This past weekend in the KFCA Hospitality Room, we did an informal poll. Chad Pennington was the overwhelming favorite of the coaches that submitted a name. Coach Chuck Smith and I will discuss the COY on our podcast that will air on Thursday, 12/19 @ 7:30 pm EST.

If you have any thoughts on who should be the COY for 2024, please share those here. 

There were some outstanding coaching jobs done this season, in my opinion it would either be Chad Pennington of Sayre or Mark Spader of Bowling Green. Coach Pennington did a great job with Sayre this season and deserves recognition for guiding that team through some tough moments, especially defeating a rock solid team in Raceland that ended their season the year before. One situation in particular I think of in that game where Sayre could have folded came when Raceland was moving the ball and had it 1st and 10 on the Sayre 26 near the end of the game, but they didn't. The defense came up with a big stop. That's toughness and Coach Pennington did a great job instilling that in them.  

Mark Spader coached a defending state champion in Bowling Green, but they had more challenges this season. Last year the only team that came close to threatening them in the state tournament was Cooper, and they defeated Cooper by two touchdowns despite having four turnovers in the game. This year Bowling Green had to defeat a South Warren team in the semifinals that defeated them during the regular season and they came into the state finals as underdogs against a very talented Cooper team that had some great wins coming into that matchup.

Either one is great and I'm sure there are more names that will come up. These are the first two that came to mind.