ATLCat

The Cherry kid is lightning quick with the ball in his hands and they will try to find creative ways to do that. Watch out for him and he can be dangerous on kicks as well. Their line has good size but are very young. Their QB and RB's will improve but they just aren't what you are used to seeing from a Central team.. no back who can take the game over and just put the team on his back like a Cortez Stone. Johnson already is showing improvement but still he isn't a homerun hitter or the guy who breaks four or five tackles on a play. Usually Central has a couple receivers with good size who can beat you and who can make plays high pointing it.. don't see those guys on the field for them right now. Cherry as mentioned is pretty dynamic but he isn't very big and is only a Sophomore, he will be dangerous in a couple years. Hadley is a quality possession receiver but doesn't jump off the page as being dominant but he is only a Sophomore as well. Defensively they look more like what you expect from Central.. big..do a good job playing smart & disciplined football and setting the edge... Dantzler's son is a star in the making at Safety. Their LB's aren't bad at all but they are a year away from being those Central LB'ers you are used to seeing who just shut everything down between the hashes.

Central's offense is not very good. Their defense can play... but I am not sure they will score more than a TD against a team BE's quality. I'll take Bullitt East 28-6.

Should be a dandy. Going into the season and before injuries I think I would have liked Belfry by 2 TD's... now I think it is a toss-up if not Pikeville having a slight edge. I will take Belfry by a TD playing at home.

Dang… still this is another fantastic Danville effort!

Belfry now up 57-15 in the 4th.

42-15 Belfry now 1:18 left in 3rd

I sometimes wonder if when Bobby is watching college football on Saturday and someone walks in the room and asks what the score is he wouldn’t say “we have Kentucky trailing Ole Miss 27-20 with 3:13 left to go here on the Varney Tax Services scoreboard… dang it”

It's my single biggest complaint about 80% of radio broadcasts over the years. I remember I was driving from Georgia to Lexington one October on the way to Keeneland and was listening to a local broadcast down around Spring Hill, TN to pass the miles. From the moment I picked up signal of the station until I lost good signal north of Knoxville in the mountains I never figured out the actual score of the game, the Quarter, or who was actually playing! What made matters worse... there were TD's scored by both teams! All I got was that the Tigers had extended their lead to 7 and that the Raiders now only trailed by 1 following their score and failed conversion attempt. Later I figured out it was Marshall County vs. Spring Hill HS later thanks to Maxpreps and curiosity.

Belfry's radio crew is top notch and they take a lot of pride in their radio broadcasts. East Kentucky Broadcasting/Mountain Top media definitely keep the radio broadcast game alive.. Pikeville also does a good job with their games as well. Belfry is on 96.5 WXCC for all home and away games. Used to be CoalCounty96.5 now I think it is called The Mullet or something like that. They usually have a brief pre-game show and they usually stay 10-15 minutes later doing a wrap up with final stats and thoughts as well. Bobby Norman is the play by play guy, Steve Mickey does color, and Nee Jackson does stats and adds a little color as well. Mickey is a figurehead in the Belfry program and was a longtime D-Coordinator and Haywood's right hand man... he also basically reinvented Belfry's feeder system. Norman is very good at play by play, Mickey brings tremendous football insight you rarely hear in a radio booth, and Jackson updates every scoring drive and gives stats at the Half in addition to final stats. You will get a Belfry centric/slanted broadcast but the guys go out of their way to avoid being blind homers. One thing Norman does that is a dying breed is he goes out of his way to update, score, time, and field position as often as he can.

