Kentucky High School Football teams who figure to greatly improve in 2019 (This will be a series, today…Meade County & Trigg County)

History supports teams making radical and almost immediate turn-arounds in Kentucky High School football. In 2016, Logan County was 1-9 and had broken a 42-game losing streak stretching all the way back to 2012. Then in 2017, the Cougars post an 11-1 mark and spent much of the year in Class 4A’s top-five ranked teams. So don’t tell us what is or isn’t possible.

It is getting about that time of year and this is content which comprises the reason people subscribe to this on-line magazine. We are going to give you a series of teams which all finished under .500 in 2018 who will break out in Fall, 2019. Today, we will start with one in Class 6A and one in Class 3A.

Meade County High School, 2018 record 3-8; predicted 2019 record, 8-2…

At KPGFootball, we are always looking ahead. We know things the casual fan doesn’t and before it is known by the rest of the sports reporting industry (though they will shortly discover). The reason…we don’t busy ourselves reporting on anything aside from football, year round.

A team on the rise in 2019, and one about which there is already a great deal of excitement and which we expect to vastly improve this coming Fall is Class 6A, District 2, Meade County. One reason the team will vastly improve is because the team has sophomore superstars who will return in 2019 as juniors. The development realized between one’s sophomore and junior years is striking and among the largest athletic leaps an athletic will make in his life.

JJ Richardson and JT Godsey are two of the top football players in Kentucky’s Class of 2021 and seeing what these two do as Juniors will be huge to the development of the Green Wave. In fact, Meade County returns 10 offensive starters in 2019. There is an eleventh offensive guy, whose family has moved to Meade County from New Albany, Indiana, and this guy is going to make a huge difference.

Now there are all sorts of sub-500 records which don’t really tell the tale of the team’s merit. Trinity’s final mark is just one example. While Meade County was 3-8, it’s not like they were the hapless type of 3-8.

Meade County narrowly lost to Simon Kenton on August17, 29-28 and dropped a nail-biter at home to 11-1, Class 4A, District 2, Franklin-Simpson, 17-14. Simon Kenton, 10-3, lost to Scott County in the Regional Championship Game and was rated the 19th best football team regardless of classification in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Franklin-Simpson won the Class 4A State Football Championship for the second consecutive year.

Sure, Meade was 3-8 in 2018, but Meade County showed itself capable of showing up and playing remarkably even with the very best teams Kentucky high school football had to offer. Meade County did this with what should have been JV players starting for it all over the field.

Another big reason why Meade figures to be way better in 2019 comes by way of transfer. Former Team Kentucky fixture, and Class of 2021 superstar running-back, Austin Oppel, and his family, relocated to Brandenburg, Kentucky.

Austin Opel, according to his NCSA Recruiting profile is a 5-8, 180 pound member of the Class of 2021 who runs the 40 yard dash in 4.67, Short-shuttles in 4.5, bench presses 245, squats 375, and has a vertical of 23.886 inches. How did he do at New Albany Senior High School in New Albany, Indiana this past season? Well, for the Bulldogs, he gained 1,523 yards rushing from scrimmage, carried the football 262 times, averaged 5.8 yards per carry, and scored 18 rushing TDs according to the MaxPreps.com official statistics.

We aren’t sure at what level of football New Albany Senior High plays but with an enrollment, 9-12, of approximately 1,879 students, we would assume among Indiana’s largest classifications, if not THE largest classification. In any event, the addition of an All-State caliber running back to any roster lends itself to the team’s prospects improving dramatically.

Adding this 2021 superstar to what Meade County already has both in that Class and to its 2022s is enough to make KPGFootball confidently project, barring injury, Meade County has seen the last of both 3-8 records and quick exits from the KHSAA playoffs.

Trigg County High School, 2018 record 5-6; predicted 2019 record, 7-3…

One of Trigg County’s greatest additions may be on the coaching staff. In the offseason, HC Colby Lewis added veteran offensive mastermind and accomplished coordinator, Rusty Goble, to what was (already) an accomplished scoring football team (320 points scored in 11 games). Now Trigg County has to do something about the unit which game up 342 points defensively.

One of the biggest returnees will be a linebacker who led the team a year ago in tackles while only a freshman. Then-freshman, Kendric Adams, tallied 55 stops, 12 TFLs, and 5 QB sacks in route to leading a less than stellar defense which should be vastly better this year with age.

The 2nd and 3rd leading tacklers also return and they will be seniors in 2019. Jude Hunter, 52 stops, 3 TFLs, 1 QB sack, and Cade Bleidt, 51 stops, 7 TFLs, 2 QB sacks, give the Wildcats among the most productive 2nd levels of defense returning in Class 3A. Jacob Kent brings back his 11 TFLs for one more tour as does sack-master, Evron Carlson (4 QB sacks), who will only be a junior.

Maybe one of the most sure-fire indications of a team improving is the return of quality, experienced QB play. With Cameron Jordan returning, who led the Wildcats in passing (1,508 yards) and rushing (933 yards), you can add dynamic and explosive to the other two adjectives. Jordan and Henderson County High School’s former dual threat QB, Skip Patterson, share many physical and play-making characteristics.

We all saw what having Patterson did for Henderson County’s fortunes. Trigg County wins a minimum of 7 games next year, regular season and we feel we are being conservative. The Wildcats are athletic enough to win all 10 regular season games with the tilt against Paducah Tilghman being key to that being achieved.

Join us tomorrow as we talk about two more Kentucky High School teams which figure to vastly improve in 2019 over the 2018 performance. We’ll see you then…

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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