jbsaylor

I am from Rockcastle County. We have played Green and Jackson County. I promise you if Rock is a top 20 team then Simon Kenton, Lincoln County, and Casey County should definitely be in the top 20. It seems to me the 12th region in particular struggles to get respect. In my opinion Lincoln County should be in the top 10 based on their schedule and beating us at home. If you add Southwestern and Wayne County , both of whom can beat anybody on a given night, the 12 region is one of the top 3-4 in the state. Just my opinion of course !!!

Since there are only a couple points difference in the first 20-25 teams I would think whoever has a good night can just about beat anybody else on any given night. I don't think their is a team like Butler or Sacred Heart or Lex Cath have been having the last 5-6 years. I would say their are 5 or 6 teams with a realistic chance to win the 12th region with Casey and Lincoln as the favorites. This region is much, much stronger than it was a couple years ago and whoever wins should have a chance to make some noise in Bowling Green!!

I think the rebels will be a little too much on their home court. Coach Noble seems to do and excellent job at tournament time though. Casey by 7

Hammonds the center for Rockcastle played about half the game. This is two games in a row she has struggled with foul problems. Will be hard for Rockets to beat a good team without her. I believe if she had been had played a little smarter then Rockets would have beaten Simon Kenton and probably Lincoln. This is some Sarah and the coaches will have to work on.

Bell will win 28-0. Bell has more speed, much more experience and a kicker who dictates field position. You can't put a value on their kicker in high school where you are not allowed to run kickoffs out of the endzone. In my opinion that had a lot to do with Bells loss to catholic last year. The Catholic deep man ( Winston Guy ) caught the ball on 1-2 yard line and was down the sideline before some of kick off team realized the ball didn't go in the endzone. I still think this will be a hard hitting game and Rock will put up a good fight. Bell just has too many weapons this year.

If Southern comes out and don't have any turnovers they have a shot. Rock is nowhere as fast or talented as their first 2 opponents and this will be a totally different circumstance. Rock has played only a team with one player and a team without their quarterback so I am interested to see how they will do!!!

This game will be a toss-up. Rockcastle will have a hard time running the ball on Wayne defense. I think Wayne can pull out a squeaker 14-7.

The Rockcastle vs. Southwestern was good evidence of what effect low numbers has on a game. The Rockets were very competitive the first half and may have even gotten the best of them but the second half the effect of everyone playing both ways made a huge difference. Southwestern started running right past Rock almost at will. Also keep in mind Rock only had 1 player out with injuries and this number will certainly increase as the year goes along .

No one would argue the point that Rockets have an excellent coaching staff and often overachieve. But when your outmanned ( example Bell County last year or Johnson Central 2 years ago) their isn't a lot the coaching staff can do. Rocket fans just need to hang tough till we get our numbers and talent level hopefully back up in a couple years. If it were easy everybody would be doing it. In my opinion no coach could put a team with this many first year starters on the field and compete with this particular Pulaski team!

The drastically outmanned Rockets will need a great game plan and a bunch of turnovers to keep this game anywhere close. Rock will have to rely on Freshmen to start at 2-3 spots due to low numbers. I'll take the Maroons 35-7.

I saw both teams scrimmage Friday night . This game will pit a seasoned team with tons of speed and firepower on offense against a smallish Rockcastle team with no speed and little size. If this game is less than 4 touchdowns I would be shocked. I am a Rockcastle fan but I try to be realistic. Rockcastle looked similar to last year without Burkhart in the middle to dominate on defense. Pulaski county looked average on defense but very dominating on offense. Their quarterback and tailback were very impressive. Lots of luck to the Rock!!!

If they can get by Mercer in the second week I think the Maroons have an excellent chance to go undefeated. I don't see anyone else who has enough athletes to compete with them. Anyone else have thoughts ?

I am a Rockcastle Rocket fan. We have had a successful program for the last decade but for some reason our numbers have been going steadily down the last 5-6 years. I was just curious if this is a statewide problem, a rural problem or just a problem here. The only kids we can keep out now are the rare kid ( IN ROCKCASTLE COUNTY) whose parents can afford to pay for their automobile and insurance and the kids who have no hope of affording automobiles or insurance or gas. It also seems like kids don't want to be part of teams in general if they can't start or play a lot by sophomore year. Very few kids are willing to work and play a couple of years on JV in order to get to play varsity. Kids who don' t live in town have a very difficult time since the school no longer helps at all with transportation. The problem here has occurred so quickly that its hard to even scrimmage in practice because the freshmen have to scrimmage with the juniors and seniors. I see no hope for rural schools to stay competitive 4-5 years down the road if this trend continues. If school systems are not going to be allowed to help transport rural kids I don't know if these type schools will be able to continue to offer athletics in the future. It's hard for me to believe we can afford 15-20 buses twice a week, some with only 1 or 2 kids aboard, for after school tutoring and can't afford one bus daily to transport out of town athletes. I know academics is a school systems main concern but I also beleive school spirit and athletics are also important for a well rounded school system. As I stated earlier this is not at a school where the team and community support has been below standard, but just the opposite. I even notice when we played Bell County last year that even though they had a powerful team their numbers had fall into the 40's instead of the 55-60 Bell and Rockcastle used to have out. I worry that if something don't change rural football in Kentucky as we know it may change dramatically. I wondered what other peoples thoughts were on this or maybe this isn't a statewide problem and only a problem here !!

I believe Casey will be too physical and win by 7 points.

If Rockcastle doesn't bring their A game Friday night it will be done. They know they are in for a dogfight and will be ready. I look for both games Friday to be decided by 5 points or less.