CHOCOWINITY — The 1-A Coastal Plains conference coaches gathered at Southside High School on Wednesday morning for coaches to address the media about the upcoming season. The consecutive state champion, Tarboro Vikings, topped the list of all the coaches to win the conference in the 2019.

The Vikings have won seven state championships as a program and is coming off of consecutive undefeated seasons at 15-0.

While there was no coach’s poll or media poll, a questionnaire asked the majority of head coaches about their own teams and their selection to win the division. All the coaches that filled it out picked the Vikings.

“Tarboro is who we are, things haven’t changed much,” Tarboro head coach Jeff Craddock said. “We’ve lost around 43 seniors the past two years. We have about 20 players coming back from last year’s season. We have some holes to fill, but there are a lot of kids under the scenes that have waited their turn for their time to shine, and they’re some good young men that we’re excited about.”

However, two teams from the 1-A Coastal Plains conference competed for a state championship last year. Pamlico County played in the 1-AA state playoffs, falling to Murphy in the title game, 60-27.

The Hurricanes will have to replace a starting quarterback from last year, and new head coach Ron Cook said his team still has work to do to match their production from last season.

1-A is divided into two subsets for the playoffs, with one for the bigger 1-A schools and 1-AA for the smaller ones. The way it is set up, if Southside were to make a run for the state title, they would play in the same playoff bracket as Pamlico County and avoid Tarboro that plays in the 1-A bracket.

Seahawks head coach Jeff Carrow said he was getting pumped up for the start of the season.

“We just have to get back to what the expectations for Southside is. Giving back to Seahawk nation, getting back on the winning track like we’re supposed to, good sound discipline football, defensively flying to the ball causing turnovers, and offensively marching the ball down the field and scoring when given the opportunity,” Carrow said about his goals for this season. “Every coach in the conference agrees that this is the toughest 1-A conference in the state. On the eastern side that is. You got Tarboro of course, Pamlico had an outstanding year, we’ve had our runs in the past, Riverside every year is a run and gun, shoot out team, Jones Senior improves every year and South Creek can beat anybody on any given night.”

With the conclusion of media days, the beginning of the regular season is just a couple of weeks away. The first scrimmage for Southside will be at Northside next Wednesday for a jamboree beginning at 4 p.m.

The teams participating in the jamboree will be Northside, Southside, Pamlico County, Plymouth/Washington County, Bear Grass Charter School and Bertie.

Northside’s coaching staff was not in attendance of the media days.