Johnson Central at Covington Catholic Predictions/Updates

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Friday will officially be Colonels vs. Golden Eagles part 9. Cov Cath will host Johnson Central for the second time in nine meetings, with first 8 meetings going 5-3 in the Colonels' favor. Under Coach Eviston, Cov Cath is 1-0 against Johnson Central, who is 0-1 against Cov Cath under Coach Peck.

Last year when these two met in round three of the 4A playoffs, the Colonels induced their will to grind out a 31-0 win over the Golden Eagles. Johnson Central, with their well-known ground and pound approach of hard-nosed mountain football, just wasn't able to make things happen when they ran into the Cov Cath defense. JC had averaged 367 yards per game, and an imposing 320 yards per game rushing on the season, but the Cov Cath defense held them to a season-low 174 yards rushing and 0 yards passing. Johnson Central was 0-4 passing against the Colonels, after having previously gone 28-53 passing for 607 yards previously in the season, while the Colonels had over 350 yards total offense on their way to the 4A semi-state finals.

(8-3) Johnson Central Golden Eagles:
Aug 23:  25-14 LOSS on the road to 6A Madison Central
Aug 31:  37-15 WIN on the road over 1A Pikeville
Sep 6:  48-41 WIN at home over 3A Belfry
Sep 13:  56-35 WN on the road over 2A Breathitt County
Sep 20:  42-0 WIN at home over 5A North Laurel
Sep 28:  42-14 WIN over on the road over 4A Boyd County (District)
Oct 4:  56-51 LOSS at home to 4A Corbin
Oct 11:  48-6 WIN at home over 4A Rowan County (District)
Oct 18:  67-42 WIN at home over Greenup County (District)
Oct 25:  41-36 LOSS on the road to 4A Ashland (District)
Nov 8:  49-7 WIN at home over 4A Grant County

The Golden Eagles are led by senior running back Zack McCoart, who has rushed for over 2,000 yards this season, with a total 2017 yards and 28 touchdowns on 173 carries (12.7 yards per carry) previous to their 49-7 win over Grant County. Junior running back Logan Music had 874 yards and 12 touchdowns on 95 carries (9.2 yards per carry), senior Christian Barnes had 569 yards and 6 touchdowns on 79 carries (7.2 yards per carry), and junior Logan Morrow had 413 yards and 6 touchdowns on 74 carries (5.6 yards per carry) previous to Friday night's game against the Braves. Sophomore quarterback Austin Slone had rushed for 151 yards and 2 touchdowns on the season, and was 13 for 23 passing for 229 yards (23 yards per game) and 2 touchdowns. Johnson Central's offense as usual, is a rushing machine with 4308 yards on the ground and 229 yards by air in their first 11 games. On defense, the Golden Eagles have allowed 110 yards per game rushing and 173 yards per game passing, with senior Caleb Barnes (46), junior Dalton Matney (44), sophomore Dylan Lemaster (37), and senior Seth Davis (36) leading the team in solo tackles.


(9-2) Covington Catholic Colonels:
Aug 23:  30-14 LOSS on the road to 6A Ryle
Aug 30:  32-22 LOSS at home to 5A Highlands
Sep 6:  42-3 WIN at home over 6A Simon Kenton
Sep 13:  47-28 WIN on the road over 5A Dixie Heights
Sep 20:  49-28 WIN at home over 2A Beechwood
Sep 26:  56-0 WIN on the road over 4A Holmes (District)
Oct 4:  54-0 WIN at home over 4A Grant County (District)
Oct 18:  56-6 WIN on the road over 4A Harrison County (District)
Oct 25:  49-0 WIN at home over 4A Mason County (District)
Nov 1:  42-28 WIN on the road over 6A Campbell County
Nov 8:  42-14 WIN at home over 4A Boyd County

The Colonels are led on offense by junior quarterback Cash Harney, who has 1035 yards rushing (94 yards per game) and 1034 yards passing (94 yards per game) this season and junior running back Dylan Gaiser, who has 1196 yards rushing (109 yards per game). The two have combined for 30 touchdowns on the ground, and Harney has passed for another 11 touchdowns. Senior wideout Oliver Link leads the receiver corps in receiving yards with 229 yards (33 yards per game) and 5 touchdowns in 7 games. On the defensive side of the ball, senior linebacker Tate Kruer leads with 54 solo tackles, senior linebacker/edge Andrew Bessler has 36 solo tackles, junior Brady Guard has 39 solo tackles, and senior Nick Krallman has 25 solo tackles and leads the team with 7 sacks. The Cov Cath defense continues to be a turnover machine with a state-leading 24 interceptions and 35 total turnovers this season, including 3 interceptions on Friday against Boyd County.

