2022 Season: PT (6-7) Lost 3rd round of playoffs 30-24 to CAL

2022 Season: McCracken (2-9) Lost 1st round of playoffs 30-24 to Meade County

The "Rumble on the River" is set to resume with the 9th meeting between these two, with the only game not played in the series in 2020 due to Covid. Tilghman owns a 5-3 lead having won the last 3 in a row. Tilghman makes the jump to 4A this season. 

Coach Sean Thompson enters his 3rd season with the Tornado, Coach Jonathan Smith enters his 2nd season with the Mustangs. 

McCracken, at least on offense, will be introducing new players across the board at the skill positions. QB Pryor Lamb and all 5 of his top receivers have all graduated. Zeno Cornelius at RB had a really solid year for them last season with 894 yds and 6 td's on the ground. I would suspect they'll rely heavily on him to start the season and knowing how Coach Smith likes to run the ball. 

McCracken does return 3 of their top 5 tacklers from a year ago and it looks like they could have a really formidable duo in Senior linebackers Chase Dassing and Frankie Nutt. I think both these guys could have big seasons. 

Paducah Tilghman returns QB Jack James, who seems like he could be poised for a nice season as well after having been up and down so much last year at times. He will have the luxury of having 3 of his top 4 receivers back in JoeAvion Starks, Shemari Thomas and Lafont Banks. Only 103 yards separated 1st through 4th in terms of yardage last year. They all could take over a game at times. 

Tilghman did lose a lot of depth at running back as Jordauyn White (Over 1000 yds rushing & 20 total td's) graduated and Malachi Rider's family moved out of state. 

Tilghman returns 5 of their 7 top tacklers and will look for Xsavier Cleary (DL) and Jimmy Mooney (LB) to solidify a better than stats showed defense from last year. 

The X factor in all of this from the Tornado perspective is the late addition of two very talented transfers from Tennessee. Martels Carter Jr, a 4 star ranked Junior has well over 30 offers including Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas A & M, Clemson, Colorado, Florida State and Michigan among many others. He projects as a defensive back in college and I expect he will play multiple positions this season for Tilghman. Along with Carter, Sophmore OL Jarvis Strickland (6'6 285)will have a tornado on his helmet as well. He has already received offers from Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Michigan State and Ole Miss amongst others for himself. 

As far as roster size, as of today, McCracken has 91 players listed, PT has 85. 

Tilghman does appear to be the favorite on paper in this one, but that's not always how rivalry games work. If you haven't been to one of the games in this series, it's a great atmosphere to kick off the season no matter who has home field. The community shows up and it's a good time. 

*Correction*

2022 Season: McCracken (2-9) Lost 1st round of playoffs 41-34 to Meade County, not 30-24 as I previously posted. I posted the PT score twice by mistake. 

PT and McCracken will both be on display tonight at Henry County, TN.  A better “eyeball test” of the two might be gathered before the true showdown next week. 

PT will have a running clock by Halftime.. No contest. 

Shouldn’t be close.

I am not seeing or hearing anything about McCracken County on any threads.  It is like all of the people “in the know” have been placed in the witness protection plan.  Tilghman Pride has provided the only overview of the Mustangs, anybody else?

1 hour ago, FNL said:

I am not seeing or hearing anything about McCracken County on any threads.  It is like all of the people “in the know” have been placed in the witness protection plan.  Tilghman Pride has provided the only overview of the Mustangs, anybody else?

I’ve never seen any McCracken supporters on here to be honest. Some schools just don’t have any representation on here. Murray being another one that comes to mind. Not very many people from West KY on here period and 90% of those are from Mayfield.

Does Tilghman Pride (or anyone) know if everything got worked out for the eligibility of the two transfers from Chattanooga?  I assume there would not be any issues, but with transferring basically 10 days ago I didn't know how quickly those things got worked out.

I believe that Carter (C4!) will play on Saturday, but I did not know for certain.  Can anyone confirm?

McCracken County Football at this point has nothing to brag about. They should have a much better season this year with the schedule they have. 

The Mustangs have a lot of questions going into their season.  They scaled down their schedule in hope to have more success under Coach Smith.  The last couple of seasons have not been kind to McCracken.  Their numbers are back up but that does not translate to talent.  Their strength should be their run game. Their O-line is big and they are return their leading rusher from last year. Maddox O'Neal (Soph) is a transfer from Mayfield and will start at QB.  I've seen this kid grow and has potential to be special. The Cardinals will miss him after Cartwright's last ride.  Overall, their offense should not be the issue.  Defensively is where they will struggle.

Paducah- 49

McCracken- 17

3 hours ago, D Wolf said:

Does Tilghman Pride (or anyone) know if everything got worked out for the eligibility of the two transfers from Chattanooga?  I assume there would not be any issues, but with transferring basically 10 days ago I didn't know how quickly those things got worked out.

I believe that Carter (C4!) will play on Saturday, but I did not know for certain.  Can anyone confirm?

No issue with eligibility and both will play but I’m sure not long against McCracken. 

2 hours ago, FB Head said:

 Maddox O'Neal (Soph) is a transfer from Mayfield and will start at QB.  I've seen this kid grow and has potential to be special. The Cardinals will miss him after Cartwright's last ride. 

We may or may not miss him, the freshman QB will be pretty good. I still say it was a mistake on his part to transfer but time will tell.

Any way McCracken can play keep away from PT's Offense to keep it close?

5 minutes ago, RunTheBallCoach said:

Any way McCracken can play keep away from PT's Offense to keep it close?

If the O-line can keep steady... NO.  I really think PT will run away with this one. 

Per PT Football's Twitter (X) page, social media supertar "deestroying" will be at the game. He has multiple millions of followers on YouTube, TikTok and other social media platforms. He's got access to many sports stars and celebrities and is friends with many of them. This could be a good opportunity to showcase this game to a whole lot of people potentially.