Fans need to realize that Dan Wooley, Shannon Huth, Brandon Berger, and Jeff Lubrecht aren't walking through that door. They just aren't as big as they used to be. Going to turf killed Beechwood. Their success derived from big athletic lines, a thunder and lightining approach in the backfield and just enough trickery to keep teams honest. Teams caught up and passed them. Turf has rendered the bad weather of the playoffs almost null and void. On top of all that, Beechwood seems to have lost all of its size. They have had some smallish teams, physically speaking.

 

Now, taking this long to come to grips with the forward pass should fall on Rash's shoulders, but it isn't exactly like Yeagle was going to become the Mike Leach of Ft. Mitchell had things worked out for him personally.

 

From a mayfield fans perspective, I remember when I was younger and we were in 2A, watching those big bruising backs from BW. The teams now do look a lot different......................but I'm sure most MF fans would say the same thing. Our RB's this year are a combined 300 lbs soaking wet! Around 10 years ago we were still ground and pound, now our spread offense has opened up the field for these smaller guys to work. I don't know if BW coaching is just not adjusting style of play to personnel or not, but from the teams I have seen come to MF over the past few years, they still have plenty of talent for a 1A program. I know I don't have a dog in this race, but this is just something I see from the outside.

Much ado about nothing. Beechwood will be fine. In a few weeks the Beechwood faithful will be lamenting how the 1A district is so bad and the first two rounds of the playoffs are so bad (with running clocks) that they only had the NCC game to get them prepared for a deep run in the playoffs.

I have not read all the way through the thread and don't have time to do so or respond except to say I see quite a bit of incorrect information, mostly as it relates to transfer students. I will add detailed comments later tonight.

Assuming you are correct (I am not taking a position), the question is why has the out of district talent dried up? And frankly, the complaints were the same when there still was out of district talent but the complaints weren't as loud.

 

A few reasons:

 

1) Beechwood began developing into a football power in the early 80's - essentially at the same time as Cov Cath. Beechwood won state in '84, and Cov Cath won their first district championship that year. However, that meant Cov Cath didn't win state until '87. In general, you'll see program numbers swell as a result of things accomplished already - not necessarily things you have the potential to accomplish in the future. The folks from within Beechwood's school district who had the ability to afford tuition at Cov Cath didn't have motivation to send their kids to Cov Cath for the purpose of winning football until sometime around '87/'88. Fortunate for Beechwood, Coach Barre had set the table for Mike Yeagle to begin barreling over his competition starting in '91 with their second state championship. Within Kenton County, Beechwood was essentially the best on the block in terms of football, and only was really competing with Cov Cath for "transfer" students...save the occasional student making their way out of Kenton County to New Cath, Highlands, Boone, and Conner I suppose.

 

2) Cost. 2008 happened. It sucked....for EVERYONE. Not everyone has the money in hand to pay $5,000 so their kid can go to a better sports program, and even fewer folks do post-2008. Folks are a little more likely to send their kids to the appropriate program these days.

 

3) Holy Cross showed up with a football team...and even won a state championship a few years back. Not saying that was a HUGE change for Beechwood enrollment, but it is still another program to consider going to (or staying at) instead of paying to transfer to Beechwood.

 

4) Dixie has improved. The actually managed to pull off making themselves one of the few Kentucky teams to hand Trinity a loss in the last 10+ years. Highlands went from really good, to incredibly good. Six straight championships makes a program look awwwwwwfully nice to play for (if you're not a Cov Cath fan, at least). Simon Kenton has improved. No denying it. (Keep it shut, uk#1fan.) New Cath has improved. Five state championship appearances since 2000. Scott has even improved in the last couple of years thanks to Beechwood football alum, Danny Wooley. Add in a couple of some good showings from the likes of Cooper, Conner and Ryle, in recent years and you've got a LOT of reasons to at least consider playing football for other schools - much less pay to transfer and play for Beechwood.

 

5) Cov Cath has really asserted its position of "we're bigger than Beechwood, so we beat Beechwood". Beechwood has played Cov Cath 33 times over the years, and despite it's larger enrollment, Cov Cath has only managed 19 wins against Beechwood. I grew up in Fort Mitchell, and in the time I attended Cov Cath in the late 90's...and we NEVER beat Beechwood in varsity football while I was there, and that was a MAJOR bragging right amongst my Beechwood friends. And that's great advertising for Beechwood from a transfer point of view. On the flipside, Beechwood has only beaten Cov Cath once in the last decade...2008. That's not such a great advertisement - at least for Beechwood it's not.

I say coaching is the biggest problem at Bw, I read all this and then have visions of the past and the Bw hype machine telling us that the frosh champs are the best in school history but they won Bw zero titles. Then the hype machine tells us of a new group of frosh with a QB who is the best ever and he is going to lead the Tigers to the promise land a frosh, then as a sophomore.....yet the Tigers exit earlier than they ever have before. According to some of you the talent has been better than ever in recent years so it has to fall on the coaching

 

It is said Build it and they will come and Bw did and they came. What they failed to tell is that you have to maintain it or it will crumble and it has. Of course sometimes someone builds a better one like Mf has of late but still Bw has not lived up to the supposed talent levels claimed.

 

Guru generating site traffic?????

 

Guru generating site traffic?????

 

I sure would like to hear your honest thoughts and the honest thoughts of the people close to you. You know I got you on this one no matter what you tell everyone here on BGP.

I sure would like to hear your honest thoughts and the honest thoughts of the people close to you. You know I got you on this one no matter what you tell everyone here on BGP.

 

You're old school Beechwood....right!

You're old school Beechwood....right!

 

I will show you mine if you will show everyone at BGP yours?

I will show you mine if you will show everyone at BGP yours?

 

Last time I did that it was a cop on the other end.....I'm not falling for that again! :sssh:

The moral of the story here everyone is FanofMany is giving me a hard time about stirring the pot but he isn't denying there are a lot of restless natives.

I'm not hearing all that much now. Check with me in December. Are your phone calls/contacts from people still connected with the program?

This is one of the very few times I would like to violate rule 5 and blow you up FanofMany.

 

What comes around goes around...

The moral of the story here everyone is FanofMany is giving me a hard time about stirring the pot but he isn't denying there are a lot of restless natives.

 

I know there are.. I have personally talked to a few of them.

About the only time the natives aren't restless at Beechwood (Insert CovCath, Highlands, NCC, here) is when they are in the middle of about 3 or 4 straight state titles.

 

If I recall the natives were very restless after 2000 and 2001 when Beechwood had an excellent team in 2000 and got upset by NCC in the playoffs after beating them in the regular season and then in 2001 when NCC beat them easily. And that was after a decade of absolute dominance.........But it all worked out and they returned to being a pretty dominant program playing in the Championship game most years after that.