We have wandered through the abyss that is the KHSAA “Dead Period” and into now the second day of real preparation for the 2019 season. While June practices are volitional, there is nothing volitional about July. We will be hard at it all the way up and to the August openers.
This is our second installment of a three part series where we will (boldly, we might add) predict each and every district winner before the season even begins. Today, we will pick the district winners from Classes 4 and 3A. Enjoy the series and join us tomorrow for Classes 2A and 1A.
We thought it would be fun to predict the respective district champions for all 6 Kentucky classifications, at the end of the year, we’ll see how we did…
Class 4A…
District One…
Frankly, the Hoptown Tigers have (traditionally) owned this district. Well, as the late David Bowie use to sing in his hit song Changes, maybe it is time for all of us to…turn and face the strange. How many seasons is Hoptown going to finish under .500 with the largest high school enrollment in Kentucky’s 4A classification? The Tigers boast talent on the roster which is second to none. WR, Reece Jesse, Jr., is sporting several D-1 offers to include FBS, Power 5 and both Eric “Fat-Daddy” Grubbs and Denarius “Red” Barnes are All-State caliber. Safety/LB hybrid Jaxon Davis and QB, Jay Bland are both solid All-conference players. The real heavyweight is Madisonville North-Hopkins. Madisonville, last year, lost a nail-biter, 12-10, to eventual champion Franklin-Simpson in the Region Finals. The Maroons, with what is the best group of linemen in the commonwealth (Blake Moody, Jordan Vaughn, and Dru Flener) are a down-hill freight train, with no brakes, behind the running of Jariah Hightower. If the Maroons face a contender, it won’t be the Tigers, but rather, the Cougars from Russellville’s Logan County High School. HC Todd Adler lost quite a lot when Cade McGinnis took his game to Clarksville, Tennessee to play Division I, college football but Zach Yates (LB), Gary Hardy (RB), and Tyler Ezell (QB) will insure there is plenty of talent left to be quite formidable. This district is a Madisonville-Logan County two-man race which we believe the Maroons will win. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Madisonville-North Hopkins.
District Two…
Franklin-Simpson will win this district as surely as the sun will rise each and every morning. The question in District Two is always who will get seeds 2-4, and who gets to go home after game ten. Warren East has been solid since Coach Jeff Griffith came on board and Allen County-Scottsville is usually battling it our with Warren East for the 2nd seed. Warren Central and how good they will be or won’t be is the wild card. Yes, we are aware Warren East has lost 35 straight games but it wasn’t too long ago they were a real contender and the talent to win is walking the hallways. If new head coach, Cary Fowler, who has 23-years of coaching college football on his résumé, gets some of the basket-ballers to play, this team could be in for an immediate turn in fortunes. If not, they will be 0-10 with Knute Rockne coaching them. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Franklin-Simpson.
District Three…
John Hardin is the heavyweight in this District usually but it was Robert Reeder’s Moore Mustangs laying down the law in 2018, going 11-2. Moore was a mere 6 points (losing the Regional Championship to Taylor County 27-22) from punching its ticket to the Semis. There were 18 seniors on the 2018 roster including leading rusher (Larry Johnson) but Rae Von Vaden, a talented 2020-QB (21 TDs thrown against 5 interceptions), returns in 2019. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Moore High School.
District Four…
This is the district which had Class 3A’s State Football Champion, Louisville Central, join. That would have otherwise cleared the way for Waggener, who was in Central’s district last year, except for Waggener moving up, along with Central, and opting to remain a district foe. Waggener was 8-4 last season and boasts some of the best talent in Kentucky to include one of 2021’s premier tackles in Big John Mudd. Franklin County, who was 10-3 a year ago, will be in a battle to finish 2nd in the District, one that was all theirs just last year. Franklin’s star QB, and one of the best in Kentucky’s 2021 graduating class, Nick Broyles will be back and he completed 202 of his 326 passing attempts in 2018 for 2,796 yards passing and 25 TDs against 8 interceptions. In what will be the most top-heavy district in 4A, KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Central.
