Unrivaled97

Bell County Apollo South Oldham Raceland Ryle Tiebreaker: 38

Pikeville travels to CAL this Friday for a 7:30 p.m. showdown to open the season. Pikeville has a lot of questions coming into this season, most of which is how to replace their QB, leading RB and tackler, as well as leading receiver from last year. They do return 3 of their top 4 receivers and 2 of their top 4 tacklers from last year. This looks to be a rebuilding year for the Panthers, but with a good junior class and very talented freshman class, Pikeville will be in the thick of things again in Class 1A in the not-to-distant future. CAL comes into the opener off of a 3rd straight Class 3A title last year and two scrimmages that hopefully have them prepared to start this season. The CAL offense will be tough to contain this year, regardless of which QB takes the reigns. I do suspect you will see more passing from the QB position this year than in years past. The defense has improved greatly overall, but will be without 2 starters for at least the first couple of games due to injuries against Cooper in the opening scrimmage. Regardless, CAL does have good depth at the skill positions and should be able to keep things rolling until those starters return. As for Friday night, I expect Pikeville to play their typical 3 DL on defense and drop 8 into coverage, forcing CAL to run the ball more. That will be a good test for the CAL running game. If Pikeville can hang around for the 1st half and keep it close, that could create a lot of confidence for their young team, but if not and CAL jumps out quickly, this one could get ugly. I expect Pikeville to do what they do and put up a good fight. They'll come to play, no doubt, but I simply think they're a year or two away. I expect CAL to roll in this one and a running clock would not surprise me. Let's hear those predictions BGP.

I think Owensboro’s skill players can go toe-to-toe with anyone in the state. Their line, however, is a work in progress. St X will more than likely be a bit too much for them in this one, but I do expect Owensboro’s line to improve as the season goes & still be playing in December. St X - 38 Owensboro - 21

I used to play against Linton in high school ?. They were 2A runner-up in Indiana last year. They won 2A in 2016. Yes, historically a good, small school program. With that being said, I expect Corbin to running clock them.

You will see more of the RBs carrying the ball this year & less read option. QBs will predominantly pass this year, but Pfeiffer does do some read option fairly well.

I think overall, Burke played a little better, but I’d be very comfortable with either as the starter.

If they can pull it off, it will be 4.

I honestly thought with South Warren moving up, Highlands moving down & the talent Atherton had coming in, they were a serious contender in 5A. My only concern is the mental side of it for them. If you’re going to be a serious contender, you can’t do things like fight with Valley. You have to be able to keep your head about you when things like that or any type of adversity hits because inevitably, at some point in a season, it will.

I know it’s just a scrimmage, but I would feel pretty confident that if these teams played a regular season game, the score wouldn’t be much different than it was tonight. I believe Franklin County has some good years ahead of them with the talent they have in the freshman class, but for this year, it will depend on who their sister district is as to whether they get knocked out in the 2nd round or 3rd round of the playoffs. I believe 4A is way too deep for them to make another trip to Lexington this year.

35-7 CAL after 3 quarters. Varsity part of the scrimmage is now over.

21-7 CAL at halftime. CAL dominated all the way up to the last 40 seconds of the half. Franklin County came up with a pick, returned it to the 40, then went for a deep go route that was completed for a TD.

Scrimmage starts at 7:30

22nd ranked player in the nation for the 2027 class.

I’m not sure many teams will be able to in general.

Correct and in the body of the post, he alluded to total number of ranked kids; all classifications. Again, as I stated, that was what I was referencing.

Read the end of the post!

If it helps stay on topic more for you, Elijah Burns-Crump, Sebastian Blue and Zane Johnson all have multiple G5 or better offers, with Burns-Crump having 2 P4 offers that I know of, and they aren't rated at all by 247 in the class of 2027. Again, I always find these ratings, rankings or whatever you want to call them so interesting. It's almost as if some of these sites don't do any research or just piggy back off of other sites.

Correct, but what's your point? In @Tigerpride94original post, at the end of it, he says only 31 kids TOTAL in 2026 and 10 kids TOTAL in 2027 are rated in Kentucky. I was drawing reference to that.

I always find these rankings so interesting. For 2027, Ja'Hyde Brown has offers from Alabama, Wisconsin and Louisville....and he's not even ranked in the top 10 in Kentucky according to 247 ?

Format is 3 quarters of full varsity scrimmage then 1 quarter of full JV scrimmage.

CAL takes the trip to Franklin County on Friday 8/15 for the final tune-up of the preseason. CAL is coming off of a good scrimmage overall against Cooper. I think CAL was able to answer some questions they had for this upcoming season. This will be a good test for the CAL secondary as last week against Cooper, they were facing a team trying to replace 7 of their top 9 receivers from 2024. This Friday will be the flip of that as Franklin County returns 4 of their top 5 receivers. As for Franklin County, I'm not sure how their first scrimmage went. I do know they return quite a few offensive weapons, but their biggest question coming into this season, as they march towards a return trip to Lexington, will be how do they replace 7 of their top 9 tacklers on defense. Let's hear what those predictions BGP.

Good scrimmage for both teams. CAL offense will be tough to stop. As for the QB battle, I think Burke played better overall tonight. We’ll see what next week against Franklin County holds. Defensively, not a terrible effort by CAL. A few blown assignments led to a couple of big Cooper plays on their scoring drives. I like where CAL is right now. Cooper will be fine as well & I think they definitely will have enough playmakers on the outside to make another run towards Lexington. CAL has a couple starters get banged up but doesn’t appear to be anything serious. We probably won’t see them in the last scrimmage but they’ll be ready to go by week 1 if I had to take a guess. Anyway, we appreciate the hospitality from the Cooper fans. Had the opportunity to talk with a few in the stands before the scrimmage & in the press box during it. Nice people & best of luck to them the rest of the season.

that's not good as I believe Bardstown will be down a bit this year.

Yes, Burke is #7 & Pfeiffer is #10

Appreciate the suggestions! We actually have a Blind Squirrel in Louisville & it’s only a few miles from CAL. Great atmosphere & they host a sand volleyball league in the spring & summer. Bourbon House Pizza might be the choice.