ryanparker

Leave him alone, OldRambler. He may just be seeing the light!

That would be both interesting and surprising. They've gone to the shotgun spread formation with Cooper at QB for about 5 or 6 drives this season. The only times they've moved Cooper to RB (that I recall) have been in the Mason County and Sheldon Clark games. I had high hopes that we would see more of this formation after seeing them try it out with some success in their preseason scrimmage against Spring Valley, but we really haven't seen a lot of it this season. As I said, it would be surprising to see them come out with this. I wouldn't, however, be surprised to see them go to it if they fall behind and the Wing-T proves ineffective.

I agree. I always root for whichever area team makes it the furthest each year.

Two players. Korzep and Cooper. Joel Korzep has been the running the ball very well after being moved to FB for the playoffs. He played on the line for most of the season but switching him to FB has proven to be a good move. QB Patrick Cooper has been running well, too. Those are the two main playmakers on offense. There are several others who will get some carries, though. Russell doesn't really have a "feature back" as in years past when they faced Belfry. I guess that's good because there's no one to key on, but it's also bad because no one is going to break huge runs. The same two players, Korzep and Cooper, have been very good on defense as well along with linebackers Paul Spradlin and Justin Davidson. With the exception of the Ashland and Raceland games, Russell has been playing pretty good defense all season and even better in the playoffs. Their passing game, even though it's mainly only used to move the chains on 3rd downs, has been a little suspect at times this year. They've thrown some costly interceptions in a few games this season. I would imagine Belfry fans and Coach Haywood will recognize the Wing-T that Coach McGlone will be calling plays from. Other than going to shotgun spread formation on a few drives this season, they aren't doing a lot different. One thing to point out is that Russell does have a pretty good senior kicker in Tanner Locey. If the game comes down to field goals, then Russell has a shot.

I concur. Very nice post. It's good to see someone have this kind of pride in their team and community. Even though it's probably not apparent to most high schoolers while they're playing, thoughts like this highlight the fact that the players really are playing for more than just themselves out there. That's one of the things that is great about high school sports.

Russell travels to the beautiful CAM stadium next Friday for the 5th playoff game between these 2 teams in the last 7 years. The head-to-head series is tied at 2 apiece with Belfry winning in 2004 and 2009 and Russell coming away with victories in 2005 and 2006. The 2 programs have shared a great deal of success over the past decade. Since 1998 (as far back as the KHSAA website goes), Belfry has an overall record of 133-41 with 2 state championships, 1 state finals appearance, and 3 additional regional championships. In that same time frame, Russell has an overall record of 122-44 with 1 state championship, 1 state finals appearance, and 2 regional championships. The 2 programs are led by 2 of the top 7 winningest high school football coaches in Kentucky football history. Belfry's Philip Haywood is 3rd on the list with an overall record of 335-118. Russell's Ivan McGlone is 7th on the list with an overall record of 296-135, which doesn't include a 28-20 record he accumulated while coaching Huntington Vinson in West Virginia early in his coaching career. Both teams favor ground attacks. Both teams are used to winning. However, neither team was predicted to be a serious contender this season as rebuilding years were forecast for both. In fact, most figured this week's matchup would be Mason County against Sheldon Clark, the two number 1 seeds that Belfry and Russell defeated on the road to reach this point. It should be an exciting night of football next Friday in Belfry.

I'm sorry to hear Pawsat was hurt again. I'm sure this made a huge difference in the outcome of the game. What's the injury?

Great job by Johnson Central and Jude. Impressive win and statistics.

It is good to have Huffine and Davidson back. They still had a couple of offensive linemen out this evening, but it's giving younger players a chance to step up. The good thing is that they are stepping up and performing really well! The seniors like Korzep and Cooper deserve a lot of credit for this run as they are proving they won't go quietly. The only negative? It looks like Coach Kidwell will have to wait a little longer to get his post players out to practice. :-)

Disappointing result. 6 interceptions and 4 brought back for TD's??? Wow.

I think this Ivan McGlone guy might turn out to be a pretty good coach after all! :-) In all seriousness, great job by the Russell players and coaching staff stepping up when it matters most. Waiting until the last drive of the game to bring in Googie Hayes at quarterback and switching Patrick Cooper from quarterback to running back was a key factor as Cooper ran a long one that got called back for holding and then ran another long one to score the winning touchdown. They scared me a bit by kicking off out of bounds with a minute left and letting Sheldon Clark pass down the field to the 3 yard line with a few seconds left. Sheldon Clark missed the potential game tying field goal, though.

This looks like a good schedule. It looks challenging for the most part with a couple of easier games thrown in. I like having the home opener on a Saturday again with one of the easier teams on the schedule. I also like the bye week before the district games. There should be good crowds for the opener since it's on a Saturday, the Ashland game, the Greenup game, the Fairview game, and the Russell game. Adding Lawrence onto the pre-district schedule along with Ashland might be biting off more than they can chew, but those types of teams are balanced out by what should be easy wins over a couple of the others. The only criticisms I can think of are having 5 away games in a row, having only 4 home games again, and the fact that Ashland still won't come to Raceland. I'm glad they got the Greenup game back on the schedule, though.

I haven't seen Sheldon Clark play this year, but it looks like they have a pretty balanced attack from looking at their stats. They've lost to some good teams, but they have some quality wins as well. Russell has their work cut out for them, but they've proven they can play with good teams as well this year like Ironton, Mason, and Pike County Central. No doubt that Sheldon Clark should be the favorite, but if Russell plays with the fire they showed last week then they could come away with the win.

As a fan of Russell, the team that gets to compete with Mason County for the district title on a yearly basis, I sure hope Mason County steps up this year and wins this game. I know the Royals are excited to get basketball season started, but Round 2 playoff losses at home to Southeastern Kentucky teams are getting old! Pike County Central last year and Sheldon Clark the year before that. Don't let Belfry complete the hat trick. :-) Seriously, though, there is no doubt in my mind that Mason County has the talent to win this game. Belfry will try to rough them up so Mason County will have to be ready play their best game of the season, but Mason's speed and big play ability should prevail. When Mason County played at Russell, they were stricken with what seemed like a slew of holding penalties. Granted, perhaps the refs were looking through maroon colored glasses that game, but whatever the case, that can't happen against Belfry. This should be a good game. I like Big Blue Insanity's prediction, 28-20 Mason County.

I agree with Ram. Ashland had too much talent this year to simply chalk up their downfall to "playing better teams". Albeit in smaller divisions, 3 of the first 4 teams they played are still alive in the playoffs, so it wasn't that the schedule was TOTALLY frontloaded with cupcakes. They even dismantled Mason County in a preseason scrimmage. It's as if they were breezing by on pure talent early on, Ironton showed up with some serious will to win and destroyed them, and Ashland never found whatever they had again. I have no idea, but it sure seems something had to have gone wrong in their heads or behind the scenes for them to perform the way they did after that game. Maybe beating the local rivals is enough for them and the prospect of ending up losing to a Northern Kentucky team every year in the playoffs is getting them down? The good news is that they'll return a boatload of talent for the next 3 years. As a fan of Northeastern Kentucky area football, I think it will be a shame if they can't come up with wins over (a) Johnson Central and (b) a top Northern Kentucky team over this time span.