catholicdude

Here's a few more names to throw out there: Tyler MacDonald-Bishop Brossart Chad Ohmer-Scott Paul Kremer-Newport Central Catholic Jared Hicks-Conner -I think MacDonald has the most yards of any returning QB in NKY. Looses a couple of top receivers though for this upcoming year. -Wonder if Ohmer will get more chances to throw or if Scott stays dedicated to the run? -Will NCC open up the passing game with a new coach? Obviously Kelly will get the ball a bunch but they have some good talent returning at outside skill positions. -Hicks played some QB early in the year this past season but moved to receiver to fill a hole because of injury. He can make plays with his arm or legs. Overall, not a lot of returning starting QB's in NKY for next year. I tried to look at all the teams and there's not many past the ones mentioned here or earlier in the thread.

Great game by two teams that gave it everything they had. Wish Kyle Kelly wouldn't have twisted the ankle early in the 4th because it really limited NCC's options. Even with that, they still put together a nice final drive with under a minute left and had a chance to possibly tie or win on the last play. I don't know all the particulars, but after the game one of NCC's busses wouldn't start and after trying unsuccessfully for a while to get it started, they wound up using a Glasgow school bus to get those kids all the way back to Newport. Does anyone have any more info on this? Wanted to throw out a huge thanks to whoever made that happen from Glasgow. That's an 8 hour round trip so someone stepped up big time to get those kids home.

Watched him play for the Red Devils a few years back. Talented and great kid. Haven't seen him in a couple years but great to hear that he's doing well!!

7 points per game and 7 rebounds per game last year and you think he should be higher? There's a bunch of kids in the 9th with those stats that you wouldn't even consider being top 10. You have to look at last season's stats as your basis for how you rank them in a pre-season ranking. If he's averaging 20 and 15 (or better) at the end of the year then heck yeah he's top 2 or 3. However, going off of last years stats, I think 6th might be generous.

Max is a kid that shows up every day and gives it everything he has. He plays for the love of the game and it was good to see his years of hard work rewarded today. Great moment for the kid, parents, and team. I think the rest of the team was more excited than Max was when he scored. Shout out to the coaches and players for making it happen!!

I agree completely. Most of them are grandparents of the athletes and many have numerous grandkids at different schools so it's not cheap to go out several nights as week to soccer, football, basketball games etc. I don't know that a higher ticket price would keep them away but if Wendy's and McDonalds can give a senior discount, surely the high schools could do the same.

Why do players no longer wear neck rolls? I was talking to someone about neck rolls the other night. Everyone had them back in the 80's. The bigger the better we thought. Anyone have any insight into why they don't use them anymore?

There was a thread on this device in the past: http://bluegrasspreps.com/ky-football-high/q-collar-preliminary-326758.html Luke Kuechley has started to wear the collar: Could experimental device protect Luke Kuechly from concussions? | Charlotte Observer Here is the gist of the research: "In the study, a group of St. Xavier (Cincinnati) varsity football players wore the collars through the season. An opposing high school team (Moeller) participated as the control group in the study, and did not wear the collar. Forty-two total participants were evaluated. The research team found that though both groups of players sustained almost identical numbers of impacts, there were significant changes in the brain structure and function of the players who did not wear the collar. In the brains of the St. Xavier players, there were not." I don't know if this is the golden ticket to prevent concussions but it seems promising. Wish they would fast track the approval process and get it out to the public ASAP.

Dowds was a BEAST and the Campbell line did a nice job opening holes and getting him to the next level where he is so tough to bring down. For a RB that I would call a "slippery" runner on a dry night, tonight's conditions were perfect for him. The field drained really well and throwing the ball didn't seem to be a problem for either team. A couple of balls did go through kids hands on both teams but you see that on a normal night. Like Nachos said, the false starts were ridiculous and that was probably a result of the lack of concentration which could have easily been due to the weather. Kelly fought hard for every yard tonight and I think the coaches pulled him when it was pretty obvious the outcome was in hand. Plenty to work on for NCC after this game which is a good thing early in the season.

It was a little frustrating down there this weekend if you had to play on one of the courts where they were "evaluating" or "training" refs (or whatever they wanted to call it). We had the unfortunate pleasure of playing 2 games with these refs and it was horrible. They used a 3 person crew and "over-officiated" everything. They called a billion touch fouls away from the basket on plays where most of us would say the defender was in good position and giving ground. Then when the ball went down low, it was a slugfest and no calls were made. We had 2 other games that were officiated well with just a regular 2 person crew (that wasn't in training). Those games were well officiated with consistent calls across the board. It's a shame that a State AAU Tournament was used to do this. Plenty of other opportunities down there to get these officials experience and evaluate them. Just one example of how bad it was: An offensive player was dribbling down the court. A defensive player came over and tipped the ball, causing it to hit the offensive player's leg and bounce to another player on the offensive team. One of the "training" officials called it a kicked ball on the offensive player and gave the ball to the defensive team. I had never seen an offensive player called for an unintentional kicked ball before so I figured the call was wrong when it was made but just to make sure, after the game I talked to the next set of officials and asked them about it and they said there was "no defense" for that call.

NKY'S Finest win the 9th grade boys gold title!

