After a blowout loss to Atherton, 48-0, Central Hardin looks to re-group this week vs cross town rival Elizabethtown. This game has some back stories.

Because of all the turmoil last season between head coach Stockdale/ assistant coaches, and players, Central Hardin had 6 players transfer to Elizabethtown over the summer. Add to that, the fact that Elizabethtown head coach Tyler Mattingly, used to be the offensive coordinator at Central Hardin and the fact that former Central Hardin QB Chase Elmore, is now on the Panthers staff, and this game has the potential to be a great game. With both teams losing last week, they will both be hungry to come out victorious in this matchup. 

The Central Hardin offense struggled mightily last week vs an Atherton defense that played lights out. A bright spot seemed to be the Central Hardin defense in the first half. As the second half wore on, the Bruin defense seemed to wear down vs a superior athletic team in Atherton.

Elizabethtown seems to be much improved over last season and led much of the game last week vs Bardstown before falling to the Tigers, 39-36.

My Prediction;

Elizabethtown 28

Central Hardin 14

Only 2 players transferred to Etown from Central Hardin after last season. Neither of those guys would have been starters at Central. You have watched a lot of Central Hardin football @Hardin County Preps. They are finally in the gun running the spread just like you always have wanted. I am sure its only a matter of time before they light up the scoreboard. 

@Hardin County Preps blaming a loss on the previous head coach is comical. He was so bad the day he was notified he was being terminated a 6A power house called and made sure he had a job. Let’s talk facts. Nobody, including you gave the man a chance. Parental support was minimal at best.  From day one people were out to get him. Despite playing potentially one of the toughest schedules in the state, he still managed to get his team into the regional finals. After what that man went through and the flat out false narrative and accusations constantly being thrown at him, what they did in the end was a miracle. When the powers that be can influence and manipulate an entire district because they didn’t like the offense or because little Johnny didn’t get to be the star of the show, you have bigger problem than one man or what offense you run. It’s also worth noting some of the cancers have already started in on Coach Gregory, you conveniently failed to mention that but I guess it’s only Monday. For the sake of the program I sincerely hope somebody has the testicular fortitude stronger than fruit fly to step in and say enough is enough before you run off another good coach or have him terminated. Anyway Etown is young but has some skill, Central still has size and some nice players. If Centrals LB is heathy and plays ill take the Bruins 28-6, if he can’t go this week I’ll take the Panthers 28-16. This is the first time in a few years this game is being played, should be a great atmosphere. 

I take no joy in saying this, but some schools are not cut out to be spread, no-huddle schools.  And I think Central Hardin is one of them.  To me, it is more important to maximize the potential of your program than running the latest and greatest system.

Central Hardin typically has linemen, tough players, and willingness to be physical.  Not speed guys.  They did really well with the Wing-T, and would do well with other "old-school" types of systems.

5 hours ago, MatCoach08 said:

Only 2 players transferred to Etown from Central Hardin after last season. Neither of those guys would have been starters at Central. You have watched a lot of Central Hardin football @Hardin County Preps. They are finally in the gun running the spread just like you always have wanted. I am sure its only a matter of time before they light up the scoreboard. 

??? Scoreboards gonna get lit up any day now!! All hail the spread!!!!!

I can’t remember ever voluntarily voting for E-Town before.?

I was a fan of Coach Stockdale when he was here in Nelson County and I don’t know the whole story on the wholesale transfer of a bunch of locals in many sports over to Central Hardin. I do know that what I personally saw last year was ugly.

I also know Hardin County Preps, and he is not only a very good writer, but he is good for high school sports and calls it like it is.

E-Town appears to be improved. They spread the wealth Friday night.

Atherton may well be a whole lot better than folks are anticipating.

Something I’ve enjoyed through the years when watching a football game is creating the opinion on whether or not offenses have an actual system or just a collection of plays. What I’ve come to find out is a lot of the teams simply don’t know what they are trying to do offensively. You can go to any rural county across our state and find teams who have no business attempting to scheme their offense the way they do. That’s what bothers me more than anything in this day of football, is it fun watching midline, veer, and toss 70% of the game? Absolutely not, but I know it makes it difficult for defenses. They’ll get caught into a loop of consistent repetition then all of a sudden the TE pops into the secondary wide open and catches a 50 yard TD off the play action. As a fan I’d rather the game be boring than clueless and at the end of the day no coach fears the highlight plays, they lose sleep over systems that put their players in positions where they’ll have to think.

Just a rant after reading about the change in the Bruins philosophy, don’t mind me. I’ll take the Panthers in this one though.

Gregory will be successful at CH that I promise. Might be some growing pains but he will get the job done no doubt about it.

Welcome to BGP @Footballguy08!

13 hours ago, TheBallCoach said:

Something I’ve enjoyed through the years when watching a football game is creating the opinion on whether or not offenses have an actual system or just a collection of plays. What I’ve come to find out is a lot of the teams simply don’t know what they are trying to do offensively. You can go to any rural county across our state and find teams who have no business attempting to scheme their offense the way they do. That’s what bothers me more than anything in this day of football, is it fun watching midline, veer, and toss 70% of the game? Absolutely not, but I know it makes it difficult for defenses. They’ll get caught into a loop of consistent repetition then all of a sudden the TE pops into the secondary wide open and catches a 50 yard TD off the play action. As a fan I’d rather the game be boring than clueless and at the end of the day no coach fears the highlight plays, they lose sleep over systems that put their players in positions where they’ll have to think.

Just a rant after reading about the change in the Bruins philosophy, don’t mind me. I’ll take the Panthers in this one though.

Good post.  The system I most enjoy watching is the one that consistently produces wins.  That is different based on the talent of each school.  Some schools should definitely spread it out all over the place.  The problem is that many who try to do so should not, based on the type of player they get on a regular basis.

16 hours ago, Hearsay said:

I can’t remember ever voluntarily voting for E-Town before.?

I was a fan of Coach Stockdale when he was here in Nelson County and I don’t know the whole story on the wholesale transfer of a bunch of locals in many sports over to Central Hardin. I do know that what I personally saw last year was ugly.

I also know Hardin County Preps, and he is not only a very good writer, but he is good for high school sports and calls it like it is.

E-Town appears to be improved. They spread the wealth Friday night.

Atherton may well be a whole lot better than folks are anticipating.

New system with one of the hardest schedules in the state, and with really only 5 to 7 kids who had ever been contributors, yeah it was rough. But still made the region final when every other school in Hardin County was sitting at home on the couch. But I'm just a old soul that enjoys running the football, what do I know? 

Word on the street is Central will be with outside their starting LB. Not sure how the Bruins defense will hold up if that is true. 

Wasnt too many eons ago that CHHS was pretty successful running the spread with Mike Lawson at the helm.   Systems work when given time and you train your players to be system players.  Spread, Wing-T, Wish Bone, doesn't matter what the preferred system is.  Any good system will have variations that will allow for success depending on the capabilities of the athletes within that system. We all have seen a spread team that runs option 90% of the time, and we have seen Wishbone team that scores nearly everytime they sling the rock!   Key to any system is buy in and belief!  Hard for a coach to put in his system and find success while fighting the arm chair quarterbacks, drug store cowboys, and the pro level expert uncles in the barbershops that won the little league championship as a player in 6th grade.   With that said, I believe Coach Gregory will be successful at CHHS, but I am not sure they will be successful Friday night against Etown lol!  

NFHS Video.

https://www.nfhsnetwork.com/events/hardin-county-schools/gamfdd9ab80a2

Elizabethtown 7

CH 0 

second qtr. 

Elizabethtown 13

CH 0 

half.