We remember it like it was yesterday. Our selection committee had selected Reece Jesse, Jr., to the KPGFootball Sophomore All-State Football Team at WR. We got a phone call from some angry father who believed his son had been slighted and that we had picked Jesse to the team for some nefarious reason like we knew him too well or his dad had paid us or something completely stupid.
This person practically yelled into the phone, “He only caught 14 footballs for 417 yards receiving with only one TD! How does that make him an all-State receiver?!”
We told the guy Hoptown had a converted WR throwing Jesse the football virtually the entire season. We told him the converted WR had never before played QB.
We told him, when the QB, Jay Bland, went down in the Christian County game at the first part of the season in 2018, Hoptown had to teach the converted WR how to receive a pistol snap, much less spy down-field targets in the passing game. We told him all of this, but he was undeterred.
We surrendered. After all, what’s the point?
We were never going to convince him we were right and he was never going to convince us we didn’t know anything about football or evaluating next-level football talent. Matter of fact, any of you who want to call us up and claim we don’t know a football player when we see one; don’t waste your time, you’ll never convince us either. One reason…because you are dead wrong.
We would love to talk to this guy now. We haven’t heard from him since we nominated Jesse for the AP’s All-State football team at the end of last season and voted for him to be included on the team. We wonder if old big-mouth would like to take issue with Jesse’s stats now that he has a real QB throwing him the football (Bland is back healthy, makes a big difference).
So far this season, the WR who the staffs at Purdue, Missouri, Kentucky, and several others agree with us is one of the elite receivers at his position anywhere in Kentucky, has caught 35 passes in only 4 games. He has 588 yards receiving and has gathered in 8 TD receptions. He is averaging 16.8 yards per reception and accounting for 2 TD receptions a game. He has accounted for exactly half of Hoptown’s 12 TD scored so far this season. HALF!
Any questions? Anyone want to take issue with his being an elite performer in Kentucky High School Football? What’s that…crickets?
Yeah, we thought so. Next time we try to tell you about someone being an elite player instead of calling us up and spewing some statistics to us about which you don’t know a single thing, why don’t you get out your pencil and write down the young man’s name.
If you would leave this to those of us who are experts at this, Mr. or Mrs. [insert name of obnoxious, loud-mouth, football parent here], who knows? You just might learn something.
This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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