Well, we hope, at KPGFootball, everyone is enjoying our Weekly Winners segment where we comment on upcoming games and pick a winner. As for our prowess picking Winners, or picking the winner in our Hail Pikeville segment, we went 18-3 just this past week-end (October 19). Not bragging but we almost nailed the exact score in Hail Pikeville as we had Pikeville being Grundy 47-6 and the Panthers won 47-8. On the season, we are 152-33, and our seasonal win percentage is now over 82% (.82162162). This week, like last, we will detail 10 games and then pick 10 more winners under a new section we will call KPGFootball’s Other Weekly Winners. In the final week of the regular season, KPGFootball believes this to be the week we finally achieve perfection and go 20-0? Here’s how we see this week’s games heading into playoff play.
October 25, 2018…Thursday Night
Carroll County, 5-4 at Western Hills, 6-3;
Western Hills has turned it on of late and boasts the best player in Kentucky on its roster in Mr. Football Favorite, Wandele Robinson. Robinson is averaging over 10 yards a carry for 1,560 yards, through 9 games, with 25 rushing TDs. Robinson has 2,269 all-purpose yards on the year. Western Hills is 1-3 at home while undefeated on the road and this is a home game. Of course when three of your home games are against Boyle County, Lexington Catholic, and Franklin County it can be difficult to look too good in front of the home crowd. We believe Western Hills gets its second home win of the 2018 season this Thursday.
KPGFootball’s Weekly Winner: Western Hills
October 26, 2018…Friday Night
Caldwell County, 7-2 vs. Mayfield, 9-0;
No team has made any more impressive of improvement this season than Caldwell County, who has won 6 straight ball games since losing to Hoptown, 35-20, on August 31st. In fact, Caldwell’s only other loss was to another team located within the corporal limits of Hopkinsville, Kentucky as it lost in the Jerry Claiborne Bowl to Christian County, 11-6. Caldwell has beaten every team it has played outside of the two teams located in Hopkinsville and Friday night’s game is against Mayfield, a team which is computer ranked the 6th best team in Kentucky regardless of classification and the nation’s 678th best football team and also located outside of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. So Caldwell wins, right? Wrong! Mayfield will beat the almighty you-know-what out of the Tigers whether they play in Mayfield, Princeton, Hopkinsville, or on the surface of the Sun.
KPGFootball’s Weekly Winner: Mayfield
Hopkinsville, 3-6 at Greenwood, 2-7;
Believe it or not, both these teams have made the playoffs. Goes to show making the playoffs doesn’t mean what it once did. Greenwood has looming a trip to Owensboro to play a team among the most talented in the entire 5A Classification, and Hopkinsville has to travel to Bowling Green to play a Warren East team in a match-up which the Tigers can win, provided they play relatively well. One thing is for sure, neither of these teams needs to go into its road playoff game coming off a loss to a team with a losing record. Both the CalPreps.com and the MaxPreps.com computers say Hopkinsville is the better team, and somewhat decidedly, and, after all, computers are infallible, or are they?…Well, we will go with the artificial intelligence on this one.
KPGFootball’s Weekly Winner: Hopkinsville
Paducah Tilghman, 7-2 at Christian County, 4-5;
Paducah Tilghman hasn’t lost since dropping a home game to Caldwell County back on September 21st. It’s only other loss was on the road, at Mayfield, August 31st, 51-27. County has lost three of its past four games. After Paducah Tilghman at home, the Colonels will be required to go on the road, first round, and play a Bowling Green team it never beats. Although there is no way any team should ever look past the Blue Tornado, we believe this Colonel team is much more consumed with what to do in round one than what they will have to do on Friday night. The Colonels are through this year folks, and will take this bad boy of a season home with 4-7 overall mark.
KPGFootball’s Weekly Winner: Paducah Tilghman
Union County, 6-3 at Murray, 6-3;
Well, would you lookee here! Murray, a team which finished a soft 5-7 in 2017, being bounced from last year’s playoffs 40-14 in the second round by Owensboro Catholic, has emerged, through 9 games, 6-3 and ranked in the latest AP, top-10 poll for the 2A classification. Union County has been intermittently ranked on and off this season and did beat highly regarded North-Hopkins in Madisonville. These teams are similar in ability and pretty even in the grand scheme so we will take the home team in a tight contest.
KPGFootball’s Weekly Winner: Murray High School
South Warren, 9-0 at Owensboro Catholic, 7-2;
You have got to love the plunk of Owensboro Catholic scheduling teams like Class 6A Daviess County (lost, 49-26); Class 5A, Owensboro (Sr.) High (beat, 45-32); Indiana powerhouse, Evansville Memorial (Lost, 49-21); Class 5A, Owensboro Apollo (Beat 33-30); and now the 3rd best team in all of Kentucky regardless of classification, South Warren, also a Class 5A football team. A schedule like that and still 7-2. So what are the chances little David (Owensboro Catholic) can slay the mighty Goliath (South Warren). Owensboro Catholic better hope it finds a pretty lethal stone to sling at South Warren and it lands right between the eyes; otherwise, the Aces will find they have run out of aces, at least this Friday night.