District Five…
Anderson County finished 10-0 in the regular season a year ago in Class 5A, District 6 only to drop its first-round game to Highlands, 14-10. Kentucky’s premier DE (our opinion) Darrian Dearinger is back for his junior season already sporting FBS offers. However RB, Charles Andrew Collins has transferred back home to the mountains and will take his production with him (In 2018, he had 131 carries for 1,474 yards and 21 rushing TDs; caught 16 passes for 390 yards and 6 TDs receiving; scored 170 points). Getting Zach Labhart back will help. Bourbon County has a new coach and a good QB in Jake Broughton and little else. Lexington Catholic has the premier QB in the commonwealth in Beau Allen, a Mr. Football candidate, and Boyle County has a roster which looks like a high school all-star team with players like Reed Lanter and Kentucky’s very best, pure-athlete and football player and another Mr. Football candidate, in Reese Smith. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Boyle County.
District Six…
This district appears to be a horse versus eagle ace. Harrison County (The Thoroughbreads) and Scott County (The Eagles) will battle it out for top honors. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Harrison County.
District Seven…
When all the 3A teams come up and whip the crap out of their Class 4A counterparts you are going to learn an ugly Kentucky truth. Class 4A, in 2018, was the most winnable classification in Kentucky football with the fewest number of contenders. In 2018, it was Franklin-Simpson, Johnson Central, and (maybe) Madisonville North-Hopkins and the rest of the classification was pedestrian at best. Boy has the realignment fixed this. Corbin, another 3A powerhouse, has come up in class and will be the “class of this class[ification]” like they were in the one below. Justin Haddix has many weapons returning from a 13-2, state finalist squad. Treyveon Longmire is going to be a sophomore and he is already being ballyhooed as one of Kentucky’s very best football players. He made the KPGFootball All-State freshman team a year ago and two-time KPGFootball All-Stater (2017 & 2018) Logan Smith is rounding into one of Kentucky’s finest O-linemen regardless of graduating class. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Corbin.
District Eight…
Johnson Central has always just had their way with this district and why not? You have young bigs like sophomore to be Owen LeMaster at guard and senior-to-be Andrew Clifton who is a mauler at both center and DT and any team is going to be pretty good. The Johnson Central train will keep chugging on down the line in spite of the district getting some added talent from Class 5A in Coach Ovie Canady’s Perry County Central bunch. Noah Canady, at LB, is as good of a second-level defender as you will see anywhere in the classification. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Johnson Central.
Class 3A…
District One…
This will be a very top-heavy and hotly contested district. Paducah Tilghman, 9-3 a year ago, looks to be back. Union County is always a “tough-out” as the Braves were 7-4 in 2018. Union County did go on the road and give the Maroons, from Madisonville North-Hopkins, one of its three losses and the only one suffered in Madisonville. Trigg County, though 5-6 in 2018, looks to make the largest leap from 2018-2019. Foremost, we like the Wildcats because they added a rugged veteran O-coordinator to the staff in Rusty Goble and a super-star defensive coach and strength and conditioning guy in Adam Dowland. Secondly, Trigg has the premier dual-threat QB in Kentucky’s Class of 2020 in Navy commitment Cam Jordan. Trigg also sports D-I caliber talent in rising sophomore LB Kendric Adams. When you throw Adams in with LB Cade Bleidt and toss 2020 NG Ty Meacham into the mix, you have a defense which will be greatly improved over the 2018 edition. Getting back multi-purpose threat, Tayshaun Barker, shouldn’t hurt either the offense or the special teams. In sort of an upset here, KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Trigg County.
District Two…
Glasgow was 11-2 a year ago but has been reclassified from 2A to 3A. Taylor County was 4A a year ago and was 12-2 and a 4A State semi-finalist. Taylor County has been reclassified down to 3A from a year ago. One would have to think the district champions would be one of these two teams. Logan Parker from Taylor County has the ability to take over a game as a DE and is more than passable at FB when on offense. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Taylor County.
