TIGER1988

About 3 inches is all. He's in anyone's class in KY HS football with his physical tools, football smarts and leadership skills leading to the team's success. His outstanding running overshadows his arm sometimes but he's made some throws that simply make your jaw drop. 35 td's and 3500 yards passing isn't by accident and add another 26 on the ground. It's a shame he had to wait his turn at HHS as a second year of exposure would have had many more on the bandwagon. I just don't think he has the name recognition even after leading HHS to a state championship.

 

I still think Harris has enough name recognition to overcome his abbreviated season in the minds of the voters.

I think it is a toss up between Harris and Sindelar. The voters will have to overcome Harris' injury to give the award to him because Sindelar has put up awesome numbers. He has had a record setting season and the MVP of Caldwell by far. His TD's and passing yards are undeniable. SEASON: 3,609 yds passing; 49 passing TD's; 277.6 yds/game; 4 int; 145.5 passer rating. CAREER: 12,637 yds passing; 144 TD's; 234.0 yds/game; 135.0 passer rating. Numbers like this either haven't been done (Sindelar broke records this year - TD's career, and Consecutive games with a TD) or are in the top in most categories - Career passing yards #2, Career pass attempts #5, Career Completions #4, Career completion % #11, Season passing yards #24, Season completions #44, Season completion % #13 ,Season yds / game #24 ). Last Ky player to put up these type of numbers, in my memory, was Tim Couch (Kentucky Mr Football 1995).

Lets see if we can agree on this before I say anything else. 3A was the weakest of the three classes.

No way Hoge is in the class with Sindelar. Exceptional football player no doubt. May be a better runner than passer. Not quite enough tools in the shed to beat out Sindelar.

Parity is typically an excuse for bad football by a lot of teams.

 

Speaking solely on this past year:

1. DeSales- Great team. As I have stated, IMHO the best small school team. (A)

2. CAL- Tossup with DeSales..very good team (A)

3. Murray- Strong team that gave Mayfield and DeSales all they wanted (B+)

4. Caldwell County- Greta individual player and very good offense, but very flawed team with no defense. (B w/ Sindelair healthy... C without Sindelair)

5. NewCath- Best team in East 2A.. but not very good by NewCat standard (C+)

 

Then it falls...

6. Owensboro Catholic- Nothing impressive about their wins ©

7. Newport- Very good player but ho-him team.. lost to 3A Mason County and 1A Williamsburg (C-)

8. Shelby Valley- Won Region 4 but lost to 1A Paintsville and was destroyed by New Cath (D+)

9. Walton-Verona- Couldn't get past Newport.. played noone (D+)

10. Prestonsburg- Once again..no real signature wins and ere essentially an equal to NR 3A Lawrence County (D+)

 

2A was 2 very good teams, 2 strong teams, and 1 quality team then a big dropoff.

 

 

By comparison, 1A:

1. Mayfield- Very good team with the best resume of all (A)

2. Williamsburg- Gave Mayfield all they wanted..undefeated against an easy schedule (A-)

3. Beechwood- Very solid resume but made too many mistakes against Mayfield (A-)

4. Raceland- Nice run..decent resume.. (B)

5. Pikeville- Excellent resume but awful playoff loss to a team they had beat by 50+ (B)

Just like 2A a drop off

6. Frankfort- A team who had their goals derailed by numerous injuries (C+)

7. Russellville- Tough team but no signature wins.. dominated by 3A South Warren and Mayfield in the re-match ©

8. Paintsville- Rallied at the right time..beat 2A Shelby Valley.. major upset of Pikeville..beat LCA (C-)

9. Hazard- Lost to 2A Pburg... pretty ho-hum season (D+)

Another Drop

10. Holy Cross, Campbellsville, Paris, Fairview... any number of teams all with the same resume (D-)

1 Great Team, 2 Very Good Teams, 3 Good Teams...then gradually dropping

 

 

3A

1. Belfry- Struggled with injuries and aside from a surprise upset to 1A Pikeville had an excellent resume (A)

2. Central- Lots of losses to bigger, better teams but earned their way through the playoffs (B+)

3. South Warren- Most viewed them as an A school until Central beat them (B+)

4. Corbin- If If's and But's were candy and nuts... blew a massive lead to Central, win over Top 5 5A Southwestern, 2A Danville, and their only other loss was to 5A Champ Pulaski County. (B)

Now you find the drop..