Since 1998 OCath has ended Glasgow's playoff run three different times in 02,04,06. In that window they have met four times in the playoffs in total. In that same window they have played 12 times in total with OCath going 9-3. Glasgow is 0-4 against Danville with three of those ending their season in the playoffs (08, 09, 17) Glasgow is 0-2 against Boyle County with both of those ending their season in the playoffs (99, 2000) Glasgow is 0-4 against DeSales with all four of those ending their season in the playoffs (12, 13, 14, 16) Glasgow is 0-3 against CAL with all three of those ending their season in the playoffs (11, 15, 20) Glasgow is 0-2 against Union County with both of those ending their season in the playoffs (22, 24) Glasgow is 5-3 against Taylor County with a 3-1 record in the playoffs. Taylor County ended their season in 2019. Glasgow is 7-5 against Bardstown with a 3-1 record in the playoffs. Bardstown ended their season in 2001. Other teams who ended their season: Larue County 1998 (Only Meeting) Ft. Campbell 2003 (1-1 in playoffs, Glasgow won two other regular season games) Trigg County 2005 (1-1 in playoffs) Metcalfe County 2007 (Only playoff meeting, Glasgow has won 11 of 13 regular season games including 10 straight) Fort Knox 2010 (Only Meeting) Walton-Verona 2018 (Only Meeting) Paducah Tilghman 2021 (Only Meeting) Hart County 2023 (1-1 in playoffs, Glasgow had won 15 straight from 99 thru 21, Hart County has won the past four)

Historically OCath's main problem has been Mayfield a lot more than Beechwood. Caldwell County I want to say has given them a handful of exits as well. OCath has had some rotten luck.. they have had some dominant teams but just couldn't beat a powerhouse when they saw them in the Semi's or Finals. OCath definitely would be #1 on this list for me. CAL is a problem for anybody in their class now but people forget they are still relatively new on the scene of domination. Glasgow has had a mixed bag of teams who have been their downfall over the years as they have been primarily a 2A school but bounced from playing Central KY teams or Western KY teams based on alignment. They have been a hard luck case where most years they are almost always good but not always great... and when they are great there just is always someone a little better. If I had to assign a foil to Glasgow I would say the best representative from the Louisville Metro in Class 2A would be the generic description for the past decade or so and then the WKY representative or Danville/Boyle was that team the decade prior. Danville and Boyle County both knocked off some of the better Glasgow teams and then John Edge was eating their lunch pretty good at OCath for a while. DeSales probably was their biggest hurdle there for a while about ten years ago and then CAL kind of continued that trend. Bardstown has bit them I want to say a couple times.

I think Danville finally takes a loss... but I full expect a closer game than last year's 42-0 contest. Danville avoids the running clock and learns a lot of valuable lessons to grow from... but Lincoln County pulls away late to win 35-14.

I am just going to leave this here.. this was my bold prediction in the 2025 Danville Admirals thread where I took the 0-11 Admirals to make a major turnaround. I am still standing firm on it! I believe in Stonebreaker.. think he is one of the better builders in the State.

As bad as it pains me.. I think this is how this class kind of really looks like right now: Beechwood OCath Mayfield & LCA Belfry Hancock County, Somerset, Monroe County Prestonsburg, Danville, Breathitt County, Bracken County The Rest I am not convinced Belfry has improved their glaring weaknesses from last year and if that's the case I don't see them as anything more than team who can upset you on the right night. I don't see Belfry stringing together back to back wins against the Top 5 with the weaknesses they have on defense and their propensity to turn the ball over or make devastating self inflicted mistakes.

I think it is a fair enough question... but even in this example as Louisville fan: Would you replace Louisville, UCLA, & Indiana as being labeled Bluebloods in exchange for UCONN, Florida, and Villanova?

Trendy.. I can buy that.

LOL.. Corbin maybe? Been around a while, getting a lot of capital invested in them currently, but the amount you see of them compared to the quality of their brand makes you wonder why it isn't producing bette results on the Fortune 100 list.

