jude

7 - Bell County 5 - Prestonsburg 3 - Rockcastle County 2 - Phelps 1 - Lawrence County Bell

In Louisa watching my bulldogs!!!!:banana:

How fast is Wales? With him gaining 15 lbs and having what he considers a better line than last year i really hope him the best of luck in going after the record. Obviously my preference is that JJ finish ahead of Wales but if JJ doesn't do it then I hope the Wales kid get there.

My first choice is Belfry. They are a young team with allot of talent. The next possibility is Johnson Central. I still believe if they could have scored one more touchdown against Highlands they would have won the championship last year? Just my opinion and highlands is still there this year. So if they earn another shot at Highlands then they have a chance at a title. I'm not saying they should be favored against Highlands I just think they have at least a shot. I'd love to say Lawrence County, but they have to get past Belfry and I just don't know about that this year? If anyone in that district gets past Belfry then they have to be in the conversation at least.

When you play the #9 team in the country you need to expect this. As much as anyone out there, i want Highlands to be imperfect this year, but in all honesty i put absolutely NO faith in this loss as a sign of weakness. This loss meant nothing in the scope of this season. No coach wants their team to lose even a scrimmage but the simple fact is that the coaching staff there just got the best gift they could get this year. A solid reminder to this team that they can be beat. If you thought they were motivated before, I really hate to be Boyle next week. The 4 time defending state champs just got embarressed and toyed with. Now they have a serious point to prove and that does not make for a pretty scene for Boyle next week!

I'm from Lawrence County and I'm happy with that ranking. Just being in the top 10 shows that people are showing some respect and everything after that has to be earned on the field. That's exactly how we like it in Lawrence County.

Leave it to GURU to be the one person that doesn't read the directions. LOL...

Everyone on here either loves or hates Highlands so let's get straight to the question that we all want to know. Please remember to give some supporting basis for your opinion. If your answer is "nobody" then you either can't read or you just have a problem following directions. The question is who has the best chance? You can even quantify that by saying it's a 5% chance or whatever if that makes you feel better. My vote is obvious.... I think that JC will have the talent and the dedication to make a playoff run and possibly make a run towards Highlands in the playoffs this year. If I'm not mistaken they would be at Highlands if they made it that far so I have to say that I'm giving them a pre-season chance at doing it. My supporting argument is that the last couple of years have shown that JC is not totally outclassed by Highlands. JC has proven that their running game is possibly the best in the state and they are slowly getting better at the passing game. They took the game down to the wire last year and if not for a great performance by Towles and a dropped pass in the endzone by JC, Highlands streak could have been over. They (JC) do lose some players this year so that will hurt but they've got some young guys coming up that will surprise you. I will have to admit that most people forget that Highlands was pretty banged up by the time they got to JC and that did make a big difference in the game last year. Just my opinion. I'm not familiar with all the Northern and Western KY teams so educate me on who has a chance.....

I love the people on here (sarcasm)! They are goofy. Some of you can't just say "hey that's cool" like TD or Leatherneck. No you have to pick it apart and find some reason this is BAD for the birds. Let me say this for all the birds fans to hear. Most of us want nothing more than to see that streak stop at 4! We all want our team to be the one that ends it! However I cannot understand the haters on here that won't give credit where it is due! You got CC to volunteer to coach recievers at your school!!!! That is AWESOME!!! That is what loyalty to a program is all about. His kids play there and he is loyal to your incredibly succesful and classy program. Your coaching staff not only brings a great team to the field every week but they bring one of the most respected traditions and most well behaved groups of student athletes. Your program is one of the elite in the country and you should be proud of it. With that being said I will hopefully be sitting in your stands this year when Johnson Central finally beats you. If they don't then I hope someone does, because I have to respect you, but i don't have to cheer for you. Congratulations on whatever amount of time CC can help coach your recievers...

I think I posted this same basic comment on another thread on here but i will say it again. Towles may be the most gifted quarterback I've watched in high school. He was very rough around the edges but has all the talent in the world. I still think I've seen better runners at QB and better pure passers at QB but never a better combination of physical skills in one kid. He can go as high as his work ethic takes him. From what I hear work ethic is something else he has in abundance. Good luck to him in all he does, except if he plays JC again. Then I hope he can't hit the broad side of a barn that day. LOL...

What are you talking about?:confused: Someone puts out an opinion article that lists the top 5 players in a couple categories and you don't want us to complain about it? If we didn't question the people that write these articles then why would we have BGP? We would just pay GURU to send us a letter every week telling us what we should think. LOL... Trust me, between him and RAM they'd be correct most of the time anyway. But that's exactly the point of a site like this. We can listen to the guys and gals that really know the sport better than us and occasionally speak up and say "Uh, I don't think so!!!" That's what we do here and we love it. If you say I disagree with that comment then you better be ready to bring an argument to the table. If you make a statement on here and you can't back it up then you better bring your salt and pepper to season your crow, because you will be eating it. I made an argument on this topic and I feel it's a solid one but it's all in fun and it's exactly why we pay to have this site. So the floor is yours now. Please tell me why I should not argue with this particular authors opinion on a website that is designed to create open debate, when I clearly have what you have to admit is at least a defendable position?

