5A Bowling Green (1-0) at 6A St. Xavier (0-1)

With the season now fully underway, we get into a more challenging section of games on the schedule and that certainly includes this game for Bowling Green with home games vs Scott County and South Warren on the horizon and for St X with games at Male, Trinity and Boyle County coming up soon too.  So, this is a big game for both teams.

BG vs St X All Time Series

This will be the 24^th meeting for these two teams.  All time St. Xavier leads the series 15-8.  St. X won 8 straight games including:

-          From 1925 and 1926,                                     - From 1931 and 1932,

-          From 1981 and 1982, and                             - In the Rafferty’s Bowl from 2005 and 2006.

Those Rafferty’s Bowl games were close with both ending roughly 14-7 St X.

From there, Bowling Green won 4 straight with some super teams from Scooter Hollis’ team in 2011 to 2014.  They then traded wins for the next 7 games with St X breaking that streak with 3 straight wins from 2021 to 2023.  But BG regrouped in 2024 and played their best regular season game of the year at St X and won going away 26-9.  But St X would come to BG last season and outlast the Purples 27-10 in a game of two halves.  The first half X completely dominated and BG had no offense.  But BG switched QBs at halftime and went with the true Freshman Anthony Davis and the young man immediately drove BG down the field for the score and he started the rest of the way for BG from there.  But X was the better team that night.  So, St X is on a 1 game win streak in the series.

St. Xavier Information (Check out @Tigerpride94 post also)

St X has entered the Coach Brian Landis Era.  The new head coach takes over for Coach Kevin Wallace who departs after 8 seasons on the X sideline.  A good article regarding Coach Landis can be found here: 

How St. X's new football coach is making his mark on the program

St. X has a lot of new players playing major minutes, but they did return RB Cooper Yates, who is a quality runner.  The Tigers new QB came from Hazard in JR William Shoptaw. And most other skill guys are new as well.

Defensivley X returns two defensive backs and LB/DE Korey Tutt who had a great game at Bowling Green last season.   This is a stout defensive unit.

I was able to make the X game at Owensboro last night and it was a great atmosphere for a game and you sit right on top of the players and field. Love that! Owensboro overwhelmed X 24-7 with their speed primarily from their defensive backs and WRs. That IMO caused QB Shoptaw to force some passes he likely shouldn't have as X had a total of 4 turnovers in the game, which is a poor recipe for success.

But I caution the armchair QBs on rapid changes, as Owensboro's speed is very hard to replicate in any practice. That being the case, what changes, if any, are expected from the men in green? Fair question.

Bowling Green Purples Information

The Purples played what may be the last Rafferty's Bowl game at WKU tonight. Although I'd never say never in this category, but near term that is certainly likely. The Purples overcame a determined 6A Bullitt East Charger squad 34-7. BG leaned more on their run game than I can remember in recent memory as SR RB Nick Graham was award the offensive player of the game award.

But the Purples got contributions all over the field from brand new players who are hungry to get their chance. And their line play was better than most any game last season. They also played with great enthusiasm, which went missing last year also. Big Shoutout to the BG Coaching Staff who seem to have reinvigorated these younger Purples and have good confidence going forward. And now BG will get to pack that confidence up in a charter bus headed north up I65 to take on traditional power St Xavier on Friday night in Louisville.

Game Information:

This game will be played on St. X’s revamped field, fresh with new turf and a new video board!  This is going to be an interesting game. For St. X, they want to win their new Coaches first home game and get the bad taste out of their mouths from their trip over to Owensboro.

For BG, its more keeping that momentum going.

St X's defense will pose a significant challenge for the Purples, but I think I'm most looking forward to seeing how the St X offense vs the BG defense plays out. I expect X to have similar problems.

So that means a low scoring game, I think.

What say you?

I think this could be a very close game, and I hate to say it but I think BG gets the W. St. X hasn't done themselves any favors scheduling lower classed programs that can beat them. Their RPI will be tanked if they lose this game, and the Boyle Co. game.

BG- 24

X- 21

I think for St. X to win they will have to play turnover free and cut down on drive killing penalties. The defense can keep them in the game. I think this will be low scoring game.

1 hour ago, Tigerpride94 said:

I think for St. X to win they will have to play turnover free and cut down on drive killing penalties. The defense can keep them in the game. I think this will be low scoring game.

X can’t expect the defense to keep them in games with an offense playing like it has been.The offense has to have sustained drives and not turn the ball over for immediate scores. The defense can’t do much about pick sixes. The defense kept them in the game at Owensboro and scored X’s only points. The first offensive has been ineffective in both scrimmages and the first game. That has to change fast or it won’t get better as the season goes on.

If BG wins this game. 5A gets pretty interesting.

The Purples defense shut the Chargers down in the 2nd half of the Rafferty's Bowl. With that type of performance I’m inclined to think they should be able to slow down St. X’s struggling offense. My question is how good is Bullitt East? They’re an unknown team for me and difficult measuring stick. I say the better defensive team wins this one in a low scoring affair.

St. X 10

BG 7

If you consider how bad X looked against Owensboro and how good BG looked last night I’m going with BG 24-21.

If you saw how great X’s defense is….every play was a war vs O. I’m sure BG is tough too didn’t get see much of it with BE. I will be shocked if BG gets 21. How good is BG defense - X will have some new wrinkles.

X 21-7

1 hour ago, Devils Fan said:

If BG wins this game. 5A gets pretty interesting.

The Purples defense shut the Chargers down in the 2nd half of the Rafferty's Bowl. With that type of performance I’m inclined to think they should be able to slow down St. X’s struggling offense. My question is how good is Bullitt East? They’re an unknown team for me and difficult measuring stick. I say the better defensive team wins this one in a low scoring affair.

St. X 10

BG 7

A Bullitt East parent I know thought they were not going to be as good as last year and looked like it against BG. Probably was a combination of BG being good team and BE not as good.

HSratings.com has St. X favored by 10 using both teams rating.

3 hours ago, Tkinslow said:

If you consider how bad X looked against Owensboro and how good BG looked last night I’m going with BG 24-21.

If BG scores 24 against X that would imply another disastrous night of turnovers for X. Plus it’s not uncommon for the Purples to beat the Tigers like it is for most schools outside of Louisville. Maybe BG can take advantage of the growing pains of the Tigers. 24 points against X in any fashion would be huge.

3 hours ago, Brown said:

If you saw how great X’s defense is….every play was a war vs O. I’m sure BG is tough too didn’t get see much of it with BE. I will be shocked if BG gets 21. How good is BG defense - X will have some new wrinkles.

X 21-7

For the Tigers sake, I hope the new wrinkles can get them past BG. After this week, St. X gets a win vs a down Male squad, then 4 straight with Elder, Trinity, Boyle County and Manual…. a stretch that could be disastrous for the guys on Poplar Level Road.

X needs to be more efficient on offense to be competitive. They were not last week. However, it is normal for considerable improvement to be made from a first game to a second game. We shall see if that happens. Hopefully it does. I am not ready to make a judgment on the Tigers with the new regime until a larger body of work is accumulated. I think overall the new coaches have the program headed in the right direction, but time will tell.

I predict that the crowd will be electric Friday night and the Rage Cage will be raucous.

18 hours ago, TH58 said:

For the Tigers sake, I hope the new wrinkles can get them past BG. After this week, St. X gets a win vs a down Male squad, then 4 straight with Elder, Trinity, Boyle County and Manual…. a stretch that could be disastrous for the guys on Poplar Level Road.

I think better execution will be more important than new wrinkles.

This game is one of our Pick 5 Contest games: