Both Carter County schools - and communities - would do well to give Tim Champlin (East) and Daniel Barker (West) whatever they need to continue to build their programs.

 

East Carter's win total has increased in each of Champlin's five years and they just had their first winning season since 2005. And Barker got West Carter to heights they've never seen before. They're two young coaches whom I could easily see popping up as candidates for other jobs in the near future.

I loved this thread topic the first time around @ChiefSmoke, and I still do.

Lincoln County comes to mind. Travis Leffew genuinely cares for the kids and the program and has a good football IQ to boot. Not sure they get the support they deserve though. Seems like basketball is the main focus there.

 

This is from a few years ago but nail meet hammer. You hit it right on the head. It is very clear in Lincoln County if you are multi sport athlete playing basketball you won’t see court ahead of kids solely dedicated to basketball. No telling how good football could be if you could get some of the basketball players to play football. They will tell you, though, they know they won’t get the same opportunity on the court if they play football. Hard to build a program and keep a coach in this scenario.

Jeff Marksberry at Simon Kenton, I remember when this program was just not very good, he has did a great job.

I say Mike Sizemore at Clay County is one of the best coaches in the state. He’s won at two schools that are not historically football schools.

Oldham County in my opinion must do everything in there power to keep coach Fox. He has flat out turned the program around. In his 3 years of being the head coach he is 24-12. In 2017 OC went 6-5, 2018 10-2 and 2019 8-5. He has taken the Colonels to a further round in the playoffs each year and taken OC to a level of play they haven’t seen since the late 90s. The only thing that I could see in the future that might take him away is if the Trinity job opens up. Not saying that he will get selected for the job but he would definitely be in contintion, with his past history with Trinity.

Joe Chirico- Paintsville. Took over in 2013 when the program was in serious, serious trouble and legitimately could have folded. Now, they are a constant member of everyone’s 1A top 5 rankings.

 

Johnson Central- Jim Matney. His record speaks for itself. He took over a sleeping giant and turned it into a consistent top 15 team regardless of Class.