District Three…
Elizabethtown has almost always won its district. Matter of fact, E-Town has historically had its way with the classification on its end of Kentucky. The Panthers have one of Kentucky’s best passing tandems in Clay Games to Camden Williams. Now E-Town is in the same district with a LaRue team which beat them last season in round two. In addition to Games to Williams, the Panthers have Joseph Becherer returning in the backfield. As a junior, Becherer gained 1,332 yards in 128 carries with 14 rushing TDs in his 13 games of action. E-Town was 8-5 in 2018 and that is considered a tough year for that program. LaRue will be difficult again but we will go with the Panthers here. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is E-Town.
District Four…
Man, if you were cruising along in this district last year and saw the KHSAA add both DeSales and CAL from 2A to the district, you must have been devastated. The Christian Academy-Louisville won two of the previous three 2A State Football Championships and have John Young and Matthew Mauzy returning up front, with the Babins back in the backfield. Brandt Babin is considered one of Kentucky’s top RBs, especially in the 2021 class, and his brother Braeden, a FB/LB/NG, maybe the better of the two as a football player. At the very least, with everything Braeden Babin can do for a team from lead blocking to LB to being a gapping, lightening quick, and un-block-able NG, we might pick Braeden (were we picking teams) before even his twin brother, Brandt. CAL was 15-0 last season and dominated Mayfield in the State Championship game way worse than the 8-point margin reflected. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is CAL.
District Five…
Dudley Hilton’s Cats are tough, tough, tough. Their only two losses last year were both to Corbin. There is no crime in not being able to overcome Corbin, if there is, there are lots of teams across Kentucky guilty of it. Bell County should win this district without too much drama. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Bell County.
District Six…
Coach Joshua Kincaid’s Pirates were 9-3 a year ago and put out of the KHSAA playoffs rather rudely by, you guessed it, Corbin, and in round two. Both Nathan Skidmore (RB) and Austin Trent (RB) have exhausted their eligibilities which is going to make for a tough situation considering the Pirates don’t throw the ball either often or effectively. One would have to think the main challenge for supremacy would be posed by either Fleming or Lewis Counties. While Powell County has lost quite a bit, they haven’t lost enough to not win the Sixth District. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Powell County.
District Seven…
Ashland Blazer joins Class 3A, down from 4A, where they finished 11-2 in 2018 and spent almost the entire season in the top 10 of the classification’s AP-rankings. Blake Hester, along with his back-field mates from a year ago, Braxton Ratliff and Aroq Colburn, accounted for over 80% of the Tomcats total ground production with their combined 2,525 yards. Hester, who was just a sophomore, gained 773 of the yards in 120 carries and scored 6 TDs carrying the football. Hester averaged, a year ago, 6.44 yards a carry. Blake also caught 14 passes for 150 yards for another 2 TDs and tallied his 9th touchdown of the year on special teams. Ashland Blazer will be tough again in 2019 especially in the 3A classification. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Ashland Blazer.
District Eight…
We are going to go ahead and tell you this district sports the likely Class 3A-State Football Champion. They have the best interior offensive lineman in Kentucky’s 2020 class in Ethan Wolford, already committed to play college football on a full-ride. They have the best LB in the 2020 class in Grayson Cook, who will announce where he will play in college tomorrow (our prediction, The Air Force Academy). They have one of the most dynamic athletes and play-makers on both sides of the football in the Class of 2021 in Isaac Dixon and one of 2021’s best LBs in Seth Mounts. We really don’t know what Belfry lacks, aside from a legitimate passing attack and they have addressed that in securing a QB transfer from West Virginia. Belfry will run the clock this year during every single district game and won’t face a legitimate challenge until the Semis. KPGFootball’s predicted district champion is Belfry High School.
There it is folks, the 4A and 3A classifications broken down for you. Join us tomorrow as we feature the 2A and 1A classifications.
This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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