Green guy

Does anyone have information about any of the games played in yesterday's freshmen tournament at South Laurel High School? Matchups, scores, stars?

McCallie? A 3-6 team that BG beat by 4 points? In the weeks following that game, Chattanooga McCallie has lost to Nashville Ensworth (8-0) 28-14, Chattanooga Baylor (5-4) 38-14, Nashville Brentwood Academy (6-3) 39-16, and last night Nashville Father Ryan (6-3) 34-18.

Some history: Male and St X began their football rivalry in 1924 with Male winning the first 11 games. Overall Male continues to have the advantage 54-40-2. Starting with the 2000 game, St X has had the advantage 11-7.

I fully agree as long as you don't risk a fumble or some such. In a fair matchup, it's the Os job to score and the Ds job to stop them. I have never once felt upset when the other team kept its foot on the pedal. Frankly, I think I would have been insulted if they hadn't. I'm mad at our D for not hitting harder or acting smarter, starting with coaches.

Why don't we wait till the school confirms it? Mr Nagle may have had to go wherever he's supposed to have gone because of family reasons or any one of a dozen things.

If you demand no less than proper behavior or else, you'll get it. But the coaches and parents must set the tone and enforce it.

I of course could not hear what the teams were saying to each other in Trinity's end zone, but I was wondering why Manual should be there. How could the Crimson coaches allow that even if it were innocent? And while the captains met at the 50 for the coin toss, the Crimsons were lying on the field a few feet away doing calisthentics. Aren't you supposed to be on your sideline? It was a good game though; Manual is very talented.

Male has played a light schedule but has big-time players who know what to do and want this win. Predicting games is foolish BUT for the fun of argument I will say the Male D gives up only 100 running yards and less passing. These kids are on a mission. Male by up to 20. But it won't be pretty.

Brilliant analysis. Let's have BG and Trinity start scheduling each other again. BTW, I think you need to reconsider your comparisons of BG players to Quick and Dawkins but I can certainly respect your enthusiasm. The fact is that for the previous two years, Quick and Dawkins beat and a number of times destroyed the best competition in America. But I still like your breakdowns and reflections. BG, Highlands, Trinity, and other top KY teams need to play each other. Keep it in the Bluegrass. Trinity and BG have played five great games (all Trinity wins). Trinity's 39-28 win in 2007 was one of the top high school games I ever saw. One late deflected pass by Trinity was the difference in the game.

Who have you played, Coach? Last week it was the 13,087th team in the country, per MaxPreps Freeman Computer, where you get your #1 Ky ranking (MaxPreps lists 14,671 h/s teams in the US). Cantrall makes BG #2 behind Highlands. I haven't see this week's Litkenhous. Your #79 national ranking is tempered by your #97 in RivalsHigh100. Let's see how the season plays out. Don't get me wrong. I love BGHS, the school, the teams, the family support, the fans -- all have been kind when I've watched games there. But you need to schedule tougher programs than McCallie and St X to have something to brag on.. Highlands does too, for that matter, though they have a better schedule now than last year.

The sad question is, who has Manual played? That school has had so much talent out there lately and they stick with the Rocks for a good part of the game but it just seems the Rocks' tougher schedule preps them better for district and playoff ball. Also, I hate to say it, but which coaching staff would you want at your school? The Trinity staff is slowly turning a bunch of ordinary players (except for one bona fide superstar, Bonnafon; one star, Brooks; and an experienced senior center Price Kmetz) into a coherent unit. The O line has evolved way ahead of schedule, the D line is solid, and the linebackers look terrific. Except for the Colerain game, in which the final Trinity td came on a broken last play, making it 42-28, the Rocks have been competitive in their losses (losing the other two by a total of 4 points).

I mostly watch Trinity games and any Cincinnati I can catch when Trinity is idle. The refs in our games do not seem the least shy about flagging players for holding. But I think the refs try to exercise their best judgement: if it is near the action, flag. If it is far from and does not bear on the action and a player isn't taking a cheap shot at another player, no flag. In Tennessee where Trinity has played a couple Nashville teams regularly, they'll flag a guy and his girlfriend for holding hands.

Adidas provided pink jerseys to some select teams nationwide in the 2012 season to wear in October. Trinity was one of those teams. The Rocks wore the jerseys in their home game against Male. The way it went down is this: the coaches said nothing about the school being selected for the honor and laid them on tables only after the players returned to the locker room after their pregame warmups. According to friends inside that locker room, the guys were so enthusiastic it was hard to settle them down. They donned the jerseys and returned to the field for the toss and kickoff as the fans went nuts. The Rocks played a good game against a tough Male squad and won that night. But you could tell those kids were sailing. I do want to tell an earlier correspondent who wondered about why breast cancer gets its own month that I share his curiosity. My Mom died of pancreatic cancer, my sister-in-law died of colon cancer, one best friend of mine died last year from throat cancer, another is dying now of lung cancer. Seems kind of weird to elevate one form of this killer to star status. Still, at an all-boys school like Trinity, where Moms are a huge part of everything, it was a special night last year.

Talk about class, the postgame hugs and hat pats were great. I wish there were a youtube of that. The players on both sides have, as far as I remember, always paid each other respect, but on Friday it just seemed to have been taken to a new level by X. I hope if they turn the tables on us, we can display that same sportsmanship.

