, calculated how much time would be left, and tried to figure out how the Bears could move the ball quickly enough to answer with a score of their own.
But then a funny thing happened.

The Bears tackled the Bobcats for a three-yard loss, Zeke Massingail racked up a sack, and Cody Yates recorded a sack of his own, along with forcing a fumble.
Disaster averted.
Tellico scored two plays later on a long run by O'Dell.

The previous two seasons, I've watched as one little mistake or bad break became the undoing of the Bears in several games.
This year, they take those bad breaks in stride.
This team is a direct reflection of their head coach, Trevor Hunt.

Hunt never gets too high or too low no matter the situation. And if one play goes wrong, he looks to the next play to fix it.
This team has a tough test on Friday night at Hampton.

However, this team passed several tough tests last week and should be hungry to pass another on Friday.