Imagine what we would all be writing about this prospect if he had played football all along instead of just the previous two years!
If there is one thing life has taught us, it is there is a reason for virtually everything. That would include football upsets at both the high school and college levels.
For instance, there is a reason Division II Kentucky State University can go on the road and beat a team the ilk of FCS, division I, Robert Morris. There is a reason the United States Military Academy can take the University of Michigan to overtime at The Big House with a roster full of prospects of whom Michigan had never heard, much less recruited.
There is a reason University of Louisiana-Monroe could take Florida State University to double-overtime before losing by a single point. There’s a reason Georgia State could go into Knoxville and embarrass the University of Tennessee in Neyland Stadium.
The reason is…these guys attempting to paint themselves as “recruiting experts” don’t really know very much. For instance, they don’t know anything about kids that haven’t been out in the summer time playing the recruiting game.
There are kids who don’t attend Rivals combines, Nike combines, adizero speed camps, or even invitation-only prospect camps put on by various colleges. There are kids out there who just let their play on Friday-night do the talking for them, if anyone is still around to listen to such things.
At first blush, one has to wonder how in the world Caden Hogg isn’t listed on every single roster of elite football prospects in Kentucky’s 2020 class. If you are a college recruiter reading this, consider it your lucky day.
Caden is a defensive end playing football at one of Kentucky’s very elite high school programs, Breathitt County High School. Caden is 6-5, 240-pounds of hard-charging defensive end with what we would call incredible length.
We have never measured his wing-span, but it is well exceeding his 77-inches of height. Our guess, it has to be over 80-inches.
Hogg has shown he can scrape down the line of scrimmage and make plays in the middle of the field or use his length and mobility to play sweeps into the boundary or make the play in the open field for little to no gain, and even a loss.
Consider this, in Breathitt’s first three games, Hogg has 20 tackles (9 solos, 11 assists) with 2 QB sacks and a whopping 10 QB pressures. He was the Defensive MVP of the Honey Bowl victory over Class 5A South Laurel (43-8).
For those of you who don’t know, a “QB pressure” is a relatively new football statistic college recruiters are becoming more and more interested in seeing. When a rush comes so furiously it makes the QB throw the ball away, throw it too early, make an errant throw, or throw an interception while being flushed from the safety of the pocket, that is now called a “pressure.”
On the year, Caden Hogg has sacked the QB twice already. On 10 other occasions, he has pressured the QB into basically waisting the play.
There is one more thing Hogg’s persistent rush of the edge is doing with increasing frequency. The 6-5 DE, with the tremendous length, is requiring the QB to actually change the trajectory of his pass attempt.
We have seen Hogg cause at least two passes to be intercepted because the Lolli-pop lob he caused gave the DB time to react, cut in front of the receiver, and pick-off the pass. Hogg does this with frightening regularity.
On the year, playing up and out of its classification two if its first three games, Breathitt’s down-three linemen, in its 3-4 base defense (Caden Hogg, William Long, Tim Spencer) have limited opposing teams to averaging around a single yard per rushing attempt.
Much of this is attributable to the DE with the prototypical FBS, power 5 frame, charging off the end of the Bobcat defense and using his frame and mobility to gain for the offense extra possessions. Much of that is attributable to a player of whom none of the other so-called “experts” has listed even a single time on its top player rankings.
Most of these guys don’t even know Caden Hogg exists. Most of Breathitt’s opponents wish they didn’t know Caden Hogg existed. They are spending lots of sleepless nights trying to figure out how to stop him.
This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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