thehotsnakes

There are some jobs, though, where everything is just bigger and tougher. If I were a coach at one of those places where you're entire family is known and recognized, I'd have a hard time dealing with how people would treat them. I know there are stupid people all over the world who ruin things for everyone, but I'd have a really hard time if I was a coach at a place where there was no private life for my family. It's fine if it's me, obviously that's what I would have signed up for. But, if it ended up impacting my family I wouldn't want to do that to them.

Hard to do that when you're a county school. Hard to do much more than that when your road includes Belfry, regardless of who you are. He's done a great job there and whoever takes over will have big shoes to fill.

Is there anyone who could be promoted from the current staff?

Just a pure hypothetical here, but if they hire just some random coach that no one knows and really doesn't have the resume to be an HC, what does that say about the program? Names like McPeek have at least won and been successful. If Bell just picks somebody who makes everyone scratch their heads over, what will that mean? Is there a possibility that they are then on their death bed as a program? Not saying there couldn't be success, but if they make a bad hire, that might be pretty much it. Could easily just go to be a doormat of the mountains. I'm interested in this hire, probably more than any of the other currently open jobs. And I have absolutely no dog in this fight at all. Just beyond interested in what is going to happen on Log Mountain.

Something else that hurts so many rural county schools is the real chance of jobs suddenly leaving. You can see it in coal country and you see it in small communities that are dominated by factories. If the jobs leave, the families leave. And when the families leave, the talent leaves. But, you really are spot on in that assessment. Any coach at one of these schools can only hope that there is enough of a culture there to sustain the program if there is a lack of talent currently on their roster. It can be a hard road.

The high school all-star teams could beat the bottom 5 or 10 FCS schools, without a doubt in my mind. These are 4 and 5 star players playing against teams with 1 and 2 star players, with a few 3 star guys thrown in. I don't think they could just line up and pound it home, but they would have the athletes in space to beat those teams by 2 or 3 scores. Period. They could beat half of the FCS teams. And they would beat just about every D-II and D-III school. And they would destroy pretty much every NAIA team. The only catch would be game prep. You would have to allow for the teams to have an adequate time to prep, as if they were an actual team. Couldn't throw it together in a week and go with that. Give both teams a month, and I'll take the HS UA team over Charlotte, New Mexico State, Idaho and the bottom feeders like that. These are teams that get blown away by top level teams, and would have to play the guys going to those top level teams. My money would be on the UA team every time against the bottom 5 teams, no matter the year. Period.

Since no one has asked this, what about if Bell went down to AA? I know the population is leaving, but I don't know how close they are to the AA-AAA line. I would take Bell in AA as being a pretty good job. Because your road will not go through Belfry.

Has the same administration been in place for the last almost 15 years? Webster is a pretty small town, so I wouldn't be surprised if there is just simply a lack of talent.

It's gotta be hard on the kids in Webster to have had so many new coaches. It would be really nice to see someone come in and work insanely hard for years, and build them into a good program.

I know he's coaching in Ohio, at Freemont Ross (yes?). But I haven't kept up with his record or anything about his coaching career. But he was always one of my favorite Cats.

What was the PT score? 42-14? That's probably what it will be in this one as well. Etown should roll.

Wait, can I? If so, then my afternoon is fully planned.

I believe Union could verify this, as Adair's first score was for 95

I think it's a single digit game either way, honestly. Could/should be a great game. I would give the edge to PT, if it were there. But, it's not. So I might give Etown a 3 or 4 point edge.

Russellville wins easily. I think Campbellsville could have made this one heck of a game if they were healthy. But, in their current situation, I don't think they have much if a chance. They've struggled to put up points since the outbreak of injuries, and I don't expect that to change.

I don't really normally play favorites for teams that I don't have any connections to, I just want to see a good game. That being said, I'd love for Monroe to win next week. Love it.

I thought Casey had a chance to win, did not think it would be by such a wide margin.

I know people here always complain about teams getting into the playoffs with a bad record, but I think that these handful of teams are a nice counter to that.

Are there any 3 seed with a better record than Union? Not just in 3A, but overall?

I don't understand what people think makes playing a difficult schedule the best option. Take the Adair v. Etown game. Everybody said Etown was too fast for them. So, if Adair had of played South Warren, John Hardin, Trinity, X, and Male, would they have been fast enough to compete more with Etown? I don't get this notion of you have to test yourself to see how good you are. And, if I recall correctly, Adair was picked 4th or 5th in their district last season. When they played Monroe, everyone picked MC to win. Because Adair was terrible. When they won, it suddenly meant that MC was awful. This isn't just about Adair, this is about how people treat historically bad schools. When they're bad, of course they are. When they're good, calm down they aren't that good. If Adair beats Union, everyone will pick Caldwell. And of Caldwell smashes them, people will point out that it means Adair was awful, even though I've seen plenty of running clocks in the state finals. High school football is all about talent being coached well enough. If you don't have talent, you won't beat many people unless you can brilliantly out scheme people. Period. Tough scheduling is an invented metric used to determine what teams are good and what teams are bad. It doesn't make you better, it just shows who you can and can't beat. It doesn't mean you'll beat tough teams eventually, it just let's others know you're level, which they probably already knew anyway.

If Ludlow can play any sort of defense, they'll win. KCD hasn't really stopped anyone consistently, and although they can score, I'm not sure they have all the tools to win a shootout.

Every team is going to be different, as many have said on here. When a coach interviews for that job, he has to understand what they are going to expect of him. If they just want somebody to basically field a team and just offer something for the community to watch on Friday night, he knows that his win/loss probably won't be a big factor unless it gets to the point that you only have 11-15 kids. If you are in an interview, and they just want wins, you know the bar is a little higher. This isn't saying that either of those expectations is wrong or right. But, the low level teams in KY aren't having people come into interviews with promises of state championships and all of the elite level of play. They have guys coming in who are going to try and build something up, change the culture and everything like that. Every job is going to have different expectations. Most jobs are going to line up correctly with the talent ability that they are using. I sincerely doubt that some of the 0-10 or 2-8 teams are just expecting rings, or every Black Friday games. They want to be competitive if they can be, and to just not look like the worst team in the state. So, should a coach be fired on wins/losses? It all depends on where they are. Trinity? Highlands? BG? X? Yeah, it's probably going to be a good bet that if you don't produce, you're gone. However, Clinton County? Caverna? Fort Knox? Phelps? Berea? Wins are going to be hard to come by, so it's probably not going to be much of a hot seat. It's all about location and expectations. The only real problem you would have is a place that's a really bad team, with absolutely no resources, with zero talent, but with really high expectations. That's where things are rough.

I never thought this one would be a game, but after Friday, I think people need to keep Hart in their thoughts and prayers. It could be bad. Really bad. And it could get really bad, really fast.

So, basically how every game plays out?

Was a running clock at the end of the 1st.