5. Russell- Beat 4A Ashland, Mason County, Bourbon County, and Estill County. No bad loss ecept getting blown out by 1A Pikeville (C+)

6. Paducah Tilghman- Lost to very good teams including blowout to 1A Mayfield, beat 5A Runner-Up Graves County by 14, dominated by South Warren ©

7. Bell County- Nice name but no real results. Good win vs. 4A Knox Central but bad loss to 2A Middlesboro ©

 

What hurts 3A the most..another drop..

8. Lawrence County- Blowout loss to 1A Raceland and close loss to 2A Pburg (D)

9. & 10. Bourbon County, Estill County, Garrard County, Pike Central..no matter the team no signature win and losses to schools from the class below (D-)

1 Great Team, 3 Good Teams, Then Drops

You list may be just OK. But your list of the best teams in 2A is horribly off. Before you should even mention ANY team from the east one should first examine the west thouroughly.

#1 DeSales - state champion 2A, only loss to CAL

#2 CAL - only loss to DeSales

#3 Murray - state runner-up

#4 Caldwell - losses to a state champion and a state runner-up (who they had beaten earlier in the season and was leading 14-0 when Sindelar went down and held lead through 3rd quarter).

#5 O'Cath - Only a loss to Murray which escaped with a very narrow win.

#6 Bardstown - Only losses to DeSales and CAL (were not dominated by either).

You have to go through those 6 FIRST before you even consider NCC (a down year for them). I would put them in a class with Glasgow. A step down from the first six. Now you have 8 solid teams. Then you throw in the Shelby Valley, Walton Verona, Newport,Prestonsburg, Danville, and Lexington Christian. Steady drop there. There were some bottom dwelling teams as there is in any class, but to say that 2A was weak is crazy.

The reality is that you have in 2A you have 5 great teams (by comparing head to head match-ups), 1 very good team (who could hold their own, but really not be in the upper tier), 2 good teams (not quite up to par in this class, but top 10 in the other 2), and 6 quality teams (solid in some respects, weak in others) before your drop off of the rest of 2A.

I know. What I am saying is that if it is no longer an award for just seniors then a player's entire high school career should be allowed to be used as reasoning for receiving the award. IMO no one on that list has had a better career from freshman to senior than Damien Harris, no one has been more valuable to their team all 4 years like Damien Harris and none of them are as heralded nationally as Damien Harris. If Riley Hall is now allowed to be a nominee and past practice is no longer status quo then Damien Harris should be Mr. Football.

 

Until today I felt like it should be Sindelar or Hoge.

I Know Harris is a stud and committed to UK. He is definitely the most recognized player of the bunch. But to say Sindelar wasn't as valuable to his team it stretching it a little bit. All you have to do is see the result of the Caldwell-Murray game to see his impact for the Tigers. These two are obviously the front-runners for Mr Football.

2A was stronger than 3A this year 1-5. Won't see me argue that. 1-10 that proved not to be the case though as 2A was really week once you got outside of about 6 teams.... even weaker than 1A.

 

2A has been unanimously the weakest class for the better part of the past 5 years.

 

You mention an "Eastern" bias yet the class you argue is the weakest has been dominated by a Louisville School and an EKY school and the WKY schools usually are non-factors. Seems like a little WKY bias from you from not having a familiar name to latch on to.

 

FWIW, the weakest class this year was 5A.

Mayfield not familiar to you? Seems everyone else in the state has a different opinion. 1-5 gave 2A the best of the three classes we are talking about by far. Any of these teams would have been a force in any of the three classes. Heck, I will even go ten deep out of 2A that make a final four appearance in any of these divisions. Yes, you are correct that EVERY division has some awful teams. That is a big part of high school football.

The top 5 2A schools, IMO, go a combined 56-10 this season. Five losses to each other, 4 losses to teams in the title game in their respective classes (2 champs & 2 runner-up). The lone other loss is to Male. 1-2 vs 1A (both losses to Mayfield). 38-5 vs 2A (all to each other). 2-0 vs 3A. 4-1 vs 4A (loss to O'boro). 5-1 vs 5A (loss to Graves). 6-1 vs 6A (loss to Male). Pretty impressive resume I think. Put either of the other two divisions top 5 up against that. Last I checked if you want to know how good a division is this is the way.That is 51-5 against the rest of the state.

No, 3a has consistently been the weakest class over the past 5 years or so.

 

I really think too many people are judging Mayfield by their last game. That game can be summed up in 2 parts. First, the jackets played outside their bodies good due to wanting to make a statement for a whole year. Second, our boys still thought they were going to have another cakewalk coming in.

 

Now let's look back at the statement the Cards made this year. For starters, they gave up fewer points this year than last.

