We continue on with our series on football players across Kentucky who actually play like All-Staters on Friday nights, whether they look the part or not. Sometimes the guys who look like Tarzan really play the way they look and sometimes the Tarzan look-a-likes play like Jane.
This next guy is a football player’s, football player. To KPGFootball, there can be no finer compliment. If I wanted someone to play high school football for me, at any classification of competition, it would be hard to not pick this guy here, if not first among his compatriots, certainly among the first. Allow us to state our case.
Cade Bleidt, a Class of 2020 LB/FB/RB for Trigg County High School, who is 5-10 and weighs a chiseled 180-pounds of iron, has helped lead the Wildcats to a 5-3 record over their first 8 contests playing in the 3A classification. Bleidt, coming into this his senior season was principally (for the most part) a defensive, second-level player up until present.
He has added offensive backfield duties to what is expected of him on defense and he is really shining. Why? Well, because he’s a football player!
Bleidt has gained 315 yards on only 43 carries with 7 rushing TDs while deployed offensively. Not bad for an afterthought assignment, huh? He leads his team in yards per rushing attempt (7.33), is third in number of carries from scrimmage, second in yards gained, rushing TDs scored, and points scored. Remember, this is a defensive player, primarily.
Defensively, well….he’s had a Cade Bleidt kind of year, again! He leads the team in tackles (by a country-mile) with 94 registered hits in only 8 games. He has 4 tackles for loss, a QB-sack, and the only pick-six the team has registered. He picked off a pass this year and took it 37-yards to pay-dirt.
How can he do all this? He’s not all that big. He’s not all that tall. He’s not all that lengthy. Don’t know anything about his speed or spacial quickness nor anything about his vertical explosion, other than what his lifting statistics tell me. So, how does he do it?
Well, the answer is one of the greater compliments one can pay any football player, at any level. He out works most everyone else. It is just that simple.
We saw it last offseason when he finished as the Kentucky State Runner-up in one of Kentucky’s toughest weight-classes in the State Powerlifting Championships, 175-pounds. Last year, as a junior, Bleidt, who may not look this strong to you but the bar never lies, bench pressed 270-pounds and power cleaned a cool 275 with both lifts being registered in competition.
Many coaches across the world of football believe the power clean to be one of the more accurate athletic indicators measuring explosion. When one power-cleans 100-pounds more than one weighs, one would have to fairly assume one is sufficiently explosive.
Under our previously announced criteria, it would be hard for us to imagine this kid wouldn’t be among any team’s second level, three or four (depending on scheme), regardless of to where he might (figuratively) transfer and regardless of at what classification in which the other school may compete. One thing is certain, Old Coach Lyon will take a roster crowded with Cade Bleidt-types and play anyone you wish. Just tell us where to be and when…
Reporting for KPGFootball, this is HB Lyon, reminding all of you ballers out there that #WeGotUCovered and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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