6A South Warren (0-0) vs 6A Bryan Station (0-0)

Opening Round of the 2026 eCampus.Com Bowl at Lexington Christian Academy High School!

The South Warren Spartans will again start their varsity football campaign with a trip to Lexington specifically on the campus of Lexington Christian Academy (LCA) High School where they will again meet Bryan Station in the opening game of the 2026 eCampus.Com Bowl.  South Warren will be looking to make it back to the 6A Championship game in only their second year competing in 6A.  Bryan Station is looking to take a step forward from their 6-6 2025 record while playing in one of the tougher 6A districts across the state.  What would that step forward look like?  I don’t know.  Let’s start with a 7-5 record and call that a win!  But when your schedule starts with South Warren and follows with contests at Boyle County, at Corbin, Ballard, and eventually at Douglass there isn’t a lot of room for error.         

Bryan Station Defenders Information

The Bryan Station Defenders come into this game beginning year 2 for head coach JT Haskins.  Coach Haskins enthusiastically speaks about his 2026 team to a local news affiliate:  Bryan Station Football looking to improve in year two under Haskins

This team will be led on the field by Louisville commit SR WR/S JT Haskins, who I believe is the coach’s son.  I’m not sure who the Defenders will rely on for the QB position but SR Coleson Carpenter who connected on just over 50% of his 2025 passes for nearly 900 yards and 9 TDs but 8 INTs returns in 2026.  Haskins is the Defenders top returning rusher but rising SR Raymond Young will likely be looked on to run the ball for the Defenders in 2026.  Rising JRs Brayden Payne and Tyler Crutcher should join Haskins at WR to form a pretty solid unit.  I don’t really know anything about the Defenders Oline but Coach Haskins said that was the unit he was most impressed with coming out of Spring Camp (according to his interview with @Big Things Kentucky - 2026 Bryan Station Defenders - KY Football (High School) - BluegrassPreps.com – (Shoutout to @Big Things Kentucky for doing such a great job of promoting KY HS Football!). 

Defensively, 4 of their top 5 tacklers return and Coach Haskins said he also likes how their DLine is progressing so there is hope for the Defenders defensive unit to be a strong one in 2026.    

South Warren Spartans Information

I would have to think that Coach Brandon Smith, entering his 13^th season as Spartans Head Coach, has to overall feel pretty darn good about how his team performed in 2025!  Yes, you want to win them all, but to achieve a 13-1 record only falling to 30-Time State Champ Trinity 28-14 at Kroger Field is a noteworthy accomplishment in 6A Year 1 for the team off Nashville Road.

The Spartans return talented SR QB Camden Page who had a very fine 2025 campaign throwing for nearly 2,400 yards and 24 TDs vs 8 INTs.  The athletic QB also strategically ran 55 times for 285 yards and 7 more TDs.  The Spartans will certainly miss multi-talented Kayden York as the 2025 graduate had a great 2025 season on both sides of the ball.  But rising JR Jamir Boards should be ready to assume the lead RB role as he had over 500 yards and 7 TDs as a SO in 2025.  At WR, rising SR Justin Capps will assume the lead role and try to emulate what Jake Carter (had a great year for Sparty) did last season.  The Spartans Oline should again be very solid.

Defensively, the Spartans return a lot from that 13-1 team.  While they will miss DL Malik Butler and Kayden York, most everyone else returns and with the schedule South plays it should be very few points this South defensive unit will surrender this regular season.  But big SR DT Jaquise Smith went down in the scrimmage vs Owensboro and it appeared to be a significant injury.  I hate injuries and surely hate to see that.  Wishing him a quick recovery.

It should be noted that 3-Star recruit JR QB Chase Bell transferred from South Warren to Blackman High School in TN. 

LCA Bowl Game Preview and Information

Streaming:  Home | Sporting Times

Kickoff will be at 5:30 pm Eastern Time at LCA High School in Lexington, Kentucky.  That is a 4:30 pm kickoff time on a Friday afternoon Bowling Green time.  Being fan friendly has never been a prime objective for the first game of the season for South ever since they left the Rafferty’s Bowl in 2023.  Game time forecast:  82 degrees and hot!   

South wasn’t that polished in the recent Owensboro scrimmage (Owensboro had a lot to do with that), but that is all it is - a scrimmage.  But you have to think this game is now a little bit tighter than it once was.  Losing DT Jaquise Smith is a big deal.  Hard to replace a SR 6’2” 300lbs-ish athletic DT.  IMO he anchored that South defensive unit so they will need to quickly adjust.  So I look for South to run the ball and use their talented Oline to try to dominate the game.  I also look for South to focus their defensive unit on stopping JT Haskins wherever he lines up on the field.  If they do those 2 things, I think it will be hard for Bryan Station to put a lot of points on the board, but that’s why they play the game, as Owensboro put up 21 in basically a half of football!  And it should be noted that anything can happen in the first game of the season and there are always a lot of issues to iron out.  South encountered many of those last season in this game giving up more points than they did all season long (35), but even in sputtering along they also scored more points than any game last season also (56). 

For Bryan Station, I hope they come with a quick passing game to set up the run mentality, as very few teams have success just lining up and running the ball on South Warren.  I look for an absolute sun blistering game, but also an entertaining one.  So, if you want to see kickoff in person, you’ll likely need to take off work, pick up an industrial grade umbrella and a 5-gallon bucket of water to make it to the end!  In the end, I still think South will be too much for the Defenders to deal with.

Good luck to both teams!   Who ya got in this matchup?

In addition to the streaming on the Sporting Times, which is awesome, the NFHS has video:

https://www.nfhsnetwork.com/events/bryan-station-high-school-lexington-ky/gamf28e4e0671

I'll take South Warren in a competitive game.

Neither of these teams looked particularly good in the last scrimmage however I think SW’s game was against a far better opponent. I made a lot of people mad last year when I said SW will not win a championship in 6A but I still believe that and especially this year because Owensboro is not in the same ballpark as Trinity. I know everyone is going to say it was just a scrimmage but it’s been my experience that scrimmages are good indicators for a team’s season.

“Neutral” game in Lexington, 1st full week of school, 4:30 local kick, losing a big time SR leader the week prior. I’m not sure anybody else on the South Warren schedule has a better opportunity to catch the Spartans off guard than these Defenders Friday night.

Station let up 56 points in this one last year, and then 49 the next week to Pulaski County. Coach Haskins mentioned that first year caught him by surprise and playing 2 State runner-ups in their respective classes to open up your season I can understand what he meant. Believe this one could be very interesting, shootout last year I expect this one to be low scoring. The injury news was alarming but the lack of offensive chatter after their scrimmages against ACS and OB is a bit alarming for the Spartans.

Defenders 24-21 in a strange game at LCA.

South Warren 24

Bryan Station 14

Be on the lookout for the guys at this game friday night if you are there.

42-14 South.

BS has the ball to start.

BS went three and out and punted.

SW threw a flea flicker to wheel route on the first play down to about the BS 9.

SW went for it on 4th down and scored a TD and capped it off with a two point conversion.

South Warren 8 Bryan Station 0

727 in the first.

BS #1 Turner on a long run to the SW 10.

Turner broke contain and then the CB wasn't deep enough and created a natural seam allowing Tuner to break loose.

8-3

SW driving.

15-3