 

Next, the lost by 1 point in double OT to McCracken Co on the stangs home field. This was the #6 team in 6a.

 

Next, they beat a 2a semi finalist by 11points on their home field. This was on a very sad night for the Cards. This is also the team that without the refs help would have tied the Colts on the Colts home field.

 

Next, we beat the #8 team in 3a by four touchdowns.

 

Next, we shutout the 5a state runners up on their own field. This is the team that was only 8 points from winning 5a on a sloppy night.

 

Next, we throttled the ten 2a #1 team. This was while they were still healthy at that time.

 

Next, we beat a top 5 team in 1a twice.

 

Next, we beat what everyone was hailing as the best Beechwood team since 2011. We did that on their home field after a 5 1/2 hour bus ride. This is the same team that beat NCC by 17 points. By the way, the Cards beat Beechwood by 11 points. That is a 28 point advantage over NCC.

 

Now, I'm not saying its a given that the Cards would win 2a but, to say we couldn't have won it is absurd considering the facts.

EXACTLY CORRECT. MAYFIELD would have been a force in 2A. AND 3A since it was by far the weakest division in the state AGAIN.

But never mind, because we are talking about the west and no team from the west will get any respect on this site. The east bias is rampant on here. Most posters think there is no football played in the west side of the state. Too bad for them. The west came close to dominating the state this year.

Food for thought, the Crews picked to do the State Championship games, do not do the semi finals games the week before. So that means 30 of the "best" are off a week.

That still leaves about 500 out there.

Disagree.... as many have stated Mayfield didn't look their normal dominant self. For my money the class of the field was DeSales, Belfry, and CAL.

 

Caldwell's defense simply was not strong enough whatsoever to be in the discussion. They had a very good individual player, but history shows us that the teams who have carried the championship flag for the lower classes have done so on the backs of strong defensive teams.

 

I don't think anyone can say Caldwell was "Definitely" as good as DeSales. One team went undefeated and won the 2A Title on the back of a dominant defense...the other lost by 3 TD's in the Regional Finals and never could stop a solid offense.

All I can tell you is go back and look at the games. Hard to believe that Murray even gets to the state finals with a healthy Sindelar. Probably a DeSales - Caldwell match up that everyone wanted to see all year. Shame it didn't turn out that way, but Murray was no slouch. Done a very good job against DeSales and COULD HAVE come out of there a winner. Don't knock it till you tried it. I agree that Mayfield may not have dominated 1A, but finished it off nevertheless. And according to you played in the toughest division. 3A was down this year, and that hurts every team there. Therefore, the rankings I posted earlier. 2A was MUCH stronger than 3A. The east side was LOADED. I would take 5 teams out of the west in 2A against Belfry any day. Add in Mayfield and there is 5 that would compete with or beat Belfry on a regular basis. Keep on with that East bias all you want. 2014 belonged to the west. 21 points overall from having a west sweep the state titles. No west team lost by more than 7. All losses were heartbreakers.

Coach, fair question here...

 

Could this also be a direct result of a watered down classification system? Perhaps the numbers are just not there for really good or for this argument "State Championship" or playoff caliber referees to do all 6 games.

 

IDK, just thinking a total system might just have gotten exploited with this one by basically telling all teams that we do not have enough qualified and very good referess but we want to make sure at least 5 games or perhpas even less get the really good ones and then its a crap shoot from there on and lets keep our fingers crossed. :thumb:

 

It would be interesting to see the protocol for the 6 Games. Do they assign randomly or do they start with 6A and assign their A team and move on down the ladder. Could just be the case here since this game is 2A.

 

I do know for a fact that the referees in the 4A State Chapionship game did not know the rules on at least two calls that I remember and one was for each team so I guess it works out in the end...

That would be hard to believe that out of the whole state which put on approximately 105 games each week that there would not be 12 of the best crews on the job for the semifinals. This was a bad one to be missed, but missed it was. Referees should not call a penalty if they do not know haw to properly enforce it. That would be like calling a holing call on an offensive lineman and backing the ball up 60 yards.

With all respect Caldwell isn't sniffing the Top 10 of those three classes combined.

I don't know how you figure that. Caldwell beat Murray in the first matchup and was up 14-0 when Sindelar went down in the playoffs. As we all know now, Murray gave DeSales all they wanted and then some (given that Murray COULD have won that game barring a horrible call). DeSales then goes on and demolishes NCC in the finals. I would definitely say Caldwell was as good as Desales, but we will never know. Mayfield and DeSales were obviously the class of the field.

