Jason Perry (Class of 2024)…Has enrolled in Breathitt County High School. Will he Be the Next to Crash against Opposing D-Fronts as part Breathitt’s storied “Big Blue Wave?” (Featured Graphic: Chandler Richards, FBU)

Team Kentuckians are the elite MS football talent coming up into any varsity roster. Team Kentuckians are solid bets to put older butts on benches. These kids aren’t “normal” middle school kids, “normal” middle school football players.

These kids are bigger, these kids are stronger, these kids are faster. These kids are quicker and more agile. These kids have played considerably more football, have higher football IQs, and have been taught way more and, often, superior technique than a normal player at the same stage of development. These kids have had better coaching than your garden variety, 8th-grader rising to 9th-grade varsity roster candidate.

From the 6A classification down to 1A, Team Kentucky kids are on two-deeps and significantly improving a team’s fortunes from the first summer practice. There are too many examples of this to even enumerate. If you don’t already know this, you might not follow high school or middle school football in Kentucky closely enough to fully benefit from this site.

Average Frosh?

Take Jason Perry for instance. His pictures are above and right. In the above shot, he looks to be mixing something in a bowl which he will probably bake and eat. In the shot to the right, he looks to be ready to mix it up with you. Can you really say that kid looks like an 8th-grader?

Team Kentuckians don’t really have freshmen seasons. They enter the ninth-grade on a physical and football-IQ equivalent of at least a sophomore. Some have entered the 9th-grade practically juniors.

That is why it is huge news Jason Perry, a 6-2, 250-pound defensive stalwart, who moves well enough to have played in 8th-grade (and for Team Kentucky) at both MLB and FB, has enrolled at Breathitt County High School. Where will he play at Breathitt? Lots of football-gurus think the fastest way to get him on the field is move your sophomore (soon-to-be Junior) All-State guard, Teegan Smith, to the LT post vacant owing to Tim Spencer’s graduation and plop the freshman down beside Kentucky’s consummate HS-center, 2X, AP-first teamer, William Long.

You can also put Perry on the right side of Long, next to Sophomore (Junior-to-be) All-State RT, Connor Deaton. If you did that, you can leave Smith at guard but flip him to the left side of Long, and fill Spencer’s vacant slot with either Dillon Spencer (Tim’s little brother) or James “Swamp-Dawg” Ogans. Isn’t this a nice problem to have?

A Team-Kentucky kid slotted at OG between a pair of All-Staters along arguably the best OL in HS football anywhere in Kentucky? Yeah, that’s really fair. All-Staters up and down the line with plug-in guys possessing plus heft, athleticism, and nasty.

Then again, there is the defensive side of the football. Perry could take over the End-slot vacated with the graduation of All-State-caliber, and AP Honorable Mention, Caden Hogg.

There is even an opportunity he sees the field on both sides of the football. What doesn’t appear the least bit in question is whether he will see the field on Friday nights.

How good is Perry? Well, put it this way–good enough that we have already spilt a ton of ink on the kid. He was a feature of ours when he was about to play in the 7th-grade Team Kentucky vs. Team Tennessee Future Stars Classic. Our article about him ran on May 7, 2019.

In the article we had written about him in May of 2019, we hinted at his being a physical freak. We talked about him being between 7th and 8th-grade and already deadlifting 450-pounds and bench pressing 240. That’s right, hadn’t entered the 8th-grade yet.

On January 1, 2020, he was selected to the KPGFootball MS All-State Football Team. The link to that article is right here. We selected him as a MLB.

On January 6, 2020, in an article forecasting the rising freshmen most likely to hit the Friday night roster first, we had Jason Perry at No. 3, Kentucky-wide, in the 2024-class. Okay, Beverly (his mom) we called him a “freak” in that article but meant it in the most complimentary way imaginable, promise.

In that article, we wrote the following:

“This kid is just a freak and we could see him staying at LB next level or sliding down to NG, while seeing action at OG on offense. Guard is where fullbacks go to die in high school football when the scheme doesn’t call for a FB. He already deadlifts 450-pounds and bench presses close to 250 making him one of the more imposing specimen in the Class of 2024.”

“[He] plays FB on offense so his wheels aren’t in question. Reminds many people of Breathitt County’s William Long.”

“Kid is an absolute tank. We hear he may be headed somewhere other than Morgan County for high school (Rumors link him to Breathitt, but we don’t know for sure). Will be immediate starter wherever he lands. If he stays at Morgan County he is that team’s premier player as a frosh.”

If you would like to see who we thought were the other freshmen who will enter the lineup this coming Fall, the article is linked right here. Enjoy!

Anyway, as we get ready for what we hope will be a season in the Fall of 2020, don’t think that just because it is a dead period that there is nothing happening in the world of football. There was something which happened recently which might well change much of the 2A-classification’s landscape.

Breathitt added a big piece to its already impressive and talented roster. While this piece will be a freshman, it should be noted that this freshman is hardly the ordinary type of freshman. Far from it.

Jason Perry is a Team Kentuckian, a member of #Brotherhood. We need only to turn to recent history to view fine examples of what a Team Kentuckian can mean to any varsity lineup.

This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!

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About Henry Lyon 1210 Articles
Have coached at the high school and middle school level. Have worked in athletic administration. Conceal my identity to enable my candor on articles published by this magazine. Only members of the editorial board are aware of my true identity.

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