Looking at shared opponents this season, Johnson Central beat Boyd County 42-14 on Sep 28, while Covington Catholic also beat the Lions 42-14 on Friday night. Then Covington Catholic beat Grant County 54-0 on Oct 4 while Johnson Central beat the Braves 49-7 on Friday night.

Game kicks off in Park Hills on Friday at 7:30pm. What are your predictions for this second round playoff matchup?

[colonel-fan]

Johnson Central will be fired up for this one after last year’s showing. Based on JC giving Corbin and Ashland all they wanted, this has the makings of a very good game. If both team’s establish the run, there won’t be many possessions. I’m expecting a close, low scoring game.

[Oldercoach]

Maybe premier 2nd round game this week.  After watching them lose to Corbin 56-51 when the Golden Eagles rushed for over 600 yards, but allowed 400+ yards in the air….it would appear to me it will be CovCath’s strength (rushing D) vs JC’s strength (ground game) and CovCath’s weaker game (passing) vs JC’s weakness (pass defense).  Someone is going to turn it over, bust a long one, goal line stop, special team score, game changing play.  This one has the potential of being a hard-earned special victory for the Colonels.

[MorrowManiac]

If you are in the area surrounding Park Hills I highly suggest for you to attend this game. Covington Catholic has not lost a game since August and are looking strong as ever if they can get the pass game going this is going to be a classic. Johnson Central is going to have a certain mentality coming into this game considering last year's blowout. JC's run defense is very strong and Covington Catholic will have to look for the pass. JC 49 Covington Catholic 48. 

[MaddenCurse44]

Go Colonels!

[DearToday]

It's hard for me to see Johnson Central stopping Cash Harney after what Elam and Strader did to them. I think Cov Cath wins by 2+ scores. 

[Oldercoach]

Love QB Harney, but his aerial game will need to be at its’ best.  Elam and Strader are both at a different level passing the ball which as previously mentioned is a glaring JC weakness, so Cash should have lots of chances.  His legs will need to be at their quickest as JC rush defense is a strength.  Classic game going to be played in Park Hills.

[TCR]

If I were to say this would be an exciting matchup, that would probably be an understatement. I'm going to have to watch it after the fact, but being a huge fan of smash mouth, hard running football it will be fun seeing these two teams collide.

Johnson Central is much improved offensively from last year and part of that is having the explosive Zack McCoart back, Logan Music has been healthy, and Logan Morrow, who tore his ACL in the second round last year, is back at fullback and his value to the offense (Both from a rushing and blocking perspective) is understated. Last year Johnson Central relied on their disciplined, downhill running to rack up five yards a carry and control the clock. This year, they have the capability of breaking long runs. To compare statistically, last year Johnson Central rushed for a total of 4,164 yards on the season. I am unsure of their totals in the first round of the playoffs but they were on track to run for around 5,400 had they played the same amount of games. They have some explosive runners.

When one looks at this team on paper and even on film, it's easy to feel confident about stopping Johnson Central and understandably so because you know almost everything they are going to do on both sides of the ball in various yardage situations. They'll occasionally throw out a trick or two but will mostly stick to their bread and butter. I believe is the best way to beat Johnson Central is via confusion and by that, I mean changing something up defensively to force the offensive line to have to think an extra second about who they are going to block. Something different from what they watched on film. Their line is so talented and they engage defenders quick with an explosive first two steps off the ball. Ashland came out in somewhat of a different alignment from what they normally do against Johnson Central and it slowed down the Golden Eagles' rushing attack somewhat in the first half. Johnson Central adjusted at halftime and came out had more yardage in the second half, but that different alignment made a difference.

