Belfry 56 Breathitt County 26

[DevilMayCare]

Smooth sailing for the Pirate ship on Pond Creek tonight. 

 

 

[Watusi]

11 hours ago, DevilMayCare said:

Smooth sailing for the Pirate ship on Pond Creek tonight. 

 

 

Belfry widens that decided advantage on Breathitt to 2 games LOL.  I seriously thought they held a wider margin.  Geez I make about 5 posts a  year and you have to call me out on my first one.  Ha, thanks DMC.  

Breathitt has some nice athletes and they are young.  They had a lot of fight in them but the Pirates just too much for them and widened the gap as the game wore on.  Belfry looked pretty good for this early in the year which is an anomaly.  They shook off the rust, made some mistakes that they can work on, but hard not to be happy with the results.  

The road gets tougher ahead as Belfry enters the "iron sharpens iron" portion of the schedule.  The Pirates face George Rogers Clark at home in the Pike County Bowl, then they travel to Johnson Central, Southwestern and Pikeville.  That's a pretty tough 4 game stretch that will challenge them, make them tougher and will expose their weaknesses.  That's how you get better.

[nikeman49]

No surprise here, results were as they should have been.

[DevilMayCare]

On 8/24/2024 at 9:20 AM, Watusi said:

Belfry widens that decided advantage on Breathitt to 2 games LOL.  I seriously thought they held a wider margin.  Geez I make about 5 posts a  year and you have to call me out on my first one.  Ha, thanks DMC.  

Me when I correct 2C:

 

Seriously, we need to add a zero or two to your posts per year averge. Your insight on Belfry is an invaluable contribution around here.

[ATLCat]

After re-watching this one:

- I don't think Belfry is a legit title threat. Hope I am wrong. The defense still is shaky, think they are better than last year but they are going to struggle to stop teams with elite speed or a capable passing offense. Secondary should have looked better with their experience level returning. Lots of fundamental issues like losing leverage, losing the ball, and grabbing at the body. More on the LB's below.

Offense has a lot of promise and a lot of good things to like. Lots of ability to make plays in space and you have to honor the Belfry passing game. The knock on the Offense is you have to be able to grind out yardage against a very good defense in the playoffs and Belfry simply doesn't have that back that can get the forward lean to pick up a 4th and 2 with the game on the line when he is hit at the LOS.

 

- Breathitt has really good young talent and that QB has good moxy and an accurate arm. I think the off-season accident really was unfortunate because they are probably 2 or 3 experienced players from being a team who can win a few playoffs games.

- Breathitt has always played with a chip on their shoulder and an almost "arrogance", when you are loaded with talent that translates... when your talent and results aren't there it comes across as egregious and reckless. The past two years they have made numerous mental mistakes that give the impression of being undisciplined. I would have hoped they saw the lessons of this and how it hindered their progress last year but they still just insist on playing a brand of football ripe with late hits they hope don't get seen.

- Chase Varney looked good and looked improved with his feet. He made some beautiful throws right on the money that the receiver just couldn't reel in. 

-OLine dominated at times but it was kind of odd that they looked a lot better when it was more complex assignments than the basics of just getting push or creating a running lane. The line was fantastic at pulling and blocking the option, counters, and even pass protection. The straight dive and midline stuff though yielded at times a surprising lack of push. Part of this is the lack of that downhill power back, but I was surprised to see how easy Breathitt was able to win the LOS and get penetration. The bright side is unlike having the lack of a power back, this is something you can improve and fix. 

- Belfry's defense as mentioned wasn't exactly impressive, but the silver lining was that I felt pursuit looked a lot better and it felt like the LB's who struggled with getting stuck on blocks were doing a much better job at getting clean to have a chance at making solid tackles. Now there were still a ton of missed tackles, but at least in their defense it was less plays of reaching for an arm tackle and more plays where they were hitting the offensive player and just not wrapping up. 

- I like Belfry's placekicker. He was pretty consistent last year and looks even more consistent this season. The kicking game/special teams are always an x-factor to Belfry's successes and failures. Kickoff coverage is still a cardiac arrest waiting to happen but the actual kicking game and the return game looks to be an improvement.