Maybe I should have been more clear on my statement: Just because a kid is 6'1" doesn't mean he can't defend. Wasn't trying to compare Jake to Craft on anything more than that (although Jake is probably a better shooter that Craft ever was). Defense is all about hard work and determination which I think Jake has plenty of both. Lots of 6'5", 5 star guys that can't defend. Watch UK play today and you'll see that!

That's ridiculous. Aaron Craft was the best defender in the Big Ten for 4 years at Oho State and he might be an inch taller than Jake. Plenty of short guys out there that play incredible defense. With the tenacity that Jake has, his defense would be the least of my worries as a D1 coach. Seems like one of those kids that all you have to do is tell him "You Can't" and he'll prove to you that he can.

Why was Newport so short-handed? Looks like there were 16 on the roster but I think only 9 dressed tonight.

Aric Russel and his son Jesse at Campbell County? Pretty sure Aric won one as a player in the late 80's.

There's no "I" in team but there's a whole lot of "Me" in Me-lo.

Schabbs is awesome but that other guy that's with him sometimes, Gabe Entenmann, needs to stick with the family business of making donuts. Personally, I like the Crumb Cakes.

Those are some pretty crazy numbers. 26+ yards per catch and half of his receptions were TDs. I guess the question there would be why didn't they throw to him more??!! It's great to see players from Brossart getting recognized as some of he best in the area when only a few years ago there was talk of not even continuing with the football program. Great job by the Coaches, Players, Families and School Administration for turning it around!!

It would be almost impossible to seed Varsity teams in a tournament like this, let alone Freshmen. Teams that don't play each other, teams from other regions and like I mentioned before, rosters that are changing depending on JV needs. Enjoy it for what it is and if you want to set up a seeded tournament, go for it. Also, I haven't seen that many games this year but I do know that NCC's coach has played 10-12 deep in most games this year, regardless of the score. Might have gotten them a few more losses than they should have had but developing players and keeping them around might have been his focus.

Not trying to say that one team is better than another but NCC Freshmen beat Beechwood by (I think) double digits about a month ago and then lost to them by only a few a couple weeks later. Would be be really tough to seed especially when some coaches are playing everyone and others are playing only the top 7. Add to that the flexibility in rosters where some kids are moved up to JV and others are moved down from JV and it's hard to say which teams are the best and in which order. Granted the Cov Cath freshmen team is heads above everyone else and at most other schools, several of them would be playing strictly JV and Varsity but after that you can throw the names in a hat and anyone can beat anyone else on a given day. I think the chance to play for a Freshmen or JV Championship is pretty cool and if you draw a good team early, you better be ready to play!

Near capacity crowd of about 150 there tonight. It was a shame to see so few people turn out for this.

The sad thing is that if you go to some of these "Showcase Camps" you'll see that type of play everywhere. Kids don't even think about defense. They get beat and then release down the court looking for the cheap basket just like this kid did. The guys that run the camp are only worried about getting "exposure" so they don't stop it. To make it worse, these are the kids that usually wind up on the "All-Star" teams at the end of the camp. Ball's coaches should be ashamed of themselves for letting this happen.

They said it was the White Team if that gives any indication. I'm guessing it was the B team but not 100% on that.

The JV team won 52-50 in OT at Mason tonight. It was a good game with NCC getting out to a big lead of 12+ in the first half only to see Mason come back in the second half and take a 6 point lead late. NCC battled back and had a shot at the buzzer to win but it rimmed out. NCC took control in OT an was up by 4 with seconds left and conceded the final bucket by Mason to cut it to 2 as time ran out. They called up 2 additional Freshmen: Josh Martin and Eli Howard to play tonight and both played well. That gave them 9 players. Everyone contributed and I think just about everyone scored. It was great to see Jared Iles back on the court. In his first game back, he was definitely the vocal leader of the team. As for the topic of this thread. I think the 3 boys that left (and there were only 3) made the decision that was best for them and by no means did they leave the team in a bind. I'm one of those "finish what you started" guys but I also am able to see when it might not be the best thing to do. I've seen these boys give their all on the football field so I don't question their dedication one bit. All 3 are crazy-good athletes and it didn't seem to make much sense for them to miss out on about 3 months of lifting, condition, etc. to play a sport where they weren't getting much PT. The other sports they play will benefit from the extra time that they will get to train, rest and hit the books. I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision to give up a sport you've been playing for years so I'm sure they didn't take it lightly. The freshmen class is good and very even across the board. They kept 13 on the team and the coaches do a good job of trying to get them all minutes but there just aren't enough minutes in a 24 minute game to get them all enough playing time. Calling some of them up to JV will only help them develop more. I don't sense any issues with the program and it certainly wasn't a "Mass Exodus". From what I've heard there weren't any parent issues or attitude issues or any other negative vibes. The boys decided to move on and did so respectfully and with class. Yes, there is a lot of change this year and on the heels of one of the most successful seasons in their history on the varsity level, there might be some looking for some cracks but I think things will settle in nicely for this group if they keep their heads on straight.

In the late 80's, Campbell, Boone, Holmes and Dixie were all 4A. I'm thinking Conner was also but not 100% on that.