It is hard to put into perspective. In today’s day and time, with the emphasis on the throw game, Belfry’s Pirates won a title without even attempting a forward pass.
There aren’t statistics entered on the KHSAA website yet from Saturday afternoon’s matinée, but if Belfry threw the football we missed it. We could have missed it, but we don’t believe so.
Belfry dominated time of possession. Belfry chewed up yards on the ground, carry after carry, regardless of how crowded Paducah made its “run box” on defense.
Belfry scored on every possession. Belfry dominated on third and even fourth downs; converting on every attempt. Belfry won its 8th-Championship, 33-28, over Paducah Tilghman’s “Blue Tornado.”
Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma’am! It was just that easy.
I got a call from one of the Pirates’ most ardent fans the morning after the game. “Can you believe it?” he asked me. My response…
“Is it even possible to lose a football game rushing for nearly 500 yards as a team?”
I have seen teams throw for a country mile and still lose. Running for a country mile…that’s a horse of an altogether different color.
Isaac Dixon was unstoppable. This was news to no one; he was unstoppable when he earned the MVP of the 3A Title game two years ago (2019).
He ran for over 300-yards that night. But that team had college players all over the lineup.
That team had a senior laden OL. That team had FBS players on defense like Grayson Cook, Ben Bentley, and Brett Coleman. That team had college signees at other levels of competition like Seth Mounts and Ethan Woolford.
That team wasn’t this team. That team was coronated, this team entered the playoffs 4-6.
That team had a bunch of stars. This team had Dixon.
That isn’t to say there aren’t some superstars in waiting dotting the roster but the established, known commodity on this roster was a SB-128, fifth-year Super-senior named Isaac Dixon.
Dixon didn’t disappoint either. He carried the football 41-times. He gained 376-yards rushing and scored five (5) rushing TDs. He scored a two-pointer too, accounting for every point on the board sans one PAT.
Dixon was probably going to kick it too but his laces had come untied or something along those lines. We’re kidding.
Remember our excited, morning after caller? “Tell me, is he the best running back in Kentucky high school football?” the guy excitedly asked us.
“We don’t know what you want from us. How do you expect us to answer that?” we responded.
In our heads and hearts we were thinking that this guy just went out, in front of a livestream audience on high school’s biggest stage, and dropped close to 400-yards on a team good enough to have eliminated the classification’s top-ranked teams and earned a trip to the finals. Dixon was good enough to score five (5) rushing TDs against a defense which prominently designed a game-plan around stopping just him while everyone in the stadium, including Tilghman, was aware Dixon was getting the ball pretty much every, single snap.
“Of course he is! Duh!”
Is he “Mr. Football?” What do you think?
This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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I think he is Mr Football in the Flesh. He deserves this honor. He was the peoples choice last year.
Definitely best back in State, loaded box and still ran on them. Could have done a lot more but didn’t run him all the time