New Colonel

You mean the backup QB that had over a 70% completion percentage and a 98.4 Passer Rating? Browning was #2 in completion percentage last season and #7 in Passer Rating. That Backup?

I don't blame the Bengals for not extending Chase after last season. He wanted #1 Receiver money, but he wasn't even top 10 in production. What kind of sense would that make? Now this past season showed what he's truly capable of, and I hope after he gets paid that his production doesn't suffer.

Absolutely, bonus points given for using a solid ACT vocab word.

And this is the feeling of the Dixie community as a whole. And again, nobody is expecting Dixie to be world beaters and compete for state titles every year. But winning 6-7 games in the regular season shouldn't be asking too much. Winning games against Beechwood and Cov Cath every couple years shouldn't be too much to ask..... the kids all come from the same basic area and all hang out together. This really isn't asking much.

Why the hate on this hire? He consistently improved the defense at ND. His first season, they were barely in the top 40 defense. In his second year, they cracked the top 10 in defense. This past season, he coached the #2 defense in the country. That's good coaching, no matter how you look at it. This is a great hire! Now, we need some players on defense, because the scheme doesn't matter with the garbage pile that the Bengals have on Defense. Outside of Tre Hendrickson, there is nobody worth keeping. Not a single player. They are either busts, washed up, or were never any good. Get this man some players that can actually play on Sundays and let him do his thing.

Maybe a different thread topic but the lack of cool stadiums in KY is glaring compared to Ohio, especially in NKY. I know nobody is building new really unique stadiums today since it is so expensive to build something other than the metal bleacher setup we see.

You are right. I think just all the changes would take a while for people to get used to once they wrap their heads around it. I would think this sort of proposal would make for a much more competitive post-season, especially rounds 1 & 2.

How sad for the school, community, and most importantly his family.

Cool idea, but that's a lot to keep track of.

I thought long and hard about what to write, and I don't take this lightly. But if Dixie is to keep Coach Burke and staff, then Dixie needs major overhaul in how they do things as a staff. I really hope that the staff took a LONG and HARD look in the mirror and is drastically changing their approach to how they do things as a program. There isn't anything to be proud of at this time. Everything needs overhaul. Every facet of what you have been doing needs drastic changes. You just aren't losing, you are getting dominated and outcoached and you are not even close to competing. Look, I never judge a coach or his staff on wins. It's all the little things. Are they getting better over the years? Do they improve as the season goes on? Do they look prepared during the game? Are they disciplined? How's the body language of players and coaches when adversity hits? Are players in the right spots on the field (playing a position that's best for the team, and being in the correct place on the field during a play - like are you blocking the right person, in the right gap, using solid technique)? And for me, the answer is no to all of the above. The offseason program needs overhauling because the kids weren't undersized, but they sure were out of shape and drastically slower than every single team you played. If kids weren't ready to play, that's on the staff who is in charge of developing these kids over the past 3 off-seasons. The discipline is non existent. I believe Dixie had more penalties than every team except Hughes. That is all coaching and expectations. There's also horrible body language by the players. Kids slamming helmets, talking back to coaches, and throwing temper tantrums on the sidelines. There's clear disagreements/arguments with coaches during drives, which leads to plays not getting in in a timely manner, which leads to penalties. There's little to no coaching of players on the sidelines. They come off the field, sit down and are ignored by the coaches. You don't see that from your neighboring schools that are successful.... look at Beechwood and Cov Cath. What you tolerate as a coaching staff, you promote. That goes for your coaches and your players. The schemes are the worst part about this team. The schemes are putting kids in bad positions, either teaching bad techniques or allowing bad techniques to occur, and there are ZERO adjustments made during the games. You are supposed to build schemes around your personnel.....not try to make a certain scheme fit whatever kids you have. Quit trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole. In 3 seasons you have seen disastrous offense and even worse defense. Take this past season for example. You had the 7th best rusher in all of 5A, averaging over 7 yards per carry. You would march right down the field on the first possession of most games and score. Then, nothing until your opponent puts in the JV team, then you would score 2-3 tds to make the game look closer than it actually was. A competent staff would have controlled the clock with your dominant running game against these other explosive teams. Split back offense with your two solid RBs with a TE would have done wonders this year. But for some reason it was 4-5 wide on every play. What is the point if the wideouts stand there and literally don't move on certain plays. Don't even get me started on the defense where for some reason the staff would run press coverage knowing their DBs were slower than the opposing WRs every single week. Then you would have reckless blitzing when you wouldn't even get pressure with the blitz..... just taking LBs out of the plays. The defense gave up an average of 186 yards per game on the ground!! No sound scheme does that, even if kids are overmatched physically. Dixie gave up more rushing yards than passing yards if I'm not mistaken. Over the past 3 years, you have given up over 34 points per game on average. You aren't going to win games when you can't stop any team from scoring.... just ask the Bengals. Change the schemes, they don't work. Nobody can even remotely argue that they are sound and that they are effective. The on the field product over the past 3 seasons speaks for itself. Lastly, there is lack of community engagement. Dixie doesn't do anything to get Middle School and Youth players excited for your team. Show your face to the middle schoolers.... to a couple of practices and games. Just show up to the youth practices a couple of times (other than Dixie Youth). I said it before, Dixie has 4 youth programs that will all feed into the high school (I don't know of any NKY team that has such a luxury).... Dixie Youth, Spartans (about half of the Spartans wind up at Dixie), Erlanger Lions & Ludlow Youth (some of the Lions & Ludlow youth territory are actually a part of Kenton County Schools and they will go to Dixie). But, no, the non Dixie youth teams get completely ignored. Heck, Spartans have donated a team meal to the Colonels the past 2 seasons and have asked if Coach Burke could show up and talk to the kids, and it was crickets. Beechwood's coaches didn't have problems showing up for a couple practices and games, even if it's for a little bit..... Kids eat that stuff up and it makes them want to go there and play because they see that the coach is vested in the future. This season is do or die. They need a winning season. They have to win 6 games if they want to keep younger kids from bouncing and going elsewhere. However, with this schedule and what I've seen, I don't see more than 3 wins. There is quite a bit of talent in the pipeline that's going to get wasted if things don't change. There's some dudes who are freshman currently. The 8th grade team at Turkey Foot has some really, really athletic players. And the 7th grade team is absolutely loaded with talent. The thing is, many of them are saying they won't play in high school, because they don't want to get embarrassed weekly. So, Dixie coaches, please wake up! Make changes. Self reflection is hard, but what you have been doing is clearly not working. Don't come out next season with "the same ol same ol" and expect different results because it won't happen. And with the schedule coming up, you need to figure something out or else you are going to be 3-7 and set the program back years.

