Who is the best 5A State Champion of the last 5 seasons?

[Randy Parker]

Pretty simple question.  What say you?

[ATLCat]

This one is really tough. Three great teams.

That resume for 2019 Covington Catholic is hard to pass up. 2018 South Warren was special too. That Bowling Green team.... I like the CCH win over Lasalle.. I am walking the line with a tie for second.

 

1. 2019 CovCath

t2. 2018 South Warren

t2. 2016 Bowling Green

4. 2017 CovCath

5. 2020 Bowling Green

[BillNye]

I'll shoot at it.

1. 2019 Cov Cath

2. 2016 Bowling Green

3. 2018 South Warren

4. 2017 Cov Cath

5. 2020 Bowling Green

[gbballfan21]

2017 CCH was 3 TDs better than the 2019 team. The 2017 team absolutely dismantled everyone they played, and put a running clock on every KY team they played. The 19 team was really good, and had a Senior Michael Mayer, but he was really good in 17 as well, and they had 3 other D1 guys on that team as well. The 17 team was ridiculously good.

[Voice of Reason]

1 hour ago, gbballfan21 said:

2017 CCH was 3 TDs better than the 2019 team. The 2017 team absolutely dismantled everyone they played, and put a running clock on every KY team they played. The 19 team was really good, and had a Senior Michael Mayer, but he was really good in 17 as well, and they had 3 other D1 guys on that team as well. The 17 team was ridiculously good.

Agree. 2017 CCH clearly superior to 2019. The greatness of Mayer as a senior made the 2019 CCH team an overachiever. There was D1 talent all over the field on that 2017 team. 

[colonel-fan]

Just for giggles, here's how CalPrep's has it:

2019 CovCath 62.8

2017 CovCath 56.7

2018 South Warren 51.3

2016 Bowling Green 53.5

2020 Bowling Green 42.5

 

The 2019 CovCath team handing GCL champ and eventual Ohio D-II state champ LaSalle a 20 point setback is tough to ignore. 

It's all opinion, but I don't see either of those CovCath teams as being clearly superior to the other. It probably comes down to if you prefer offense or defense more.

[bluecolonels95]

I agree with the 2017 CovCath team was better than 2019 by a slight margin. The 2017 team had a running clock on all the Kentucky schools that year including the 5 teams in the playoffs. 

[DevilMayCare]

I'm torn. I think 2017 CovCath handles 2019 CovCath head to head, but 2019 had the superior resume. They notched a three score win over LaSalle and took down a Douglass team in the finals that was stacked with D1 guys all over the field. Those wins easily top any the 2017 team had. Columbus DeSales and Bishop Chatard were nothing special that year. It depends on your criteria. I'll give the edge to `17.

[DevilMayCare]

As far as who's the best of the last five years, it's razor close for me between CovCath `17 and BG `16. You can't ignore a team that dropped 70 in a state final and had Mr. Football. 

Yeesh... give me CovCath in virtual coin flip.

[gbballfan21]

The 19 team barely squeaked by a 5 loss Lex Cath team, that had their doors blown off twice by Boyle Co.

The 19 team had the higher profile win, but the 17 team simply was not tested at any point in the season. They were on a different level.

[Brown]

South Lacey.

[Purple88]

Fun Topic!  And all subjective as all these teams carried the hardware back to their schools trophy case!

For me, Michael Mayer is the generational player off all these teams who ALL had very good to great players on them, who we all will be talking about 20 years from now.  He IMO will be playing on Sundays and playing well.  So my list is:

1.  2019 CovCath - Michael Mayer was really brilliant this season (and this is from a biased BG fan) and one could argue that Douglas overall was more talented top to bottom, just from a rated player standpoint yet Mayer willed them to win that Championship 14-7.  That includes shutting out BG in the semifinals and BG has only been shut out 5 times since 2000 and 2 of those were against Trinity.

2. 2016 Bowling Green - This team had a Gatorade Player of the Year and Mr. Football.  Beat St X by 3 scores, who gave Trinity their toughest games all year.  The Pulaski Co squad they played in the championship, and laid 70 on, had WR Jake Johnson (who was injured in the game unfortunately) who has the state record for receptions.  Jamale Caruthers was the man.  Didn't even mention QB Clark Payne or All Austin Peay WR Deangelo Wilson.

3.  2018 South Warren - It's hard to describe how much Jacob Lacey meant to this South Warren team.  But a lot is the simple way.  He played both ways and whenever they needed a play South either ran to Lacey's side or he made the sack on defense.  He had 14 sacks alone.  Do you think he was double teamed?  It's why he will make a difference in South Bend (I think he will be a JR at ND this fall and should see the field).  They beat a CovCath team that if the Colonels had won that game as predicted, we would be arguing to put them up near the top of this list, as they were undefeated going into this game.

4. 2017 CovCath - I have nothing against this undefeated, very talented team except they aren't that memorable for me.  AJ Mayer was a very good QB and McGinnis at RB and Colderon at WR are both very good but not memorable for me.

5. 2020 Bowling Green - This team is arguably one of favorites because it was not expected.  MANY questions were abound at the beginning of the season (defense, quarterback, etc.) but they kept coming and coming.  This team lost 2 games during the season but learned from them both and paved the way to the "COVID Championship" I did not expect, but it is very memorable for me.

Is it August yet?