To be fair, noone in that Blueblood Tier would fit that description of winning 9+ games for 40 years with no few/titles. Danville is really the only tough sell in that column to me... but only because their struggles over the past decade or so... but even then Danville got a title and a runner-up under Clevenger in this last 10 year window. Highlands hasn't been winning Titles lately but they are as blue as a blueblood could get. Until this decade they had 50+ years of elite football as one of Kentucky's flagship programs. It's hard arguing against Boyle being a better program pound for pound in the modern era than maybe anyone not named Trinity or maybe Beechwood. For probably half the posters on here all they have ever known is Boyle being a buzzsaw.. but for the other Half it is still hard to give them that distinction when you grew up seeing Boyle as essentially a non factor for the most part until right before Y2K. Until the end of the 90's and Chuck Smith's arrival you would have to make a strong argument that Boyle was even a Top 5 program in their immediate area when you had peak Danville, Harrodsburg, and Lincoln County.

Dang it! I missed a couple teams... I knew I was missing someone up in NEKY. Russell is Tier 4.. Murray and Middlesboro would be Tier 5.

I think that is a great place to put them.. Glasgow and Somerset are very comparable programs.

Just to have some more fun with comparisons: Trinity= Ford Motor Company Highlands= Bank of America Beechwood= Walmart Male= AT&T St. Xavier= General Motors Mayfield= Wells Fargo Danville= General Electric Boyle County- Apple Belfry- Target CovCath- Citigroup Bowling Green- Coca Cola Pikeville- Walt Disney Company CAL- Amazon

Google is a great place to be... Google may be the new Ford Motor Company in 15 years... but historically speaking 25 years does not make you a Blueblood when you have no shortage of brands doing it for 40 to 50+ years to be compared to. To me Boyle County is the King of the New Money and I don't doubt that program will be the thought of as the standard with another generation.

You are illustrating my point.. Franklin is a trendy team... South Warren I bumped to name brand because they have been consistently good since their inception, but not to the level of a Frederick Douglas and certainly not to the level of CAL. Neither SW or Franklin though have the sustained longevity or dominance to be higher yet. So we are clear there is nothing wrong with trendy or name brand... 90% of the programs in KY would sign up to be in those spots right now!

Tier 1 (True Bluebood+, these are the teams who have established Blueblood Status with decades of high level success and really never have had a sustained decline) Trinity Highlands Beechwood Male St. Xavier Mayfield Danville Tier 2 (New Money, these are the programs who have been successful for a long time but their dominance has only occurred in the last 30 years. These also are programs who may have been tracking to Blueblood status but had to overcome some leaner years) Boyle County Belfry CovCath Bowling Green Pikeville Tier 3 (Old Money, these are programs who are revered and have plenty of much older success and still have moments of noted current prominence, but their legacy is more defined in the past) Ashland Tilghman Owensboro Tier 4 (Tech Bros, these guys have gotten rich quick and are built to be the next New Money or beyond.) CAL Frederick Douglas Johnson Central Louisville Central Tier 5 (The Name Brands, these programs are a clear cut below but have sustained success for decades but never demonstrated true dominance) Bardstown Bell County Corbin Franklin-Simpson Hazard Hopkinsville LCA LexCath Manual NewCath OCath Scott County Somerset South Warren Tier 6 (The Trendy Brands, they had a season.. they are generally quality.. but they have lacked the consistency and have a tendency to be forgotten for stretches) Breathitt County Caldwell County Christian County DeSales Etown Fort Campbell (trend that may not come back) Franklin County McCracken County (You can include Lone Oak as well) Ryle South Oldham

It's OK to admit you aren't familiar with Belfry. To define Belfry's success as being more recent and comparing them to CAL is a tough putt. People forget Belfry reached the State Finals before Haywood was hired (1979). Belfry played in two State Finals in the 80's early in Haywood's career despite coming up short. Belfry has played in a State Finals game in five different decades. It took Belfry a while to get over the hump and win their first State title in 2003.. but Belfry's run of consistency from 2003 until Present is something CAL may be on the path of replicating, but currently it is a whole different league than what they have accomplished so far.You are talking two straight decades of sustained high levels of success.