Covington Catholic, they don't throw it as much as prior teams but will do so more than Johnson Central. I didn't watch a whole lot of them, but they certainly like to keep the defense off balance by stretching the field side to side. They can attack you up the middle, like Johnson Central they do an excellent job carrying out fakes. They'll throw the quick pass to the outside, and they have a screen over the middle that's effective. So it's hard to truly key on one element. Even though this Covington Catholic team doesn't throw as much as some of the past teams, they still have an effective passing game that can do some damage. Harney makes great reads at the line and Gaiser is an explosive back that is capable of breaking one. An area to note about Gaiser is that he also leads the team in receptions. Oliver Link looks to be quite the trustworthy deep receiver, averaging around 20 yards per reception with 5 touchdowns and it looks like he was out for a few games to injury earlier this season.

Two great programs going at it! There have been some fun matchups over the years between the two. The atmosphere for this one should be electric!

[MorrowManiac]

Does anyone have a livestream for the game?

[DevilMayCare]

On 11/9/2024 at 3:16 AM, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

Johnson Central's offense as usual, is a rushing machine with 4308 yards on the ground and 229 yards by air in their first 11 games. 

 

8 hours ago, TCR said:

I am unsure of their totals in the first round of the playoffs but they were on track to run for around 5,400 had they played the same amount of games. They have some explosive runners.

Updated numbers 📈... JC has accumulated 4,758 yards on the ground this season. From a per game (432 ypg) perspective, they're the most prolific running game the state has seen in at least the last 10-15 years. And this is not a three yards and a cloud of dust offense, as evidenced by their hefty 9.5 per carry average.

It's been a minute since Highlands ran for three bills on CovCath in Week 2. It helped that the Colonels couldn't sell out on stopping the run that night. They had to at least respect Litmer's ability to throw the ball. JC doesn't have the pedigree to keep CovCath honest, but they'll test the home team's mettle by getting behind their pads and playing aggressive, Golden Eagles football. 

[colonel-fan]

12 hours ago, DevilMayCare said:

And this is not a three yards and a cloud of dust offense, as evidenced by their hefty 9.5 per carry average.

That is a crazy stat!

[MorrowManiac]

https://www.covcath.org/athletics/tickets-and-broadcasting.cfm#tool_548077

 

10 dollars for the livestream for anyone who cannot make it to Park Hills.

[theguru]

On 11/11/2024 at 7:35 PM, MorrowManiac said:

https://www.covcath.org/athletics/tickets-and-broadcasting.cfm#tool_548077

 

10 dollars for the livestream for anyone who cannot make it to Park Hills.

Thanks @MorrowManiac and here is what it should look like.

[TCR]

On 11/10/2024 at 11:09 PM, DevilMayCare said:

 

Updated numbers 📈... JC has accumulated 4,758 yards on the ground this season. From a per game (432 ypg) perspective, they're the most prolific running game the state has seen in at least the last 10-15 years. And this is not a three yards and a cloud of dust offense, as evidenced by their hefty 9.5 per carry average.

It's been a minute since Highlands ran for three bills on CovCath in Week 2. It helped that the Colonels couldn't sell out on stopping the run that night. They had to at least respect Litmer's ability to throw the ball. JC doesn't have the pedigree to keep CovCath honest, but they'll test the home team's mettle by getting behind their pads and playing aggressive, Golden Eagles football. 

That is unreal @DevilMayCare and a nice comparison. I wonder what this ranks in terms of a national scale. The reason I am curious (And I know a lot has changed since this time) but I remember seeing a plaque at Ashland from the 1990 state championship team that achieved over 5,000 yards rushing in 14 games. The plaque was for them being ranked #4 in the country in rushing. I have a hard time believing this Johnson Central team wouldn't be ranked pretty highly in terms of their ground game on a national scale.

On a separate note, regarding the Cov Cath broadcast. Will there be a way to watch it after the game? I'll be on a different one. I hear a lot of good things about what they do and if I'm correct it's student-ran too. Excellent experience for them to learn both the ins and outs of the broadcast, also for the production/camera people too.

[UKato91]

57 minutes ago, TCR said:

On a separate note, regarding the Cov Cath broadcast. Will there be a way to watch it after the game? I'll be on a different one. I hear a lot of good things about what they do and if I'm correct it's student-ran too. Excellent experience for them to learn both the ins and outs of the broadcast, also for the production/camera people too.

Yes, you can watch it after the game has been played.   Once you purchase the game for the live stream, you will get an email with a link from the provider.  I believe it's Boxcast?  Save that email and you can watch it whenever you want by clicking the link.