Big middle school football action already underway with big games upcoming!
We got our start at KPGFootball covering middle school football. While we have branched into covering the high school game with increasing frequency, we don’t want to stray too far from the game which spawned us, so to speak.
This was a popular segment last season and we hope it will be widely read this year too. Baseball teams refer to the minor leagues as its “Farm system” because that is where they grow the next crop of stars. Middle school football programs are the “Farm system” of high school football.
The teams that recognize that and append some importance to developing a good “feeder system” in their middle school programs flourish. The high schools who don’t, struggle and are left pondering, year in and year out, why they continue to play so poorly.
We have said many times, the KYMSFA (Kentucky Middle School Football Association) playoff brackets look eerily similar to the KHSAA (Kentucky High School Athletic Association) playoff brackets. We don’t believe in coincidence. We don’t believe the similarity is the least bit coincidental.
Without further adieu, let’s take a look at what’s shaking down on the farm…
Todd County Central MS vs. Hopkinsville Middle School…
We have said many times over Class of 2024 QB, Joshuah Keith is the top dual-threat QB in Kentucky in his graduating class. We can’t imagine what more he can do to prove us right, frankly.
The 5-9, 160-pounder started for the 15-U East All-American team in the Bret Cooper game as only a 13-year old this past January. He won the Russell Wilson Award for the outstanding QB.
He played for Team Kentucky Future Stars in the Kentucky-Tennessee Future Stars classic this summer where he led Kentucky to victory over Tennessee in the 10th-edition of the annual series. For that he won the Offensive MVP.
He attended the prestigious Appalachia Prep Combine (APC) in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia and registered both a 4.73-second, fully-automated, 40-yard dash and had the 4th quickest pro-agility shuttle (5-10-5) at the entire combine. This combine, one of the major recruiting opportunities for college prospects on the East Coast, was attended by approximately 300 of the most sought after high school upperclassmen in the region. He ran a 4.00-second shuttle there.
Now, he is quarter-backing a middle school team which has, perennially, been the area’s door-mat in football. Well, add a Joshuah Keith and you are door-mat no-more. In fact, there are people wondering if Todd isn’t in the KYMSFA, Division-3, State Championship hunt.
Yesterday, against the mighty Tigers of Hopkinsville, a team which won Region I of Division 2 in 2016 and narrowly lost in the semis (38-36) to State Champion TK Stone, TCMS ran Hoptown off the field at the Stadium of Champions, 40-6. Todd County won its first game against Webster County by a similar margin.
In the Hoptown game, Keith, offensively, accounted for over 300-yards of total offense scoring 3 TDs just with his feet. He also had an interception on defense.
The road doesn’t get any easier for the Tigers, who are 0-2 on the year, as they host Browning Springs and its battle-tested, veteran HC Tyrone Gregory. Gregory has some star power of his own, like Anias Mitchell and Team Kentucky’s Jordan Miles.
Breathitt County vs. Belfry…
This game will pit two undefeated teams against the other. We probably should mention the two don’t like each other AT ALL!
Head Couch Fudd Hays is fairly certain of two things. One, he has a team which could make a deep run in the upcoming KYMSFA playoffs. Two, a win over Belfry, in Belfry, would make quite a statement that Breathitt County is both ready and willing to come to the party.
We had someone at the Breathitt opener where they played Jenkins in Hazard, Kentucky. Breathitt beat the Cavaliers 32-0 and made it look easy, if we are being perfectly frank.
However, beating the Cavaliers and besting perennial KYMSFA, title-contender, Belfry’s Buccaneers are completely two different animals. Obviously, the Bobcats have a super-star 2024 guy firmly on the KPGFootball, MS, All-State “watch-list” named Caden Bowling. Bowling is a RB/LB, two-way star who is a threat to make the 2019 All-State team on either side of the football.
If you are looking for 2025’s to pencil in as “Top Dog” our Breathitt correspondent would recommend Kory Combs. Combs, whose dad “Shorty” was an All-American at EKU in the day, is an apple which doesn’t appear to have fallen very far from the tree. Here’s a video we were sent of him stiff arming defenders on his way to a TD run in the Jenkins game. Check that out!
Owensboro Middle School…
Speaking of 2025 “Top Dogs” our heart goes out to Owensboro Middle School’s Ethan Gough or Big E. Gough, who had a 64-yard TD-run against Bowling Green Junior High prior to getting hurt, had emergency surgery to repair brakes to both his Tibia and Fibula.
Strangely enough, Ethan’s big brother, Austin Gough, our top LB in the 2021 class of Kentucky prospects, also suffered a broken Fibula during Owensboro (Sr.) High’s second scrimmage. Both Gough brothers are excellent football players, a fact to which Coach Greg Brown would certainly attest.
We desperately want Ethan Gough back on the field playing football. Not nearly as badly as the Red Devils.
A video we obtained through one of our correspondents in Owensboro is making quite a stir. The video is of Kentucky’s top-rated offensive center in the Class of 2024, Jackson Lindsey.
Lindsey is 6-3 and weighs 295-pounds. In the video, linked above, he drives the defender into the defensive third level and deposits him into the turf in “Michael Oher” fashion. We recommend you write his name down so you aren’t Blind-Sided by his rise to football fame as word of his ability gets out across the commonwealth. See what we did there?
That is all we have for now, but we will continue to write a weekly feature about all the teams and players whose feats and exploits are sent to us. Thanks for visiting.
This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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