Kentucky’s 2024’s most likely to hit a varsity lineup the quickest (featured photo: Brendon Miller, Bluegrass Sports Nation)…

The most important thing to do is define what KPGFootball has used as “criteria” in arriving at this distinction of why we are saying a particular player will be among the quickest of the 2024’s to find the Friday night field in 2020. When we say a player is likely to hit the field first among his classmates, we are saying this guy is a likely starter the second he hits the practice field, following “Dead Period,” as soon as this coming Fall. We believe all of these ten players will earn varsity letters in the upcoming season with most of them being starters by playoff time.

Now for all the guys who want to say, “Hey, not fair, the school where my son will play won’t play freshmen;” we would remind you that doesn’t really exist…schools who won’t play freshmen. A particular school may say that, but if your son goes out on the practice field in July of 2020 and kicks some serious behind, he will enter the lineup sometime during the 2020 season. Louisville Male won the 6A state championship in 2019 with four freshman as significant contributors by the time they played for it all.

We will highlight the first ten today and come back in with some more tomorrow. The following freshmen will start out on the varsity “travel” roster as we enter the 2020-season. Some of them will be first-snap, Friday-nighters. Here they are…

No. 1, QB- Joshuah Keith, Todd County Middle School, 5-10, 165-pounds. Keith was the KYMSFA Regional Player of the Year and quarterbacked Team Kentucky Future Stars to the win over its Tennessee counterpart this past summer in Clarksville, Tennessee on his way to winning the Offensive MVP. He is the top rated QB in Kentucky’s 2024 class of prospects and its top-rated, overall, football player. Keith is a back-to-back All-American at the QB position who has won the Russell Wilson Award and the Lamar Jackson Award at successive Bret Cooper games to go along with his Offensive MVP performance in the Tennessee-Kentucky Future Stars’ game (which is worth mentioning twice) and the KYMSFA Regional POY for 2019. He will play Class 5A football at Clinton High School outside Knoxville, Tennessee after playing for Team Kentucky Future Stars this summer. Enjoy him while you can Kentucky, we are losing him to Tennessee. Probably a snap-one, night-one starter for Clinton at QB, not easy to do at the QB position in Tennessee 5A football.

No. 2, QB- Cole Hodge, 6-1, 165-pounds, Christian Academy-Louisville. Hodge is quite a football player who is really quite an impressive athlete in a variety of sports. Both Keith and he have taken turns being considered the “best QB in the 2024-class” and now, with Keith moving to the Knoxville, Tennessee area for his high school football (Clinton HS, Clinton, Tennessee) the mantle falls to Hodge and Hodge alone. Hodge, who played at North Oldham Middle School this season, has transferred to the Christian Academy-Louisville and is already starting at guard for the varsity men’s basketball team. He hasn’t come to CAL for basketball. Get ready Centurions, this is your starting QB for the next 4-years, book that! Hodge is a fixture on Team Kentucky rosters and has been for years. Played for Team Kentucky Future Stars 7th-grade squad when still a 6th grader and rising seventh grader was the game’s Offensive MVP, that year. Like Keith, he is about to be CAL’s four-year starter at QB. In four years he will be one of the nation’s most sought after QBs. Remember where you heard this.

No. 3, MLB- Jason Perry, 6-1, 247 pounds, Morgan County. 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. 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.

No. 4, RB- Kenyatta Hardge, 5-11, 180-pounds, Caudill Middle. If you follow Team Kentucky FBU or Future Stars football this is a familiar name to you. He is also a guy who is a backfield star for a middle school team which may be the best middle school football team the commonwealth of Kentucky has ever fielded. Over his career, Hardge has gained 7,311 yards and scored 151 TDs. Enough said. Part of the famed “Thunder and Lightening” duo for the middle school which primarily feeds Madison Central. We believe both natural wonders, Brady too, may start in the backfield immediately. Hardge is the most physically ready, right now, of the two running-backs.

