McCracken County (0-1) will travel east on Friday Night to take on Bowling Green (1-0).  This will be the sixth meeting between the two since 2015, with Bowling Green winning the previous 5 matchups.  But the meeting last year in Paducah as too close for comfort, as BG squeaked out of town with a razor thin 14-10 win.  But those teams are finished.  This year McCracken County has a new coach in Jonathon Smith, who comes over from the Paducah Tilghman program, but it doesn't seem like Coach Smith has a ton to rely on at least early in the season, as the Mustangs were blasted by city foe Paducah Tilghman last night 54-14.  Tilghman jumped out to a 41-0 halftime lead and never looked back.  That leaves the Mustangs with more questions than answers at this point.  But SR QB Pryor Lamb is a good player and should be their leader to try to mount a comeback this Friday night in BG.

 

For the Purples, they started on a much better note than 2021 defeating a sound 6A North Hardin Trojan team 23-14.  The Purples were led by a good defensive effort holding the Trojans scoreless in the second half.  The BG offense was highlighted by JR RB Javen Huddleston, who finished with 102 yards and two touchdowns on 15 carries on the way to Offensive MVP honors. LaDainian Woods added 39 yards on eight carries.  SO QB Deuce Bailey had 117 yards through the air on 10-of-20 passing and 1 TD.  Both the OLine and DLine for BG played well in this game.

Speaking honestly, this looks like one of the easier games on BGs tough schedule.  I could see some guys with nagging injuries held out of this one to be ready for a tough, physical PRP team the following week.  Who you got in this one?

 

18 minutes ago, Purple88 said:

McCracken County (0-1) will travel east on Friday Night to take on Bowling Green (1-0).  This will be the sixth meeting between the two since 2015, with Bowling Green winning the previous 5 matchups.  But the meeting last year in Paducah as too close for comfort, as BG squeaked out of town with a razor thin 14-10 win.  But those teams are finished.  This year McCracken County has a new coach in Jonathon Smith, who comes over from the Paducah Tilghman program, but it doesn't seem like Coach Smith has a ton to rely on at least early in the season, as the Mustangs were blasted by city foe Paducah Tilghman last night 54-14.  Tilghman jumped out to a 41-0 halftime lead and never looked back.  That leaves the Mustangs with more questions than answers at this point.  But SR QB Pryor Lamb is a good player and should be their leader to try to mount a comeback this Friday night in BG.

 

For the Purples, they started on a much better note than 2021 defeating a sound 6A North Hardin Trojan team 23-14.  The Purples were led by a good defensive effort holding the Trojans scoreless in the second half.  The BG offense was highlighted by JR RB Javen Huddleston, who finished with 102 yards and two touchdowns on 15 carries on the way to Offensive MVP honors. LaDainian Woods added 39 yards on eight carries.  SO QB Deuce Bailey had 117 yards through the air on 10-of-20 passing and 1 TD.  Both the OLine and DLine for BG played well in this game.

Speaking honestly, this looks like one of the easier games on BGs tough schedule.  I could see some guys with nagging injuries held out of this one to be ready for a tough, physical PRP team the following week.  Who you got in this one?

 

Bowling Green 35-7.

BG- 59

MCHS- 10

BG easy. Why can’t McCracken County get any traction to be a factor in 6A?

The McCracken County School District now or in the past has never had strong football programs except Heath briefly and Lone Oak for a short time right before the consolidation. Basketball, along with Spring sports will most likely be McCracken County's strength. From time to time they will get those special athletes who can win the district and a game or two in the quarters or semis. The State is another kind of beast.

6 minutes ago, Joe Tracy said:

The McCracken County School District now or in the past has never had strong football programs except Heath briefly and Lone Oak for a short time right before the consolidation. Basketball, along with Spring sports will most likely be McCracken County's strength. From time to time they will get those special athletes who can win the district and a game or two in the quarters or semis. The State is another kind of beast.

Joe, I agree with this.  I guess my question is how have they fallen out of the district drivers seat that they dominated since they came into 6A District 1?  I know about the hardships in the state, but beating or competing with district foes Daviess County and Henderson County should clearly be doable.