Trinity is "average" how? Not the super team of the last 3 years. There's a few senior starters, one genuine superstar, one very good player, a developing O line and some brutal linebackers, but small compared to every team played so far. They gave up 30-50 lbs a man to the X line. I would say that is about average for a team with dedicated players. But how do you rate the coaching? "Average"? I remember 2006 when Male was supposed to dominate Trinity in the quarterfinal. When the Rocks prevailed 38-34, making up a ten-point deficit in a few minutes then keeping Male from scoring 5 times inside the ten in the last minute, the "experts" ruled that Male had the better players but Trinity was the better team. I loved that team but I finally had to face facts and defer to the experts. Funny thing, when the Litkenhous came out the week after Trinity's 2006 win against Male, Male was STILL ranked #1 in the state and Trinity #2. That's deep. There are so many championships Trinity pulled off that they had no business winning: in 1994 against Shaun Alexander's Boone County team, against X in 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2008. Maybe this year the coaching will carry them again. Stay tuned.

Maybe we'll be lucky and there will be a 2-3 minute Youtube clip. Am I the only one who has noticed that there are zero clips now from the Louisville Catholic Sports site and none to be found this year on Youtube when you google your team? If you play an Ohio team, you'll find toobs but it all seems to have dried up on Ky v Ky teams. Or maybe I am not paying attention. Help an ol' man, will ya!!!

Trinity's and St Xavier's JV football teams played at St X. The first half was scoreless. In the third quarter Trinity took a 14-0 lead, then St X closed it to 14-7 with 9:00 to go in fourth quarter. Trinity scored again to make it 21-7 with 1:36 to go in game. That became the final score. I have no details about the game; I am sending along updates from Trinity's Twitter. You can assume a lot of these guys played with each other on their grade school teams or at least knew each other from games in the Archdiocesan grade school league. So the best kind of rivalry there is.

I have heard of freshman jamborees before but not regularly ... but that's just me. I hope Central keeps this one up or they rotate schools and play lots of teams. Great way for guys around the city and maybe from elsewhere to meet and compete.

Does Trinity have D1 kids every year? Really? When Trinity beat SK in 2008, their RB was a terrific 5-5 155 kid, Tim Phillips. Tim lucked out that he went to a camp at Central Michigan U the previous summer and won a scholarship there. No other offers. Big break because he wanted to be an engineer & that was allowed by the program. Didn't star at CMU but was a pretty good situation player. Only other D1 kid for Trinity in 2008 was LB Jordan Whiting, who had an indifferent career at his dream school, Ohio State. That is about it for Trinity's D1 talent in 2008. The problem with SK then was not commitment or effort but numbers. Miles and many others had to go both ways. Trinity's well-coached well-conditioned high schoolers will just wear you down. In 2010, Trinity's state champions did not have a single D1 player, though one preferred walkon, who I don't think got anywhere at UK. Sad, great kid. The 2010 Rocks were great high school players with great coaches. I am afraid that's the end of it. The talent is there at SK and will come out. Coach Marksberry has created a tradition.

Great excuse.

One thing that I have seen no one mention is coaching. We all know teams with lots of talent and mediocre cautious coaches, and the result is? Also we know teams with average talent but innovative inspirational coaches (eg, inspiring the guys to work in the weight room every day) who lead them to great achievements and even championships. Trinity, which played its first varsity season in 1955 (with all juniors; there were no seniors in the school yet), had plenty of good guys from the gitgo when enrollment was around 300. I think in our third year of varsity competition we won state in cross country and had some fine golfers. In my graduating year, 1963, at least 10 of the seniors on the small football squad received college scholarships, albeit to smaller now D3 programs like Centre, but one went to Vanderbilt, another to Western or Eastern. Quite an achievement. And there were others who could have got scholarships if they wanted them. But our coaching was so-so. No knock, the man just did not know how to exploit the talents he had, and how to discipline them. When Jim Kennedy, who had won a state title at Flaget, arrived at Trinity in 1966 (two years after the Rocks' first perfect season, 0-9), things changed. Till then, Trinity's all-time record was 47–50–5. After two poor seasons, Trinity started rolling and late in '68 passed the break-even point for good (62–61–6) and won their first title. From then on, the coaching was the deal. Trinity won with huge talent and they won with average talent (best example is 1994 when they figured out a way to beat heavily-favored but one-dimensional Boone County and Shaun Alexander). Why don't we go back in Kentucky school history and start listing the coaches you would want to play for? From my era there's Tommy Harper at Manual, Charlie Kuhn at Male, Paulie Miller at Flaget. Think of the greats at Highlands, Homer Rice (who wrote a book on the veer option) and Dale Mueller. Could our list exceed 30, let's say from the 1940s to the present, when we would have some knowledge or personal observation? Also, re the claim made somewhere in this thread that Trinity and St. X can draw students from all over while public schools must rely on what they are channeled from designated middle schools, please read p. 4 of the Jefferson County Public School guide to enrollment. Public school students have quite a choice. http://www.jefferson.kyschools.us/Pubs/ChoicesMSHS.pdf Even back in the 50s and 60s, I think anybody from anywhere in the county could attend Male. I lived in the far east end, down the street from a kid who rode the bus to Male because he wanted to play for Charlie Kuhn. One last thought, when we discuss Trinity's "talent" versus that of public schools, realise the tuition is stiff but kids choose to go there. For 2013, it's $11,775. Financial aid is available, but it is only for 62.5% of each student's documented need, as certified by the Private School Aid Service, near Cleveland. In other words, if you qualify for $10,000 aid, you get only $6,250 of that. You have to make up the difference somehow. https://www.psas.org/index.aspx Catholic high schools' f/a process is pretty much like that for colleges. There are a lot of angles to the discussion on private schools and sports. I hope I have added some good information. I have enjoyed all the comments so far.