KPGFootball’s Weekly Winner: South Warren
Owensboro Apollo, 5-4 at Daviess County, 5-4;
If Daviess County were the same team which beat Owensboro Catholic in August, 49-26, then this pick would be a no-brainer. As it is, these are two relatively similar teams in ability at this stage of the season and Daviess County benefits from having one of the most potent passing attacks on the western-end of Kentucky (Cambron to Tinsley) and being at home for Friday night’s game. Apollo was fairly rolling along but has slipped coming down the stretch. Apollo won its first four before losing the next four. Thank goodness last week’s opponent was lowly Marshall County. Apollo found the truth in what every other 5A, District 1 football team knows…if you are on the skids, the Marshalls are the best tonic out there to get at team back on the right track. Apollo isn’t playing the Marshalls this week…
KPGFootball’s Weekly Winner: Daviess County
Owensboro (Sr.) High, 7-2 at Henderson County Colonels, 6-3;
Owensboro, in 2018, has shown itself to be the elite team in Kentucky High School football we forecast back during the preseason. Week after week, Owensboro gets undervalued by my colleagues whom are, along with KPGFootball, among the AP media members. However, KPGFootball, which knows way more about Kentucky high school football than their combined reservoir of knowledge hasn’t undervalued Owensboro Senior at all. We know Owensboro boasts two of the best linebackers in Kentucky in Austin Gough and Trace Grenier, 5A’s best down lineman when he isn’t disqualified from playing in Diamond Glover, and two of Kentucky’s most potent offensive weapons in QB, Will Warren and Athlete, Imonte Owsley. Skip Patterson, from Henderson, as a QB is adept at passing the football (1294 passing yards and 15 TDs against 6 picks in 9 games); but his real threat to a defense is carrying the pigskin personally (115 carries, 620 yards and 10 rushing TDs). In fact, the strength of the Colonel offensive attack is running with the football where they are averaging nearly 240 yards a night. Owensboro only allows 117 yards a night rushing, so something has to give when the two meet on Friday. Owensboro has seen ground attacks as formidable as Henderson County before, namely Madisonville North-Hopkins, whom they beat the crap out of 41-13. We are taking the Red Devils here.
KPGFootball’s Weekly Winner: Owensboro (Senior) High
Kentucky Country Day, 5-4 at Waggener, 6-3;
Kentucky Country Day is a team which won 11 games in 2017 but was ravaged by graduation at season’s end. Waggener is a team which has some of the best young talent in Kentucky, including a young man named John Mudd whom we believe to be in the top three or so offensive tackles in the Class of 2021. We picked him a freshman, All-Stater, a season ago and he has performed even better this year. We are big believers, at KPGFootball, that this game (we lovingly cover) is won, principally, at the line of scrimmage. We love what the Wildcats have, upfront, and believe it too much for this Kentucky Country Day squad.
KPGFootball’s Weekly Winner: Waggener (Louisville)
Southwestern, 8-1 at Lexington Catholic, 6-3;
Hall of Fame worthy, high school coach, Larry French has gotten the Class 5A boys from Southwestern playing like the Warriors they are expected to be. Lexington Catholic is 6-3 against one of the tougher schedules in its 3A classification, already playing, this year, the likes of Boyle County, St. Francis DeSales, and Fort Thomas-Highlands. The Knights are stepping up, at home, against another tough, Class 5A, opponent when the Warriors from Somerset, KY pull into town. One thing which has been fairly demonstrated, in 2018, by the Knights from Lexington Catholic, whom have to go to Belfry, next week, and play the Pirates in the first round on Pond Creek, and that is they aren’t afraid to schedule anyone. Oh well, what is that saying? I believe it goes something like…fools rush in where Angels fear to trod.
KPGFootball’s Weekly Winner: Southwestern
KPGFootball’s Other Weekly Winners:
Meade County over Warren Central;
DeSales over Southern;
South Oldham over Shelby County;
Pikeville over Tolsia;
Johnson Central over Belfry;
Ballard over Central Hardin;
Campbellsville over Larue County;
Betsy Lane over Jenkins in the battle of the winless, hapless, and hopeless;
Elizabethtown over Glasgow; and
North Hardin over Doss.
Reporting for KPGFootball, this is Fletcher Long reminding all of you ballers out there that #WeGotUCovered and to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE.
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