Maybe someone can tell me what i'm missing here because I usually run my mouth before I get all the facts. Unless there is a reason he's not eligible for this list I can't understand why J.J. Jude isn't on here? :confused: If 3,000+ yards rushing and 580+ in one game doesn't make you a playmaker then what is the criteria? Johnson central played a schedule that included Ashland Boyle, Bell and Belfry in the regular season as well as Scott, Covington Catholic and Highlands in the playoffs. Lost to Highlands by 7 points. That's not exactly a list of patsies. Obviously you can tell from my name that I am biased but belive it or not I don't know J.J. Jude very well, however I have to imagine that stuff like this just drives him even more to succeed. This list is a disgrace! If you wanted to make a list of the top recruited athletes then call it that but don't say they are the top "playmakers" and leave the biggest playmaker in the state off the list. What a JOKE!

I'm very disappointed in you GURU. Being the avid fan of all high school football you should know that one thing Belfry is famous for in Eastern KY is that they aren't afraid to schedule anyone! They play Johnson Central tough every year and I seem to remember Johnson Central giving highlands all they could handle! If I'm not mistaken JC has only beaten Belfry 2 times? They may be forced to schedule a creampuff with this development but even those of us that want nothing more than to beat Belfry every year have to admit that Beflry is afraid of NOBODY! They would schedule Highlands for Homecoming and not give it a second thought. Some times smaller school don't know they are small. With all of that said I agree that the only people that would give Belfry a prayer to beat highlands this year are the Belfry fans. Those people are crazy but I respect them.:thumb:

After watching Towles play last year I remember thinking that he could play for any school in the country. He is not just big but is amazingly athletic for his size. This may be the best in-state recruit that UK has had in a while. Now if they could have gotten a certain LBer that wears #5 to come there we'd really be talking about a great in-state recruiting class.

If Jude ends up being the All-Time leader in rushing yards for KY and has two 3,000 + yard rushing seasons in a row, what justification is there for saying he's not the "best" player in Ky? Please don't get me wrong, I've watched Towles and I believe he is an exceptional athlete. Playing within the system at Highlands doesn't give you the same type of stats that he could have elsewhere but being the ALL-TIME leader in rushing yards for KY has to count for something? I haven't watched Pike so I can't comment on him. I needed to clarify that I fully understand that JJ has to have another season like last season to make this argument valid. Noone knows for sure if he can do that but if he does then this is my argument.

I believe the final score was something like 70+ birds to 40+ dawgs, but in all fairness the game wasn't really even that close. The birds coaches really substituted VERY heavy in the second half which is where LC scored most of the points. My point is that the talent on that LC team was tremendous but that is the year that it seemed that EVERY player on Highlands was a D1 or even NFL type talent. They may not have their names on the list of all time records but they have a state title and any REAL football player, fan or coach would trade stats for titles any day.

As a lawrence County fan I always find it interesting to see these numbers and realize that we had Jared Parker who was at the time the #2 all-time recieving leader in yards for a career and Michael West who is at least on the list for all-time rushing yards for a career on the same team in 98 and 99. So much talent at LC during the 90's that if it wasn't for the 99 highlands team we would have at least 1 state championship. Have I ever mentioned how much I really hated the 99 highlands team!!!!!!!!!

Eastern KY will have the Belfry / Lawrence County game back next year and for the foreseeable future with them being put in the same district. I love it! I really am looking forward to seeing who Johnson Central plays next year and if they will hook up with Lawrence County again?

I just can't see Matney leaving Johnson Central. He is building quite an impressive program and the school is bigger then Bell with resources, facilities and support that rival most any school. Hager from Sheldon Clark would be a nice choice. He's a great coach and really a good person. Brown from Rowan has done a good job and proven he has some ability but I know nothing about him personally?

I watched Dawson at JC this year and My vote is Dawson. I don't know what the actual written criteria for Mr. Football is but I've always thought it was simply THE BEST player (senior) in KY. With that being said, there is no question that if we could all hand pick an all star team from the KY seniors that most people that have watched Dawson would definitely pick him first. He's a defensive player that requires o-coordinators to actually game plan around him. Even then you can't stop him. Athletically he's got good height for his position, he's one of the fastest backers in the state, players he's hit talk about his strength, and on top of all of that he actually plays very fundamentally sound and disciplined ball. I hate that his team beat JC but he earned my respect and if I had one my vote.

To all the Highlands fans on here, congratulations! Your team did exactly what it had to do to win. The key in the game was the most fundamental of things. TACKLING... The birds just didn't miss any tackles on JJ. They played disciplined ball and stayed at home on the ends. This game I think came down to fundamentals and even the highlands fans have to admit that bad clock/timeout management put JC in a bad position late. I thought the LBers for Highlands were the most fundamentally sound I've seen this year. They had enough quickness and tackling skills to play against JC's running game. With that being said I also think that if you all go on to win the state title you need to name this "Towles Title" because his gutty performance really pulled out the big plays when Highlands needed it. This kid may not be the most accurate passer I've seen but he sure has a cannon and great size. Tell those recievers to KEEP RUNNING!!! I thought the recievers pulled up early on a couple plays that put the ball right where it should have been. He played his heart out and even being a fan of the losing team I appreciated being able to watch him play. Good luck the rest of the way. I can't believe I'm going to actually type this but I consider it part of my eating crow payment.... 20n10. Yuck that tasted bad!!!!

3rd and 8 for hhs

First down to 50 yard line

2 missed pass plays. 3rd and 10. That QB has an arm though!

Highlands ball after turnover on downs.