luvthemraiders

Give the Raiders two of their missing starters on offense and the Raiders look better on O and score more points last night. Please don't start the handier win with Conner. Injuries are a part of football. The teams played with who they had, Highlands was the better team last night, but not nearly as dominant over Ryle as last year. The teams are MUCH closer this year, especially by the end of the year. As you say, that's all that matter. Good luck to the Birds. Great program and team.

Hard-hitting game. Both D's played very well. Ryle impressed me with their quickness and toughness, just need to figure out the offensive line play. Ryle will win a lot of FB games this year as they get some key starters back and make adjustments on offense. Birds will win 5A state - Josh Conner is a stud. Collingsworth is excellent. Ryle's Conner Hempel played very well for a first-year soph starter in run-for-life mode. Ryle had about 175 yards of offense and the Birds had about 280. Take away the 4 big plays (3 by Birds and 1 by Ryle) it was probably 125 yards Ryle and 150 Birds. First downs were about 10 each. I think the Birds ended up with 2 more first downs. Good opener that will help both teams.

The gap between the two teams is less than last year. I understand that both teams will be missing some starters so injuries are not relevant. One big difference this year is that the Raiders won't be starting drives from the 20. Both teams lost great PK's and kickoff coverage will be important. Lookin' forward to a surprising battle at the Fort on Friday night. Turnovers will be big. I will be surprised if the game is outside a 14-point margin as most posters have predicted and will continue to predict. HHS is the favorite for sure and deservedly so. I'll be sure to make the trip to support the Raiders! We're all glad that the season opener is finally here!

:thumb: Stud runner and fun to watch - one of the tops in KY this year. Best wishes for the quickest recovery possible.

Just correcting 2 pieces of bad info. Ryle won the scrimmage last year, which was played in a game format including special teams (special teams were not live this year), and Cov's only moment of glory was a KO return for touch. Cov could not move the ball last year and I'm sure they had lots of total offense yesterday. In 3 quarters of semi-real format this year, it was 21-13 Cov. Cov looks much improved. Ryle's O looks much improved over last year, but their D was much worse.

Game portion was 21-13 Cov. It looked like Ryle went for two after the last TD to practice a 2-point conversion. 10 x 10 was 2 Td's Ryle and none CovCath.

Some observations, hopefully not biased in any way. Both teams looked decent. The one receiver for CovCath, I assume VanSant from the previous post, is a very good athlete and playmaker, and was impressive. I guess the equivalent of the 1st quarter was 10 and 10 with Ryle scoring 2 TD's, one on a pick by #44 (not sure who it was) that was blown dead on the way to the house and the second on a long run, probably 50 yards, by Kiefer Eubank. It was 7-7 in the second and third quarters. CovCath won the "fourth" quarter 14-7 with Ryle scoring very late. Ryle's O is much better looking than in the past. Ryle's D did not play well at all in the "fourth" quarter. CovCath's O-line looked big and did a nice job of controlling the line of scrimmage, especially in the "fourth" quarter. Conner Hempel, soph QB for Ryle looks very solid and poised. CovCath's QB did a good job. All in all, a good day for a scrimmage and I'm sure both teams learned a lot. I don't know how you would score it if that matters. Good news in the injury department - I did not see any that kept someone out of action. It would have been a very close game had it been played for keeps. Ryle looked like they had a lot of guys on the sideline in street clothes for the scrimmage. Good luck to both teams this year.

We are all crushed in spirit. We will pray for the Waldenmeyer family and the Highlands community. This is a great loss, especially to those who knew Mitch personally. We grieve with you during these difficult days ahead.

Great job, DAWGS! I love this team. What a great representative for the 9th region. We are pulling for you tonight!

Ryle's coach is from Boone. I would think he would stay at Ryle, however.

Good to see Holmes win. They are a very classy team led by one heck of a classy coach. Best of luck, Dawgs, as you proceed. All of NKY is behind you.

I have no idea what you mean. You would have to give me some examples to help me understand. I am not very smart.

Good point, crunch. I agree about the D word. Dominate means on top of the pile all the time. I would simply say that when you look at the total athletic program performance, Ryle is probably at the top.

Wrestling and girls softball - domination. As good as anybody else in soccer (boys won region last 2 years actually), football (except Highlands), baseball (won region last year), golf, volleyball, swimming, girls' basketball dramatically improved and will be as good as anybody starting next year (almost got there this year). Heck, I heard they have a pretty good ping pong program last year. And, nobody ever beats us at checkers. I'm proud of Ryle's accomplishments in sports. Good kids that work hard just like the good kids that work hard everywhere. Sorry about any assumption on my part. Just responding to your sarcasm about "keep us posted" and "noted" and knowing that you are a big Highlands fan.

Indeed, Ryle has outperformed Highlands overall during the past couple of years and we should due to enrollment. But remember, we don't have kids move to Ryle just to play football. That may happen over the years with the breaking news story but that is a huge advantage that the Birds enjoy due to their tradition and success. More power to the Birds for running a great football program. However, I agree with cshs about overall., Ryle is on the way. Just take time to look at all sports, not just football. Why, even our "worst" sport that gets badmouthed a lot, boys basketball, beat the Birds the last 2 years.