Voice of Reason

We are about to find out how good Highlands is.

I call these types of matchups at this time of year truth serum.

Agree. I would say this is silly talk but Ruthsatz doesn't coach basketball there anymore.

The 2A #1 ranked Beechwood Tigers make their first visit to the home of the St. Henry Crusaders. The Tigers are undefeated on the season at 6-0 while the Crusaders are now 4-2 and winners of 4 straight. In their 4 game winning streak St. Henry has scored 40 points or more in each game. Both teams stand at 2-0 in district play. It is a nice start to the season for a second year varsity football program. St. Henry's offense is led by Jr. RB Lucas Pate who is averaging over 127 yards per game rushing and 9.7 yards per carry. So. WR David Penick has 300 yards receiving and is averaging an outstanding 21.4 yards per catch. The QB is So. Cy Parento. The challenge for the Crusaders is going to be stopping the high powered Beechwood offense led by a trio of standout seniors. QB Emmett Queen is completing over 77% of his passes and has 13 TD's against just 1 INT. RB Nathan Pabst and WR Tyler Fryman are among the fastest players in the state and have the track state championship trophies to prove it. Queen's offensive weapons are deeper than those two with Sr. TE Bo Sowder, Sr. WR Caleb Arrasmith and Jr. RB Garrison Wilson all being TD scoring threats. Can St. Henry's offense keep on this high scoring roll against Beechwood? What are you watching in this matchup?

OK, I didn't know about the CCH scores in Q4 coming against backups. As to the 21-0 Q3, I guess CCH came out of the halftime locker room "flat" ... 🫣

Which one is "State"?

I didn't see the game and things can certainly look different and give a different perspective than reading the play by play. After reading through the thread play by play, the game didn't feel as lopsided as many of the post game comments made it sound. CCH made two big mistakes early and that put them in a 14-0 hole. The rest of the half played out as a 7-3 advantage to CCH getting to a halftime score of 17-7. The second half, Highlands outscores CCH 21-13. These teams may be closer than it looks and feels today. I don't expect CCH to beat Highlands in a rematch, but it won't shock me if it happens. CCH needs to find answers on offense. That is the key to the rest of their season. Get more from the offense and things will start looking a lot different.

Agree. I don't think they can get to #1 but LCA is looking solid for #2 IMO. And I appreciate the respect you are showing, but LCA is beating Danville no problem.

Interesting how much O Cath's rating dropped with the win over a 1-6 team. Beechwood is going to take a double hit like that in a couple weeks when they play district opponent Gallatin County and then play Bracken County. Based on what I know about RPI, I have a hard time seeing a 2 loss team finishing above an undefeated team in RPI but those district teams Beechwood has to play are going to hurt their RPI. LCA has their own albatrosses coming in district opponents Shawnee and Washington County whose bad win/loss records are going to drag down LCA's OWP. O Cath and Mayfield also have a couple upcoming district opponents with bad win/loss records. That all might level its way out as it plays out. That gets us to the final game of the year for each team. Beechwood plays a 6A team with 3 wins. LCA plays a 6A team with 2 wins. O Cath plays a 4A team and Mayfield plays a 3A team. There are more RPI points in beating a higher class team so Beechwood and LCA will gain points on O Cath and Mayfield if they all win. If I had to predict right now how this ends up, I think the top 4 will finish the year in the same order as the top 4 we are looking at this week.

Lafayette is very likely going to be 8-1 heading into their season ending game against Oldham County. Bad schedule. May not be top ten worthy even then. But they are going to almost surely have a nice record. And then they will very likely lose their round one playoff game because they will face the #4 team in one of the top 6A districts in the state - it will likely be GRC or Bryan Station in round 1 for them. (Thank goodness we let almost everyone into the playoffs so we can see that round 1 game. 😁)

I am not a fan of this logo thing that has become popular. After some thinking, I am pretty sure I know who all these schools are except #16 and #22.

This for me may be the most annoying statement in football. At least 90% of the time, flat equals you were beaten by a better team. The reason the losing team looked "flat" is because the other team was better. It is not about emotion or not being ready to play. I don't believe flat is ever going to happen in a Cov Cath vs Highlands game.

I thought Walton Verona looked well coached. They have a good mix of running backs and their bigger backs run hard. That was a good drive they scored on. They converted I think three times on fourth down on that drive. Coach Pence has them headed in the right direction.

I agree. Super close but he looks out of bounds.

Which 2 or 3 games were projected to be the closest in the TP94?