VF111

Honest Question... who is Cooper's principal rooting for?

Highlands used to lift in a dungeon and track 40's using analog stopwatches. That seemed to work pretty well for them up through the mid 2010's...

Is the BG/AC NFHS stream working for anyone?

Nobody... I mean, not one single person saw this coming.

Owensboro has the best team it may have had since ‘20 and out of the gate drops a measuring-stick of a scrimmage. Shew… that’s a rough first move…

I think this is the team that makes or breaks it for the Sphire era. We all know that football is won and lost at the high levels up-front and through the QB because most of the top teams (in 4A's case, Boyle, Cov Cath, PT, FC, Highlands) all have fairly similar skill players. Occasionally, you have an outlier or two (2024 PT & Boyle), but for the most part, this holds true across KY FB classes annually. Highlands enters 2025 with the biggest and best line in 4A. They have a stockpile of capable QBs. PT lost a small college's worth of talent. Gone is the get-out-of-jail-free card Boyle Co. has held along with several other key guys, Franklin Co. has a lot to replace, and Cov Cath... well, Cov Cath will always be Cov Cath. But the door is open for Highlands wider than it may have been in a LONG time. There is no lurking unbeatable beast in 4A. There is no generational team (Cooper, 23-24) in 4A. In short, Highlands has all the pre-2025 set up to win it all that it could ask for. If they can't get it done this year, you gotta ask, "Is Highlands even Highlands anymore?"

I will concede that the travel involved in playing PT is very problematic for most schools. For the big three of JCPS (Male, Manual, Central) bussing is a real issue. For Douglas out of Lexington and Highlands, Cov. Cath, Cooper, and Ryle out of the North, that is a brutal long trip. Logical games that should be on PT's radar are Trinity, St. X, CAL, BG, South Warren, and Owensboro. I can tell you for a fact that one of those absolutely did not say no to PT. In any case, South and PT should work out a deal with their Week 10 opponents to shuffle, having South play PT and Logan play Christian.

That's a pretty soft schedule for PT. I get they have to play traditional games, but what on earth is that Christian Co. game? We heard a lot from the PT camp in 2024 about being the "best in the state," but many of us also looked at their schedule and scoffed about the prospects of them beating the big school top dogs. This schedule does little to convince anyone to put them in the conversation of stacking up against the 5A and 6A big boys.

Coach Benton does a great job with his 25-35 players each year. This schedule looks good for the Panthers, giving them a chance to punch above their weight early against bigger, quality schools, but no one that is unreasonable. The last five games are very winnable, and the right Russellville team could also beat some of their first five opponents.

That's a tough schedule for the Cougars. I would say they will beat Russellville and Calloway, but wins will be hard to come by after that. I could see Logan going 2-8 or 7-3. There are just a lot of unknowns on their schedule. What does the next wave of Hart Co. look like? Will McCracken ever start to look like the big-school power we thought them to be? Greenwoods DC just went to Mason Co., and Greenwood was solid on D. What will they look like in 2025? Can Allen replace those high-production guys they lost? How good will PT actually be? Is Franklin Simpson football just no longer Franklin Simpson football? Dane Parsley graduated from East and takes 99.9% of their offensive production with him. What will they look like in '25? The South Warren game is baffling for both schools. I know Logan beat South in '22, but that was about as good a Logan team as there has ever been, and that South team was in utter freefall.

Thanks, went back and looked at the year-by-year… 2017 7-4 2018 1-10 2019 4-6 2020 0-9 Overall 12-29 Managed to beat a couple of teams with winning records: Hancock (‘17), McLean (‘19), and Grayson (‘19).

What is Ganaway’s record and experience as a HC?

They forgot one... knee pads are now obsolete.

Great hire by the Royals. Coach Adams has paid his dues, shown that he has a solid grasp of all aspects of the game, has been a coordinator at a 5A school in the highly competitive Bowling Green area, and has been primed to become a Head Coach. He is a steal for Mason Co.!

Cooper could have put any kid on their team at RB in that State Championship and they still weren’t gonna win that game. That game was won and lost up front on both sides of the ball and Cooper was on the short end of that stick… and it wasn’t close.

I think Owensboro is a fine study in the realities of high school coaching hiring in Kentucky now. Schools like Owensboro, premier jobs in the present and from days past, where there is a quality town/city to move to, a history of success, a community that values football (or whatever sport we are discussing), a steady flow of high-caliber players, a good youth program, and so on--these places have lists in their minds of the people they will pursue if their head coaching job comes open. These lists are grandiose and include the best of the best names from around the state and even into other states. And then their job comes open. And reality arrives. Those top-notch coaches on their list? Yeah, those guys have wives with good jobs where they already are. Their kids have friends in school where they already are. Their parents are close by where they already are. And then the money? Oh, yeah, the money is about the same all across the state, which is to say that there are few, if any, coaching stipends in this state that will even equal the local administrator's pay. And the reality of coaching and not teaching... yeah, not hardly. And so the list shrinks to guys who have grown children, are already retired, or haven't cut their teeth yet on the big stages (to be fair, everyone has to be given their first chance), but these hires are not exactly the splash schools are looking for. And so you hire the guy in the building who is well-liked and respected but not the big name you wanted. And that is the reality of coaching searches in KY now.

30 pages was a funny anecdote for a while... it seems the humor has gone out of it now for the folks on Frederica.

For the next person to top what the Devils achieved under Fallin, they are going to have to win a State Title, something that hasn't been done in almost 40 years, and several coaches. Good luck...

It is not Haddix or Boyle Co.'s concern what happens at Glasgow. Boyle's #1 priority should be Boyle. That means that when Boyle needs a strength coach, then the time to advertise is now.

The brutal reality of 6A... if Ryle doesn't go 4-1 or 5-0 against that list, they're almost assuredly not going to have a real chance at winning 6A.

It's for coaches really.

2024, Owensboro lost in the 2nd Rd. to eventual State Champion BG, playing them much tougher than anyone not named South did. 2023, Owensboro lost in the State Semi-Finals to eventual State Champion BG... 2022, Owensboro lost in the State Semi-Finals to eventual State Champion Douglas... 2021, Owensboro lost in the State Semi-Finals to Douglas... 2020, Owensboro lost in the State Finals to BG. That's as good a 5-year run Owensboro as has had in the last 30 years. You could say the '99-'01 run was better over three years and that the '12-'14 run was as good as '20-'23, but the last four to five years have been absolutely phenomenal by Owensboro standards. The norm is not to play for State Championships at Owensboro. Since 1990, 34 seasons, Owensboro has played in 4 Finals, once every 8 or-so years. The norm also isn't to win State Championships. The last seniors to win a State Title at Owensboro are all now 54-56 years old. So, can we dispel this idea that Owensboro has some vaunted past that we are trying to return to? At the end of the day, Owensboro has a steady pulse of good and bad years. When they are up, they are hard to beat and go late into the playoffs, and when they are down, they get bounced in the 1st and 2nd rounds.

I don't see a game on Highlands' schedule they can't win. Elder was hardly a world-beater last year, Boyle and Cooper both will be good but both lost a lot more than Highlands did, Cov Cath is always a coin flip, Douglas likes to lean on folks and I doubt anyone is leaning on Highlands next year, Scott Co. is going to have to prove they are back, Ryle is stacked but beatable. IMO Highlands HAS to beat Boyle, Cov. Cath and Cooper. Boyle and Cov. Cath for control of the top half of 4A, Cooper for pride reasons.

The Coach Cal kiss of death...

Someone needs to walk down to Coach Fallin and offer him an extra 5K to come on back.