As we promised this morning, we had someone at South Laurel today watching the action and making notes on some of the things in which you might be interested. This may end up coming off as a random rumination, but bear with us and we promise we will relate some things to you which Mountain football fans will relish.
As for the South Laurel High School facilities, well they are second to none. As we have traveled around the commonwealth of Kentucky, and particularly around the mountains of Kentucky of late, we have seen some impressive high school football facilities. Breathitt County has some impressive digs, Pikeville’s facilities for football are both well and widely reported as being without peer. The facilities at South Laurel are second to none. From the locker room, to the stadium, to the practice field, they are really first class all the way around.
As for the Breathitt Bobcats…wow! This just wasn’t the same team we watched on Tuesday.
Breathitt won its pool, was seated second overall going into the 16-team playoff (26 teams in the field), and made it to the final 8 teams, bowing out to the Harlan County High School’s Black Bears and finishing 4-1 on the day. Lane Weddle looked more like the star we expect to see at the receiver position as he got on track today. It was easy to see he greatly benefitted from the extra targets at WR as he caught the ball well and ran great routes. No substitute for getting targets in live, game-like simulations.
Again, and to no one’s surprise, Charles Andrew Collins was scintillating and showed why he is a super-star Kentucky high school football player. Braxton O’Hara played great on both sides of the ball and showed something quite unexpected at least by us. O’Hara demonstrated he wouldn’t take any crap from off of anyone.
The Black Bears were coming off the line and rouging up the Bobcats and the Bobcats showed they were fine with getting physical if the situation was warranted. It isn’t every day you see a QB playing LB for the Seven’s defensive unit. It is rarer still to see the regular, first-string QB both suplex, then body-slam, WWE-style no-less, a Class 5A TE.
Said TE came off the line intent on physically overpowering the QB but left that confrontation unhappy with the outcome. Talk about your reversals of fortune.
Now a lot of the teams brought their centers and there were some fine centers at the Seven on Seven. For instance, Madison South brought one of Kentucky’s finest in Dane Jackson.
However, if you want to know the real reason why Breathitt’s William Long made first team all-state (though only a sophomore at the time) at the offensive center position in 2018, then you should start traveling around with the Bobcats. All you have to do is look him over and compare him to his competition. Ask some people who were there, they will tell you. It’s readily apparent. Then when you notice the difference in how they all move around, well then…that is why.
Bryce Hoskins at TE, though he is only going to be a 9th grader, is starting to look like he will be a real weapon working the second level. He looked much more comfortable slipping out into patterns and made some timely catches, especially on one or two point conversions, post-TD.
As for Leslie County…
We believe Leslie County showed today they will be heard from in the 7th district of the 2A classification. Zack Parker is a star at QB and looks really good dropping, setting up, and delivering the football. The 6-0, 160 pound, class of 2021 QB has really developed his game and he will be quite the weapon for Leslie County in 2019 especially when the three receivers, who didn’t make the trip today, are again playing with the Leslie County offense.
However, if you want to know who did show up for Leslie County, Trent Asher was unbelievable. This kid, unknown to us before today (and we are embarrassed to admit that), is one of the most dynamic, explosive, and effective down-field targets at the WR position anywhere in Kentucky high school football that we have personally seen. Asher, who is also one of the better basketball players in Kentucky, is 5-11, weighs 180-pounds, and is a total ball-hawk. Like we above intimated, Leslie County will NOT go 3-8 in 2019.
Well, anyway, there was probably lots more on which we could have reported, as there were some really fine performances. However, these performances stood out to us. Thanks for joining us and sorry this took so long to get on-line.
This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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