thehotsnakes

Realistically and non-sarcastically, I'd like for them to at least try to be original in the mascot. I think Monarchs and Thoroughbreds would be pretty good, aside from the KY State nickname. Monarchs with navy, white and silver I think would be great. Mainly because I'm not a fan of anything powder blue. Gross. Also, what schools is this drawing from? Or expected to draw from?

I think I'm going to have to go with this one. Although I might want to change 1A, just not sure to whom.

The Fayette County Football Weasels. Colors: Powder blue, navy, brown, silver, yellow and mint green. Mascot: A really old guy with breathing problems and a history of being sneaky, Wheezer the Weasel! Any supporters? Eh? Eh? Get in on the ground level of weasel ball!

I think 3A and 4A are pretty similar for this upcoming season. Everybody knows who the king is. Everybody knows the difficulty in knocking them off. Everybody is going to give it their best shot. And everybody knows it's going to be an uphill battle. And at the same time, there are still quite a few really good teams that will make for amazing games this year.

Is it at the point where people think Bell needs to just hire someone and hope for the best? Or do they still hold out for a good/great hire?

So, shut down the program unless they can field a trainer? No one is saying that safety and health are an after thought. But, I would just dare say that a majority of the small schools in the state are just barely scraping by with their athletics money. I'm not talking Mayfield, but the Caverna, Fulton City and County, Phelps, Berea, Dayton, Fort Knox and others would fully be able to independently fund a trainer, full time with competitive pay? Is that what we are saying? I'd say just about every community has a local doctor who would enjoy a team polo and pullover, maybe a jacket, and get to stand on the sidelines every Friday in exchange for his services. Again, no one is saying that the health and well being of the players shouldn't be important, but if it came down to having a program without a trainer or not having a program, most people would opt to field a team.

I believe that he was let go, but I'm not sure the circumstances around it. This will be their 4th coach in 4 years.

I'd say Belfry is the smart bet to end their season in BG. I don't know how much Lex Cath returns, so I can't say if they are the favorite to repeat in the west. If not them, I'd say smart money is on Caldwell, PT, Boyle and Central (no specific order.) Just like last year, I'd say 3A is going to have a wealth of great regular season and post season games. It should all be fun to watch this fall!

That's not even close to the same thing. They don't have them not because they don't want them, but because they can't afford them. Look at the bottom 10 or so schools in size, do you honestly think they could afford to pay someone to be a trainer?

I can't think of many schools around me who have a full time trainer.

Would they be more qualified than an official?

I've seen football officials didn't know you couldn't throw to an ineligible receiver, so how can we be assured that they know what is and what isn't a concussion?

Players can win games, great coaches can win just as many games. I can't even begin to count the games I've seen where teams were running an offense or defense that they just couldn't execute. If that's an Air Raid with weak QB play, Wing-T with no real direction on the o-line, or a defense that's a 4-2-5 and have almost no athletes on the field. And in that same breath, I've seen coaches put average-at-best kids in great positions to compete with and beat teams with better talent. They've been able to out execute other teams who just try to get by on athleticism. Great coaching can make up for not great players, to a certain point. And great players can make up for average coaching, to a certain point. In high school football, there are a lot of things that go into winning a game, not just players. I can think of several games where a team had a roster full of potential college players, and they lost to teams with 1 or 2, tops.

I'm not going to entirely put it on high school admins. That's coaching now, on all levels and in all sports. The fact that we are an instant gratification society (for better or for worse) had led to the "win now" mentality. If you don't win immediately in the pros or in college, you're fired. And, that has trickled down to high school. That, coupled with parents who believe that Lil Bobby could have gone to Alabama with a different coach leading him, but now he's a hobo. With the access to social media, it would take nothing to stop a parent from finding an opposing coach on Facebook or Twitter, and talking to him in an effort to get him to their kids current school. I do believe that admins could easily make the right choice and stand by their coach for more than 3-4 years, they're in a tough position with so many outside forces playing on their decision. Most administrators are going to take the easy way out, because their job security isn't exactly of the highest level. In the end, if we are going to blame admins for this, we need to blame the rest of the culture and society surrounding athletics, as well.

That seems to be something that I'm hearing more and more of. Coach at one school, and live a decent distance away. Is this simply because of a lack of teaching openings? It would take a really nice pay increase for me to justify that drive, if I was a coach. Or doing anything. I value my time far too much to spend vast amounts of it in my car.

Aren't there EMT's at every game? I can't recall seeing a game in the last 5 or 6 years without one. Why not make them the person in charge of that diagnosis? Aren't they qualified for it?

I don't know how I feel about this. How much would we really, TRULY trust some coaches when it comes down to winning and losing? If it's the state championship, and your starting QB just goes down and your backup is a less-than-stellar freshman, what decision do you make? I mean, injuries can make or break a coaches job, so I wouldn't completely trust them to make an objective decision. It's nice to think that a coach would make the decision that is best for the kid, and I'd say most of them will. But, I don't trust every coach to make that decision. I wouldn't trust officials in the same way.

I had heard the guy from Somerset did indeed drive that every day, which is about 2 hours one way. I'm not sure about the situation with Davidson in 15, but I had heard that Middleton was in the building, not sure what he was doing though. I also seem to think that after he was fired, that he chose to stay at the school and just not coach. I don't know what it would take to win at Caverna, but I'd really like for someone to be able to find out.

Any updates on anything at this point in time? What currently open schools have started the interview process? When can they expect to make a hire? Come on! This thread was an absolute gold mine of stuff last year, I checked it multiple times a day to find new information. Now, I feel like I could get by on once every few days, just to confirm that nothing new has happened.

Yeah, I wasn't really sure what direction they wanted to go with, because this new hire will make for a new coach every year for the rising seniors. That's hard to think about. You play for 4 years, under 4 different coaches.

I was told from someone close to the school that the administration felt they needed to go in a different direction. What that actually means, I don't know. What happened to make them feel that way, I don't know either.

I know he's an eastern KY guy, but, how many schools will approach him or have approached him? I know his name was tossed around for the Bell job, but haven't heard it much for any other openings. But, then again, there really haven't been very many coaching changes this year.

That's a rough situation to go into, then. I hate it for such a tradition rich school.

Is that the general understanding within the fan base? Are they willing to work with a coach knowing that they might have a rough way to go?

1. Hire a coach 2. Get everybody on the same page I think those are the 2 biggest issues with Bell, as of now. It seems that there are a billion names flying around as tho whom the new hire might be, and everybody seems pretty divided on who it should be. Aside from those things, I think some of the stuff that would really benefit Bell are out of their control. The declining coal industry is hurting the population of the area. It's sad for the schools that their numbers are shrinking, but it's sad for the families being forced to relocate due to the lack of jobs. Bell will always be who they are, and nothing is going to change that. With that said, I think an outsider might be needed. Someone who isn't of the Dudley tree. Not saying a different offensive and defensive philosophy, but just someone who isn't a direct connection to a legend. Bell has a lot to build off of, but I'm not sure the expectations on Log Mountain are currently where they need to be.