I will go with this list for the top ten teams of the small schools.

#1 - DeSales - No doubt here. Probably the most impressive team in the state this year.

#2 - Mayfield - Very good team. Not as explosive as in past three years, but nevertheless super strong.

#3 - Caldwell Co - explosive offense. Somewhat weak defense that was exposed by Mayfield in last week of regular season. Injury ended season.

#4 - Murray - Surprised many of the people in the east. Very strong team with plenty of bulk on both sides of the ball. Just came a little short of a state title in 2A.

#5 - CAL - had an awesome year. Ran into the buzzsaw we know as DeSales in the playoffs. GREAT SEASON

#6 - Belfry - Super run through the playoffs. Strong team in 3A. Just that 3A was down this year.

#7 through #10- Could be many teams. Big grouping here. My top 4 candidates would be S Warren, Central, Corbin, and Beechwood.

Sindelar has dominated as QB for Caldwell. He is a very integral part of his team's success. Without him, although they gave a valiant effort, Caldwell had no answer for Murray. Career leader in TD'S. Second in passing yards. If Harris stays healthy he wins by a landslide. Very talented kid, and him being a UK commit doesn't hurt either. Sindelar would have been next in line. Harris' s injury really opens the door for Sindelar. Two wonderful players.

I was mentioning the west was loaded, but NCC may have been able to match up better with some of the other teams. DeSales is a great defensive team. There is no way of knowing if the other teams could have beaten NCC.

Murray was overlooked all year, but gave Desales all they wanted. They were suppose to be weak in the west (not my opinion). Murray was a big smash mouth team with plenty of talent as usual.

Cats by 15+. Just too much size.

A number of great 2A teams in the west this year: CAL, Ocath, Murray, Caldwell and of course DeSales.

All 5 much better than anything the east had to offer. Sad how the playoffs are done. Only way NCC gets there is by having to play a bunch of nobodies.

For me Harris is the question. No doubt he was a shoe in while healthy. The question is did Sindelar do enough before getting hurt to win the award himself. It is down to those two for the simple fact of name recognition. Whether you like it or not, it plays a major factor in this type of award. Sindelar has won the Gatorade Player of the year for 2014 in Kentucky. Harris going to UK makes him the leader in my opinion. It just depends on how much his injury factors in the decision. There are I am sure other players out there that are very talented and put up some awesome numbers just as Sindelar did, but that pesky name recognition thing is still there. Barring injury who is to say harris and Sindelar aren't playing for titles this weekend?

Give the CATS their due. 85 - 60. This team is awesome.

Bitter ^

Not Bitter. DeSales just that good. Didn't think Caldwell had a chance either. Actually believe that DeSales is a step above.

The only upset possible here is Shelby Valley over NCC.

While the Sindelar injury dramatically changed the game, Caldwell was up 14 - 0 at the time. They were able to hold that lead into the third quarter. Dee Cain played like a beast, as he had in the previous game against Union Co. With him still playing both sides of the ball, it came back to haunt the Tigers. Cain just not in that type of shape. Once he cramped up, the game turned once again and Caldwell just couldn't recover. Until that point it seemed as if Caldwell had the game going their way despite the Sindelar injury. Murray played extremely well in the fourth quarter against a gassed and undermanned team. I would put a lot of the loss on the coaching staff of Caldwell. They had a good game plan coming into the game, but were not able to adjust. The lack of key players playing the whole game the entire season showed up in the fourth quarter. I realize you can not run the score up on weaker opponents, but you can play defense against them. If the D scores so be it. By letting some key players play some defense in the 8 blowouts the Tigers had this year you not only let them get in game time, but get them much needed experience for situations just as what happened Friday night. I absolutely believe they would have had their hands full with DeSales this week, but might have come away with a win in what will be the 2A championship game. Murray could again get crushed this Friday night.

No. Injury occurred Friday night vs. Murray.

I like Desales in the rematch. I figured this thread would get more attention.

It is hard to believe that this thread has very little action on it. This may be the premier game this week. They have yet to impress in their last few matchups.

CONGRATS dmh115. Very impressive. Toughest contest on BGP. Thanks AJG for running this contest. Has to be a lot of work, considering what the contestants put in with their effort. Keeping up with it all must have been wild also. I love this contest just wish I had submitted my entry on time a couple of weeks ago. I too would have been in bad shape with the lack of picks now.

Friday night we will find out the HEART of Caldwell. Huge game. Will be the game of the year for Caldwell if they show up and play. Otherwise it will be a replay of Mayfield.