ChiefSmoke

Enjoyed that. Well done and thank you!

Ryan Mattingly will have a big season. Very impressed with him. Good luck to the Eagles!

Hal Mumme had a great offensive system. But, BEFORE he got to UK, Mike Holcomb's teams were throwing the ball all over the place at Breathitt County and Tim Couch was putting up big passing numbers at Leslie County. The spread/passing movement was present in eastern KY before it came to UK! Holcomb used his spread passing game like a genie in the bottle. After his team got a big lead, he jumped in the I formation, ran the ball and got the game over. Outstanding football coach. I was fortunate to work with him on the KY All Star staff in 2004. It was a great experience. Tim Couch is a KY HS Football Legend. Really hope to see him in the Hall of Fame. He certainly deserves it.

We had an OTA this morning at Mercer with Danville, Collins, & Mason. Got a little hot and humid but never in danger of calling it off. Very productive morning.

I have no idea what kind of season Middlesboro will have. But I do know those kids are blessed to have Larry French as their HS football coach. 37 years ago he was my coach. I am very thankful for my old coach. Good luck this season to the Yellow Jackets!

Every home game at Mercer County has a sponsor. It helps us raise funding for our program. The sponsor chooses a Hog, Dog & Titan to recognize at the end of each quarter. Those sponsorships have really helped our program and it has helped involve our community on Friday nights. This makes 5 straight seasons with all the same sponsors. Has been very successful and a huge positive.

Jager's Dad, Jeff, was a pretty good player at Mercer County HS in the mid 80's. Congratulations to the family!

This was our first time to do QB Camp at Pikeville HS and it went really well. Their football program is in the middle of an incredible upgrade to their facility. When everyone sees the final product, it will very special. Mountain Quarterbacks have a history of being pretty good and our group today worked hard and performed well. Thank you to my good friend and outstanding coach, Chris McNamee, for hosting the camp. It was an honor to work with QB's in eastern KY!

At Phil Simms QB Camp, 1980 as a sophomore, my partner was this GREAT freshman from Morgan County. Turned out to be Bill Allen, Beau’s Dad! Good luck to Beau and congrats to the entire family!

Another good session today. We had guys from LCA, Boyle, Mercer, Harrison, Lincoln & Dunbar. It is fun for an old guy like me to work with QB's that are motivated and want to be the best they can be. Much success is ahead for this group... on and off the field!

Our Mason Co. vs. Lloyd games from 1996 thru 2005 were good ones. My two favorite were in the cold, rainy mud in November of 2001 & 2002. Rudy Tassini & Roy Lucas, Jr. did a good job with the Juggs. Rudy had them looking like the Steelers & with Roy, Jr. they looked like the Pitt Panthers. They have a history of getting good coaches and I’ll bet they find another one.

This was from my column in the Maysville paper and later added it to BLACK SHOES & WHITE SHOESTRINGS. With Coach Coverdale moving to Cincinnati, thought you guys would enjoy this. I hear an expression several times through the season (including last week) and every now and then during the offseason: The Firm. The Firm is Smith, Smith, Coverdale and Holcomb: specifically, Homer Smith, Chuck Smith, Andrew Coverdale, and Mike Holcomb. John Arn, our former offensive line coach and defensive coordinator, came up with the phrase. Shawn Thompson, the defensive coordinator before John, was the first to announce that the way to get me to do something was to call Chuck Smith and tell him the situation, and Chuck would call me and make me do it. My coaches sometimes claim that if an idea does not come from The Firm, I am not going to do it. That's not true, but I will admit those four guys are great coaches and great resources when I have a question. I never met Homer Smith, but he is regarded as one of the greatest offensive minds in the history of the game. He held several positions, including the offensive coordinator job at both UCLA and Alabama. He was also the head coach at Army in the 1970s. Coach Smith passed away in April 2011. Coach Smith put together a number of manuals on football, coaching and teaching. I have most of them. His ability to explain football concepts and the teaching of the game was incredible. He wrote one complete manual devoted to practicing football, and you can apply the information in his manuals to any offensive system. Sometimes in preparing for an opponent, when I see a coach being creative in getting players across the midline, I immediately think of Coach Smith. In 2005, Fleming County had the best team they have put on the field in my 19seasons here. Jordan Fritz was their quarterback and we were coming off a 1-9 season. Our offensive game plan came straight from Homer Smith’s concepts. Our kids executed the game plan to near-perfection and we won a game that many thought would be a blowout loss for us. If a young guy wants to learn the game of football, I would get my hands on everything written by Homer Smith. The other Smith is Chuck Smith, whom I have written about before. I regard Chuck as one of the best defensive coaches and high school head coaches in the history of the state, winning five (six) state titles at Boyle County. What he did with the linebackers at Kentucky was also outstanding. Besides being a great coach, Chuck’s philosophies on football and people are consistent with mine.I sometimes call and ask Chuck football questions, but most of the time when I call him it is about dealing with people -- staff, players, administration, etc. I even called Chuck to ask him if writing this column was a good idea. As you might have figured out, he said yes. Andrew Coverdale is the offensive coordinator at Trinity in Louisville. When we were getting ready to play Breathitt County in the 2003 Recreation Bowl, Coach Coverdale was kind enough to let us use video from the Shamrocks' 2002 state championship game versus Male. Male and Breathitt County ran similar defenses, and I wanted to see how Trinity attacked the Bulldogs' defense.Trinity's QB was Brian Brohm. Ours was Dustin Grutza. We got a lot of good ideas from that video. Dustin and our kids executed that game plan exceptionally well in the Rec Bowl versus Breathitt County. Through the years, when I have had ideas and questions about offensive concepts, Coach Coverdale has been a great resource. Mike Holcomb is the head football coach at Letcher County Central and led Breathitt County to three state titles. Most people believe when Hal Mumme came to UK in 1997, that is what started the advent of the spread passing game in the state of Kentucky, but Coach Holcomb had the Bobcats throwing the ball and winning back-to-back state titles in 1995 and 1996. Mumme, Mike Leach, Tony Franklin and Chris Hatcher are outstanding football coaches who helped make Kentucky high school football more wide-open, but the first to make it go were Coach Holcomb and Mike Whitaker at Leslie County, who had a pretty good QB named Tim Couch. Because of my experiences playing QB in high school, we have never had a five-step-drop pass play from under center on any team I have coached. The timing required and the pass protection ability needed by the O-line is tough on a high school player. Whenever we had a five-step pass play called in high school, I knew I was going to get blasted. As I got older and matured, I realized if I was going to get hit, I might as well complete the pass, and I quit worrying about it. When we finally put in a five-step pass package at Mason County, we did so from the shotgun to help with the protection issues. Coach Holcomb was the coach I went to for help in setting up our five-step passing concepts. I don’t know anyone that has a better grasp of the passing game than Mike Holcomb. Though I do use guidance from The Firm, most of my decisions are really our decisions as a staff. I do pull rank at times and make the call as the head coach, but when I do go along with an idea that I am not crazy about from one of my assistants, I just tell them to “make it work.” And yes, I got that from Chuck.

