Western Kentucky High School Football Predictions 2023

[BigRedTopp11]

What are you hearing and how do you feel about next year?
*Paducah Tilghman:  How will PT bounce back?  How will PT fit into 4A?
*McCracken County:  Smith's Build; Ready to see how his experience pays off and continues to build.  How far have they come?
*Ballard County:  Can Ballard compete?  How are the numbers?
*Calloway County:  0-10 starting a bunch of freshmen; will they be better this year?
*Murray High:  Biggers wearing that Cardinal Red I hear?  Can they replace him?
*Marshall County:  The numbers look to be coming back; can the Marshalls make the next step?
*Graves County:  Haven't heard much from Graves this offseason; how are you feeling Eagles?
*Trigg County:  Great start to the season last year, but took a big loss from Senior class.  What are the expectations?
*Mayfield:  Yeah Yeah, we get it.  State or Nothing!

[Joe Tracy]

Mayfield will be good as usual. Tilghman has a big district. McCracken hopefully will be better. Graves will always be a decent team. Ballard and Marshall will be the same old same old. Calloway and Murray will be better than Marshall. Trigg who knows.

[FB Head]

PT jumps into 4A with high hopes.  Year 3 of Coach Thompson tenure, he will need to show results.  They should win their district.  The Blue Tornado have the talent to compete with anyone in the state.  Questions lie on their offensive play calling and discipline.  

McCracken is rebuilding, adding Maddox O'neal at QB will give the Mustangs a single caller for the next three years.  If he stays!  They will still have gowning pains and it will be hard to overcome Henderson for the district.  

Ballard... is Ballard.

Calloway and Marshall should improve.  The Lakers are still very young considering they played many freshman and sophomores. Tough districts for them both.

Murray has many questions.  Numbers still are low and having Biggers sporting the red helmet, they will need to find playmakers. They have a couple of good groups coming up in their pipeline, but for the present, expect a season similar to this past year.

Graves should maintain right where they sit, behind O'boro.  The Eagles don't seem to have that 1 or 2 players that can give them an edge to win. Very well coached and disciplined team.  Looks like another 8-2, 7-3 season on the horizon.

Mayfield will be reloaded.  Skill wise, they can compete with anyone in 2A.  Cartwright is a senior with 2 years of QB experience for the Cardinals.  With JuJu in the backfield and sprinkle Biggers there some, Dabney, Kirby, Biggers, and Hoover on the outside, this group has the capability to be special.  They will have to replace important pieces in the OL, but Mayfield is great at finding the kids to make it work.  The Cardinals will also have some really good freshmen that could contribute to this coming season. 

[zoneblitz24]

Mayfield will always be Mayfield and in the hunt for a title.  They have built that program to the point of there is no rebuild just a reload.  The incoming freshman class is supposed to be extremely talented.

PT has more talent on the field than almost anybody they play but cannot seem to get the offensive play calling down and struggles with being disciplined.  They continue to be an underachieving team to me each year. 

McCracken got better as the year went on and found some identity it seems.  The QB transfer is a nice addition but most of that roster were seniors so they will have some growing up to do I believe on both sides of the ball.

Graves loses a few key players but returns most of the roster.  Graves is almost a 4A enrollment but is stuck playing in the 5A west which speaks for itself on the type of teams they have to play in Owensboro and district 2.  They are a well coached team just have their years when a talented group comes thru to make some noise.

Marshall and Calloway are trying to build the programs up to consistency and I believe the Head coaches there are doing a good job but struggle to get enough money from the school system to pay coaches a competitive stipend to truly build a program.  Look at the 4 teams listed above and you will find they get much more financial support to go hire full coaching staffs.

Ballard County with dropping to 1A could shock some people.  If the school system would invest in the program and revamp the elementary/middle school programs then I honestly thing they can be 1st or 2nd in that district.  Now the regular season record won't be great but they could win a playoff game or 2.

Murray is a team that I don't really know what is going on.  They haven't played a JV schedule since the new coach came in which is why the numbers are down.  There is no development of players for the future which is sad.  IF you are a 10th or 11th grade player and you are only seeing a hand full of plays on a Friday night with no JV action on Monday why would you stick with it?

 

[BigBlue92]

Has Tilghman,Mayfield or Graves released a 2023 schedule yet?

[GBR]

Mayfield has not. I cannot speak for the others.

[snakesnot_2000]

The schedule is about the same with Critt County replacing Ballard M and Daviess County replacing Madisionville but they are looking for a game to replace Calloway County.

[Joe Tracy]

That should be a good game vs Daviess County.

 

[Joe Tracy]

Tilghman's schedule is on this site.

 

[TimeWillTell]

Is McCracken Co going to be considered "down"?

The post above says they lost alot and their starting QB. 

 

 

[snakesnot_2000]

5 hours ago, Joe Tracy said:

That should be a good game vs Daviess County.

 

I've now been told that Mayfield has gotten dropped by Daviess and have picked Henderson County and Christian County and are looking for another game. South Warren won't play us because of RPI that was a possibility.

[DearToday]

3 hours ago, snakesnot_2000 said:

I've now been told that Mayfield has gotten dropped by Daviess and have picked Henderson County and Christian County and are looking for another game. South Warren won't play us because of RPI that was a possibility.

Or because the threat of taking a loss to you guys. 

[GBR]

11 hours ago, snakesnot_2000 said:

I've now been told that Mayfield has gotten dropped by Daviess and have picked Henderson County and Christian County and are looking for another game. South Warren won't play us because of RPI that was a possibility.

Interesting, and this is our dilemma, and that is finding good opponents that may be in a higher classification who will play us. This aspect of the RPI needs some work, and soon!

[Westernside]

Agree, its better for a 4A team to beat a ok 6A team than a really good 2A team, but that 2A team is a better team than the 6A team. This needs to be fixed.

[DearToday]

Your first two games against teams in a lower classification than you do not count against you RPI wise in a sense of making your win percentage less than one.