The Herald-Leader has released their preseason top 25.  Like the Courier-Journal, these are voted on by the coaches - full article is available here: https://www.kentucky.com/sports/high-school/article282126933.html

1. Lyon County
2. Great Crossing
3. Trinity
4. Male
5. Frederick Douglass
6. Warren Central
7. Bowling Green
8. Newport
9. Evangel Christian
10. Covington Catholic
11. Elizabethtown
12. Mason County
13. Lexington Catholic
14. George Rogers Clark
15. Ballard
16. Woodford County
17. DeSales
18. Harlan County
19. Ashland
20. St. X
21. Butler
22. Manual
23. North Oldham
24. McCracken County
25. Corbin

 

Updating this from my post in the KSR thread (https://bluegrasspreps.com/forums/topic/242814-2023-24-ksr-preseason-rankings/?do=findComment&comment=5074684)

13 teams have appeared in all four major poll releases so far (CJ, Nations Elite, KSR, Herald-Leader) - listed in average ranking order from those three (BOLD means they are consensus top 10):

Great Crossing (1.5)
Lyon County (1.75)
Trinity (3.5)
Frederick Douglass (4.5)
Newport (6)
Male (6.5)
Bowling Green (6.75)
Evangel Christian (8)
Warren Central (9.5)
Covington Catholic (11.25)
DeSales (13)
Harlan County (14.25)
Mason County (14.5)

Boyd County and Washington County had previously been consensus.

Teams in present in three of the four publications:
Elizabethtown (KSR 17, CJ 11, Herald 11)
Lexington Catholic (KSR 10, CJ 16, Herald 13)
Woodford County (KSR 12, CJ 15, Herald 16)
George Rogers Clark (KSR 23, CJ 13, Herald 14)
Boyd County (KSR 15, CJ 25, Nations Elite 13)
Ballard (KSR 25, CJ 17, Herald 15)
St. X (KSR 19, CJ 19, Herald 20)
Butler (KSR 20, CJ 21, Herald 21)
Washington County (KSR 22, CJ 24, Nations Elite 16)

Ashland and Manual were ranked in both the CJ and Herald-Leader but not the other two, so the coaches like these teams - or at least liked who they were last year.

North Oldham (23), McCracken County (24), and Corbin (25) were each ranked by only the Herald-Leader survey.

Also worth noting that 10 of the 25 teams in the CJ and Herald-Leader were ranked in exactly the same spot.  7 others were within +/- 1 spot of their spot in the other poll. Out of the 22 teams ranked in both polls, only DeSales (CJ 14, Herald 17) and Lexington Catholic (CJ 16, Herald 13) were more than 2 spots away from their ranking in the other.  Very little variance - guessing a lot of overlap with the coaches surveyed.

Given that 8 teams were ranked in the top 10 in each publication, I feel it is safe to say those teams are considered to be the best 8 teams in the state.  Covington Catholic likely qualifies as well, given that Nations Elite - the one with the least confidence of BGP members so far - is the only one that rated them out of the top ten.  Warren Central (CJ 4, Herald 6) and DeSales (Nations Elite 8 ) are the only two other teams that were given a top ten nod.  In the case of Warren Central, that can likely be chalked up to being defending champions, and likely more a nod to who they were last year than necessarily based on this one.  Using average rankings, the top nine teams would seem to be:

1. Great Crossing
2. Lyon County
3. Trinity
4. Frederick Douglass
5. Newport
6. Male
7. Bowling Green
8. Evangel Christian
9. Covington Catholic

Will be interesting to see how well that holds up over the course of the season.

Folks STILL sleeping on DeSales….

14 hours ago, Falcon Pride said:

Folks STILL sleeping on DeSales….

I totally agree but their first week of the season is brutal and they could take several early season losses. I agree though that they are very good and one of best teams in the State