Chet Manley

John Cole was an unbelievable athlete, possibly the best to come out of Somerset in its long history. It wasn't exactly his fault he didn't have a stellar college career. He was starting for Vandy at PR/KR and getting rotations at slot receiver as an undersized true freshman before tearing his meniscus near the end of his first game. He led them in receiving his redshirt freshman year but the rest of his career was plagued with injuries and a stagnant passing game. If he had gone to Stanford, who knows how far his career may have gone. Personally, I have no problem with John being on the list as PR/KR as he was great at that as well. All five were great players and I have no problem with anyone who made the list. I will say that John Cole had the best straight line speed of the group (100m state title winner) but each player had their own niche. I say if you take anyone off though, it should be Burton, not Fant. Wasn't Keenan a QB in high school?

You're probably right. I feel like we might have had the team most suited to compete with Central, especially with a healthy Storm. However, nothing I saw from Somerset in the playoffs or between Belfry and Central in the finals would make me think it was a game we should have or even could have won.

These two things were unrelated. It was actually the Somerset superintendent who was pushing for the public/private split, not the AD, and he was pushing for this before the two met in the 2005 semifinals. It was his own sentiment, not that of most of the Somerset fans. Any logical person can see that there simply aren't enough private schools in Kentucky for them to split. To answer your question, I do feel like composure and discipline has been a problem for a few of the Somerset teams in the past few years. 2009 finals, PT might have been better but not 21 points better. I think Somerset had something like 8 turnovers in that game, one of which was a pick 6 on the opening play from scrimmage. 2010 semifinals, not trying to offend the Belfry faithful but you will never convince me that that Belfry team was better than Somerset that year. We racked up several penalties (deserved), starting RB gets kicked (also deserved), plus our best player being out for the first half after an appendix surgery and we all know the result. 2011, again from what I saw Holy Cross was probably the better team but not 28 points better. The first half the Jumpers were playing well and definitely looked like they were heading for the rematch with Glasgow, second half the wheels fell off and the unsportsmanlike penalties stacked up. Just my opinion, but I definitely think that discipline has been an issue with some of the more recent Somerset teams. It seems like Lucas is taking the right steps forward to right the ship but I certainly think that these issues played a part in keeping us from getting over the hump.

That district also included a stout Green County team and a Metcalfe County team who was in their best years. Definitely one of if not the best district 1A ball in Kentucky has ever seen. If my memory serves me correctly, the '99 Somerset team that made it to the semis had to beat the 1 seed in their district in Campbellsville and 2 seed Danville in the playoffs, both of whom had destroyed them in the regular season, to get to the semifinal game against Hancock County.