It amazes me how few football fans in the tristate have been to the Pit. It is an absolute must. And visiting coaches, if you have never been as a coach/player, you need to reach out to someone who has, because you are simply not ready and will start out bad right out the gate. The atmosphere is still the most electric in the tristate, but it is not what it was 20-25 years ago when they would get 13k+ every Friday night and fly the game ball in by a helicopter or something else crazy. But football fans, go experience Friday nights at The Pit.

I have don't have a huge issue with the splits. I know about flip and also choice routes in Briles system. I don't recall 1 man routes in that system and never recall seeing it in D1 college football, especially in this system. I would love to see a clip of that. I get you have to match numbers, in the unbalanced. But you can't just run out of it. Also, when the slot is on, I can move my defender to where there is no way that slot can block my defender. As far as the half time decision, what decision would have been worse than mailing it in? You play to win. Not telling your team we are good being down at halftime in a close game. That's loser mentality.

Correct on the unbalanced type look. But you again limit yourself on what you can do out of it. Just take 2 steps back and open up your possibilities. Another frustrating thing is that you don't ever see Dixie's staff draw anything up on white boards for either side of the team on the sidelines, which is so basic it tells you they are in way over their heads. But, the most frustrating thing about last night was Dixie's staff absolutely giving up before half time. You had 2 time outs, over a minute to work with, and a QB with a howitzer for an arm. A TD puts you in the lead for half, a field goal would have also been huge. But nope, your staff decided enough is enough in a close game, let's just go into halftime and not make a single adjustment.

I couldn't agree more with this statement. This is an extremely important concept for fans to understand. There's only so much practice time.

The last pass that Cov Cath picked is a perfect example of beyond simple passing concept. It was a 1 man route. 1. That's what you do for 7 year olds, not varsity high school. And I also noticed last night that most run plays for Dixie, the slot receiver is ineligible since he's on the line along with the receiver outside him. Coaches will pick up on that if they haven't yet. They want to put trips into the boundary which really limits what you can do. They don't utilize motion to get mismatches. And defensively, they are just plain bad. And a great example was how they got out flanked numerous times last night by not adjusting properly to Cov Caths motions.

