Just in case you were wondering, there is a difference between a “football prospect” and a “football player,” particularly at the high school level. There are many, high-level prospects who end up being outstanding players of the game and others, not so much. Football players perform every time, when the team needs it most. The truly sophisticated knows them when he sees them.
Sometimes the “Football Player” will have great statistics. Sometimes their statistics are rather understated.
How can that be? Well, first you have to know what the “Football Player is being coached to do.
Back in my day there was a guy on every kick coverage team who’s job it was to run down the field and hurl himself into the blockers positioned immediately in front of the returner. Those blockers were called “the wedge” and the guy who was to sacrifice his body to blow them up was called the “wedge-buster.” The wedge-buster almost never made the tackle but he acted similarly to football’s version of a “kamikaze.” He was often the reason a tackle was made and especially where.
Fullbacks today, whose primary responsibility is to lead the tailback through the first level, are another example of “Football Players” who are important but whose importance may not show up in the year-end stats. A fantastic fullback may not get 50-carries on the year, but the tailback behind him, gaining over 1,000 yards on the year, would be the first to tell you the bulldozer in front of him paved the way for his success.
Then there are the football players who do well statistically, make their teams better every Friday night, but don’t have the measurements to be a “big-time” college prospect. High School football has been built by such players. They are the “Friday night heroes” who are legends in the small towns across America which cheer them on and remember them forever.
The two football players we will feature in this article are two such players. There is a college where one or both of them would thrive and we believe either of them would find a way to contribute mightily to a football team regardless of in what division that team plays.
We don’t know where either will play on Saturdays, but both of these guys owned Friday nights in their corners of the football playing world. This article is to them, and every other “Friday night legend” whom they have come to represent, and represent so ably.
Cade Bleidt, LB, 5-10, 180-pounds; Class of 2020; Trigg County High School;
Talk about your football player’s, football player, this kid turned into the Wildcats’ most reliable and explosive rusher by year’s end even though he spent the majority of his prep career on defense. An accomplished powerlifter, Bleidt led his team with 123 tackles this year in 11 games played. Bleidt had a QB sack, a fumble recovery, and a pick-six.
Offensively, an aspect to his game he added to the repertoire over the last half or so of his senior season, he was equally stellar and important. Bleidt was 2nd on the team in rushing, carried it 68-times for 485-yards, scored 9-rushing TDs, and was second on the team with 60-points scored. Not too bad for a “defensive” player.
Basically, over the course of his high school career, when Trigg County needed a play on either side of the ball, they knew to whom to turn to get one. Yep, it was Cade Bleidt, Mr. Dependable, Mr. Friday Night.
Zach Yates, LB, 5-9, 230-pounds, Class of 2021, Logan County High School;
This publication has been a HUGE Zack Yates’ fan since his entering the lineup at Logan County, Class 4A, early in his freshman season. Zach has presided over a program going through unprecedented success over the course of his tenure. With Zach Yates in the lineup, Logan County has won 29 of the 35-games in which it has participated.
Incredibly quick, with quick-reaction and ability to read the play, Zach looks like an offensive guard flying around the second level making plays. Zach is one of the stronger and more powerful members of the 2021-class.
Yates, like Bleidt, is a defensive player. Zach led the team with 70-tackles in his 11games, 46 of which were solos, 24 of which were assists. Yates had 10-tackles behind the line, 2-QB-sacks, and an interception he returned 21-yards. Yates led the team in tackles, second in TFLs, third in sacks and all while playing on an 8-3, Class 4A football team in the same district with traditional powers, Madisonville North-Hopkins and Hopkinsville High School.
These two kids aren’t the only “football players” on rosters across Kentucky. They are a symbol, really, of the kind of players who will always make the high school game so tied to the small-town, Americana, Rockwellian experience. They are the lifeblood of the game we so cherish. They are what makes football so worth watching and so worth following.
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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