We have begun featuring, here on KPGFootball, a weekly variety of shorter stories in one combined article about football news from around the coverage area. These articles feature snippets of information for the football enthusiasts which we consider, without a doubt, of interest to the Kentucky high school and middle school football fanatics, such as we. So, without further adieu, here we go with the News and Notes from the Gridiron…
Class of 2022’s Top Interior OL busy this Summer…
Class of 2022 offensive guard Owen LeMaster attended The Ohio State University One-Day Position Camp in Columbus, Ohio on Friday, June 8. LeMaster had attended the Lindenwood University MEGA Camp in Saint Charles, Missouri six days earlier. Each camp afforded LeMaster an opportunity to compete against various elite linemen in the 2021 and 2022 classes from across the nation. Set to take the field for the Kentucky Future Stars, LeMaster helped to lead Johnson County Middle School to the 2017 Kentucky Middle School Football Association Division I state title as an offensive guard/defensive tackle. He was a four-year starter at offensive guard for Team Kentucky squads in FBU National Championship Tournaments from 2014-2017. LeMaster previously played defensive tackle for the Team Kentucky Future Stars 7th Grade team one year ago but is expected to play along the offensive line in the 2018 game. He is headed into the Johnson Central High School football program, which has made three straight appearances in the Class 4A Finals and claimed a state championship in 2016. When a program perpetually gets to reload the roster depleted by graduation with rising freshmen like Owen LeMaster, I wonder why Johnson Central is the premier football program in its classification in Kentucky? Don’t need Scooby-Doo and the gang for this one…
Hoptown takes group to TSU/UT Knoxville Nashville Camp…
The Hoptown Tigers, a Class 4A team we expect to really make noise this year, had six players participated in a camp co-hosted by TSU and the University of Tennessee Volunteers in Nashville on the TSU campus. There were teams represented from Central Michigan, to WKU, to MTSU, to Florida State University. QB, Jay Bland continues to impress and we expect he will draw his first offer off of his performance there sometime this upcoming week. Bland, who measured 6-0.5 and had a 77 inch, wing-span, ran a 4.7 flat forty, shuttled in 4.4 seconds, broad jumped 9-7 inches (115 inches), and threw the ball very well. Bland is one of ten QBs across the Commonwealth whom was invited to Coach Stefan LeFors’ Bluegrass QB Challenge which is the 16th of June at CAL in Louisville. Class of 2021, WR Reece Jesse Jr. impressed too. Jesse stood 6-2, with a wingspan of 77.5 inches, ran a 4.87 forty in the first timed forty he has ever run in his life, and broad jumped 9-7 or 115 inches. Jesse is a name you need to write down as he will burst onto the scene this year as an outside, downfield weapon. William Long and Keone Mumford performed well and showed they are both plus athletes along the interior front. Long ran the 40 in 5.4, shuttled in 5.0 seconds, while Mumford ran a 5.6 forty and shuttled in 5.1 seconds. Both Long and Mumford broad jumped 7-9 or 93 inches and what may even made this more impressive for Mumford is he did all of this having been just recently released from last year’s, season ending ACL surgery. Erick Grubbs, a 2020 DE/TE broad jumped 8-4 (100 inches) and, maybe most incredibly, Jatorion Dillard, also coming off ACL surgery from a year ago, had a 9-2 broad jump (110 inches) and Dillard is a 5-6, 180 pound RB (2019). I didn’t get forty times on Grubbs and Dillard unfortunately but both of the athletes looked explosive, quick, and fast. Overall, with six kids attending, the Tigers were all explosive, quick, and fast and all six showed they move with the very elite at their respective positions.
Ethan Wolford watch…
Belfry’s Ethan Wolford was at Miami of Ohio this past week-end. The 6-2, 275 pound Center prospect whom we at KPGFootball know to be the top player at his position in the 2020 class and may be the best center in any class in Kentucky was back at Marshall University. I believe the Thundering Herd is going to offer this prospect and they are far from the only ones. In fact, and there is no way for me to either confirm this, but I believe the kid is holding at least one D-1 offer right now. I talk to a lot of college coaches and certain things have been intimated to me which have led me to that hypothesis. I have both Wolford and Bland (QB, Hoptown) on KPGFootball’s official offer watch. Don’t know which one will be offered first, but it won’t be much longer for either one. Oh, yeah, almost forgot, both of them are AFI-KPG Sophomore All-State Football players from a year ago.
The four prospects to the left of this paragraph are all headed to stardom on the Louisville Male Football team. We expect all four to be contributors to Male’s varsity team, with three of the four starting for the Bulldogs from day one and the fourth, Vinny Anthony. starting by playoff time. The prospects from left to right are VJ Anthony (LB, 2021), Jaylin The Boss Bross (RB/LB, 2021), Dallas Douglas (LB, 2019), and Vinny Anthony (WR, 2022). KPGFootball believes Vinny, a.k.a. Vincel Jr., to be Kentucky’s top WR prospect in the Class of 2022 and his scoring a recent invite to Top Gun, after running a FAT (fully automated timed) 4.7 second forty yard dash at the FBU Regional Camp in Nashville a week ago just solidifies our belief, at least to us. Of course, Dallas Douglass is already a star for Male’s 9-3, Class 6A team from a year ago. He tallied 69 tackles in 2017, 32 being solo tackles, with a fumble recovery for a defense which surrendered only 12.58 points a night or 151 points on the year. Playing in Kentucky’s toughest district in its largest Classification makes those numbers pretty stout.
Well, fans and enthusiasts, that’s about all from the Gridiron for now. Until we meet again, this is Fletcher Long, reporting for KPGFootball reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
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