That's a fair question, and I appreciate it. First, it's not all about wins and losses with me....sure we all like to win, but for me, high school football is way more than that..... it's about building a community from your varsity all the way down to your youth programs. Burke is simply not doing that. I know there is some issues with between Burke and the coaches at Turkey Foot (middle school that feeds into Dixie). Burke has done a decent job with building a relationship with the Dixie Youth Colonels football from what I hear this year (but his son started playing this season for them, so that's expected). HOWEVER, Dixie Heights is in a very unique position with youth feeders...... due to weird maps with the NKYFL not being based on schools, there are 4 youth programs that have players that feed into Dixie Heights..... Dixie Youth, Spartans, Erlanger Lions, and Ludlow Youth. Depending on where those players live, they all wind up at Dixie. There has been zero attempt to try to reach out to the latter 3 youth programs and build any sort of relationship. Make those kids fall in love with Dixie at a young age to stop your players from going to Cov Cath or becoming a tuition student at Beechwood. Second, are the schemes. They are just not sound. Good coaches adapt their schemes to fit their personnel, no the other way around. Burke and his staff are determined to try to make these unsound schemes work. On offense, it works really well when you are playing bad teams. When you are playing teams that are good, the flaws are exposed on both fronts. They can't move the ball and score (unless it's in garbage time). The defense gets absolutely shredded against anyone with even a mediocre passing game. And they don't make any adjustments on either side of the ball during games. A perfect example is the game against Beechwood. No attempt was made to slow down Erdman from Beechwood. Dixie insisted on covering the fastest kid in the state 1 on 1 the entire game. Third issue for me after watching last year and this year is are your players performing better on the field? So far it's a no. There are too many penalties involving discipline, there are glaring issues regarding conditioning, and nobody has really taken that next step. This is sad when you have 2 players with small college offers so far and a QB that is getting lots of interest from college coaches. When you have what is 3 players on offense that can play at the next level, you really shouldn't be struggling at all on that side of the ball. Even more maddening is these 3 are not on the field at the same time on every single play of offense...... make it make sense. Next, is how the team prepares. Teams wanting to improve should schedule difficult scrimmages and non-district games. Burke decided to schedule scrimmages against some of the worst teams in the entire tri-state area and scheduled Hughes for 2 years. Why? I guess to make you and the kids have a false sense of how good you are. That's hurting your program and not improving it. But, I guess you got that little ego boost in your scrimmages and last week when you put up 60 against a horrendous Hughes team. And I guess you will get it again when you play Boone County. Lastly, is the game management. Every week there are decisions made by this staff that puts this team into deeper holes. It's a coach's job to help put the team in better positions to win, not put them in a worse situation. The players should not have to overcome in game obstacles put forth by their own coach to hopefully achieve a victory. Look, am I expecting Dixie to world beaters? No. I understand the reality of their situation, especially being located so close to 2 perennial powerhouses in Beechwood and Cov Cath. I also understand the difficulty of their district. But should they have a winning season more often than not? Without question. Dixie should beat Conner, Boone County, and Scott. 4-6, with your only wins coming against awful teams is not success, no matter who the coach is.

Cov Cath should win as Dixie's coaching staff can't get out of their own way. I don't like being the negative guy, but it is extremely apparent that Burke and his staff are in WAY over their head. The Red Colonels are not improving under him. To say their schemes and in game adjustments are poor would be complimentary. The state of football in all 3 Kenton County schools is painfully sad.

Beechwood looks very good. I wouldn't call beating a bad team a strong win. They should have scored 70 easy. The Tigers have some things to clean up, but are headed in the right direction under Volker. If they keep improving, they'll be hard to stop in the post season.

Every single week it's boneheaded decisions. Week 1 it was 4th and 3 again, down 1 score inside your own 30 and you go under center, bring everyone in tight amd run a QB sneak. No gain. SK scores 2 plays later. I mean, the only time they ever under center is to sneak it....way to keep them guessing Coach.

Dixie needs to really consider a new staff. I hear they have some good freshmen and I know it doesn't always translate to high school, but there is also some talent at Turkey Foot. Give those guys a reason to stay before they bail to another school.

How can all 3 Kenton County high schools be so terrible at playing anything that resembles a defense??

Sure do. They are so poorly coached. Their offensive scheme is just dumb....and I love no huddle offenses. Their defensive scheme is even worse. They are rarely gap sound, can't cover anybody, and their D-line gets too much penetration which takes them out of most plays. They look bigger, stronger, and leaner since Burke has been there, but that obviously isn't translating to any on field success. I'd be happy if they cleaned house after this year. And I am one that almost always advocates for coaches getting at least 4 years to get their system in place with an entire group of kids, but there's simply no improvement at all under Burke.

I don't understand why Dixie is so determined to cover Luke Erdman 1 on 1. He's the fastest kid on the field by far, torched them last year and is doing it again, yet still just single coverage. Their defense is atrociously embarrassing.

Yep, punted after about 12 seconds it took to run 3 plays.

Dixie couldn't look any worse.