We had a spring scrimmage in March at Mercer County.

Is this a thread on who was the SLOWEST to play the position? Lol.

I’ve seen coaches putting something similar on twitter. I think their just sending the overall / in general message that accountability is built into the process.....guys unwilling to work now shouldn’t be surprised to find themselves on the bench in the fall. Just a more creative way to send a very old message.

Sure.... Tyler Mattingly, Camp alumnus, QB at Meade Co., OC at Central Hardin Boone Goldsmith, Camp alumnus, QB at Boyle Co., Assistant Coach at Lincoln, as been an assistant at Rowan, Casey, & Garrard Josh Painter, GA from Coastal Carolina, currently WR/ Special Teams Coordinator, OLB coach at Mercer Some times we will have.... Josh Davis, Campbellsville QB & Camp Alumnus, former Scott County QB Clay McKee, Camp Alumnus, GA at UK, former Georgetown College & Scott County HS QB Drew Davis, Camp Alumnus, former Mercer QB (2015), former Coach at South Warren and currently on the Allen County Scottsville staff My son Trosper is an extra that helps me with the youngest guys. He will be a sophomore, has done camp multiple camps since very little, etc. In Pikeville, Coach McNamee and some of his staff will serve as instructors.

Correct. Also doing one in Pikeville on 5/11.

The two that were here in February did a good job. When camp filled up, you have a 3rd QB that has already said he will be here on June 14th. The Pioneers have some good QBs in the pipeline!

I’m glad he had a good experience. We work hard to do a good job for the kids. Good luck to your team in 2019 and thank you for this post!

In February and March, we've had over 40 QB's come to Harrodsburg for camp and small group instruction. Tyler Mattingly (Central Hardin), Boone Goldsmith (Lincoln Co.), Josh Painter (Mercer Co.), Josh Davis (Campbellsville U.) & my youngest son Trosper (will be a sophomore at Mercer) have all helped with the instruction. We've had guys from Mercer, Boyle, Central Hardin, Bardstown Bethlehem, Barren, Rowan, Harrison, Lexington Catholic, LCA, Lou. Holy Cross, North Laurel, Russell Co., John Hardin, Simon Kenton, Collins, Frankfort, South Laurel, Ballard, Dunbar and more schools (can't remember all of them as I type this out). As an entire group, the level of QB play has improved over the years. More kids are doing more in the offseason than in the past. Here are some pictures:

Good luck to Coach Harmon. They made progress during his time and they always had a good gameplan for us. I always expected our games to be tough because I knew he would have them ready. Best of luck to both the Knights & Coach Harmon going forward.

Ron Tanner was at the KFCA / KY Fellowship of Athletes Football Coaches Clinic at UK this weekend with the Shadow. Many coaches were interested in the new helmet and they have some marketing specials right now to get schools to try them out. We had a very good clinic. The UK Staff did breakout sessions on Friday night followed by our KFCA Meeting. Saturday morning we had Aaron Hogue with UK FCA, Bryan McKenzie (former Russell Red Devil) with 3D Coaching, & Ron Tanner with Xenith. Four very good coaches spoke also: Brian Washington (Paris), Justin Haddix (Corbin), Ethan Atchley (Bullitt East) & Brian Landis (Frederick Douglas). The clinic concluded with a UK practice and scrimmage at Kroger Field. Thank you to Clay Clevenger, Jimmie Reed, Ray Graham & the UK staff for their work in making it a successful clinic!