No. 5, DE/OLB- Hunter Griffe, 6-1, 210-pounds, Hazard. He is aptly called the “Hazard Hell-Cat” and that is both apt and appropriate. This guy was described as wholly unblock-able by the Kentucky Future Stars staff this past summer. Griffe has played for both the FBU and Future Stars versions of “Team Kentucky” and Morgan County’s Jason Perry and Hazard’s Hunter Griffe are the most physical ready for the high school game at the present time than any other “bigs” in KY. Will play early and could potentially be a night-one starer along any front or second level defense where he ends up playing in HS. Dixon’s moving over the Perry County Central has Griffe rumored to be headed there and there have been reports linking him to Breathitt County and meeting up with Caden Bowling and Jason Perry. We don’t know, he might just wait and see who gets hired at Hazard and stay there, who knows? Never good to have eighth graders like Griffe around and a coaching vacancy. With no requirement to apply for transfer under KHSAA by-law 6, how does one say, “Open season?”

No. 6, OL/DL/LB- Rylan Rhodes, 5-10, 220 pounds, Caudill Middle. Rhodes is considered part of Caudill’s big four, or their four very best players on a team which may be the best MS team the commonwealth of Kentucky has ever seen play. Rhodes at 220-pounds is what we call a “Jumbo Athlete” particularly at this stage of development. Also a star in basketball, Rhodes hasn’t been out on the combine circuit but this is a kid we badly need playing for Kentucky Future Stars this summer. He has played for the Team Kentucky FBU team and athletes with his size, frame, and athleticism find the field early in high school regardless of the school attended.

No. 7, OL- Jak Lindsey, 6-3, 290-pounds, Owensboro Middle School. Lindsey is just another name to add to the diadem of stars playing who have played in the country’s most prestigious middle school football game, hailing from Owensboro, Kentucky. He played center and nose-guard for Coach Brown for OMS with his deployment at center being out of necessity owing to his being the only front guy this year who could snap the football with any consistency. This kid is a Bret Cooper All-American and is a big frame guy with impressive size and length who looks like he will get even bigger as he matures. Lindsey moves well, has explosive power steps, good hand placement, and plays with good leverage for a big-man at his stage of development. If he continues to play offensive center, this is a kid who could break the lineup at Owensboro Senior High pretty early in his freshman campaign.

No. 8, RB- Brady Hensley, 5-10, 165-pounds, Caudill Middle. The other half of the best backfield in KYMSFA football, Hensley isn’t quite the specimen Hardge is but one can’t argue with his production. Hensley, over the course of his MS career has compiled 7,234 yards and scored 153-TDs. The other part of the famed “Thunder and Lightening” backfield.

No.9, Jordan Miles, 5-11, 165-pounds, Trigg County Middle School. This kid played in 7th grade for Browning Springs which feeds into Madisonville North-Hopkins primarily. North-Hopkins is a 4A, first district power which just graduated a ton of talent from off its semi-final ball-club. He played his 8th grade season at Trigg and should Miles attend Trigg County (3A) he should move up this list as he is sure to be in the snap-one, varsity lineup owing to Trigg not being very good. Miles is an eighth grade kid who is one of Trigg County High School’s highest average scorers on its men’s varsity basketball team, right now. This kid played QB at Trigg this season, and Trigg just graduated a dual-threat QB who is enrolling to play collegiately at the Naval Academy (Cam Jordan), but that was mostly owing to the desire to have the best athlete touch the football every play, a common strategy in middle school football. He may well end up a QB in high school, he can sling-it. However, he projects to WR on the college level. This kid is one of 2024’s best pure athletes and has made both Team Kentuckys, FBU and Future Stars. He is a fixture on any Team Kentucky roster at the commonwealth-level. The rumor on him is he may be headed back to Madisonville.

No. 10, RB- Caden Bowling, 5-9, 165-pounds, Breathitt County. Caden has been hitting the offseason weight program with a flourish and has already put on 15 or so pounds of muscle. Sounds like a kid who realizes Breathitt County has Class 2A’s best offensive line and lost its entire cadre of RBs to graduation. Can we say opportunity knocking? We don’t know that Bowling will be an every down back for the Bobcats in 2020, as Breathitt is loaded with capable athletes (Braxton O’Hara, Lane Weddle), but we would be willing to bet Bowling earns a variety letter. Caden made the KYMSFA’s All-Region team. He is a North/South guy and wastes very little time running to the sideline. His star shines brightly at one of Kentucky’s premier football programs. They love their football on the Riverbank. They also already love Cade Bowling.

This was certainly fun and we will come back in tomorrow and feature some more of 2024’s top talent in the Bluegrass with additional talent who fit the above bill and description we set forth. Join us 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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  1. 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) – Kentuc

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