BG will be opening playbook IMHO and I see a throttling coming the Mustangs way.

BG running clock. 45-7.

Hopefully this can be used as chance to run some different plays and as way to build more confidence.

There's been a lot of turmoil around MC in recent years from what I've heard from some people over there. I'm not sure what's going on but MC should be a lot better than they have been. So maybe it will just take a little while to rebuild the program. Sounds like they are really down this year.

Well, the QB at Paducah Tilghman left McCracken as he supposedly was being overlooked under Coach Clark. Coach Clark also left as he just didn't get the Mustangs winning. McCracken Middle School program is only 1 team with 3 middle schools, so players are not being developed under Coach Corey Robinson the former Lone Oak Mr. Football. He is now the personal trainer of the Tilghman QB as well as an employee of James Marine who footed the bill for the new turf field. The owner of James Marine is the father of the Tilghman QB who threw for nearly 300 yards and 4 touchdowns in the 1st half against McCracken County Saturday night. McCracken hasn't had those 5-6 big time play makers the last 3 years. They have had 1-2 but just not enough. Hopefully Coach Smith can turn it around in 2-3 years. It won't be this year.

As mentioned before, there are three middle schools that feed into McCracken Co HS: Lone Oak, Heath, and Reidland, respectively.  They currently do combine the three schools to form 1 middle school program. Personally, I think this is a mistake!  I think they would get more kids out to play if their own MS would have a team.  I'm sure many do not participate for the simple logistics of it.  Drive from Heath to Lone Oak is about 20 min one way.  Reidland to Lone Oak is about the same.  I'm sure parents don't have the flexibility to drive kids around everyday. 

I'm sure MCC is saving money by not having the additional expenses.  I just believe they are shooting themselves in the foot. Although, the brand new turf field at Lone Oak middle school it top notch!!

They currently have okay numbers in their middle school teams around 40 kids on each team (7th & 8th). I just believe those numbers should double to feed a 6A team. 

Forgot to mention:

BG with running clock... Purples name the score. 

4 hours ago, FB Head said:

As mentioned before, there are three middle schools that feed into McCracken Co HS: Lone Oak, Heath, and Reidland, respectively.  They currently do combine the three schools to form 1 middle school program. Personally, I think this is a mistake!  I think they would get more kids out to play if their own MS would have a team.  I'm sure many do not participate for the simple logistics of it.  Drive from Heath to Lone Oak is about 20 min one way.  Reidland to Lone Oak is about the same.  I'm sure parents don't have the flexibility to drive kids around everyday. 

I'm sure MCC is saving money by not having the additional expenses.  I just believe they are shooting themselves in the foot. Although, the brand new turf field at Lone Oak middle school it top notch!!

They currently have okay numbers in their middle school teams around 40 kids on each team (7th & 8th). I just believe those numbers should double to feed a 6A team. 

The numbers have tanked during the years Corey Robinson and Jason Nickel were running the program, who both moved to PT a couple years ago. In the first couple years of the consolidated middle school, the numbers were much better. 

I'll take Purples 35-7.

McCracken fell into the same trap as Graves Co did in the late 80’s/early 90’s. At Graves up until the 2000-2001 school year, there were 7 elementary/middle schools. I attended one of them.

 

Each of those 7 elementary schools had their own football programs of different grade levels. In their 7th grade year, all of those players consolidated into one Graves Co 7th grade team.

As an example, my middle school had enough athletes to field a full team of 5th and 6th graders, but when my 6th grade class moved up to 7th grade exact 3 players moved on to the consolidated team.

The better approach would have been for those seven schools to develop seven full teams with the varsity coach driving the ship as far as offensive and defensive schemes, drills, etc.

That’s the approach Alan Hatcher took with the 7 middle school basketball programs in that county that led to his success and ultimately to Graves being more of a basketball school. 

This is something I know both baseball coach in the schools history have been adamant about is keeping the middle school programs separate from each other so they just have a much larger talent pool to work with.