The pre-season is in full swing; real-thing around the corner.
Scrimmages are in full-swing around the commonwealth of Kentucky, with some being played on Friday and still others Saturday night. After the first weekend of scrimmages, we had our people from around Kentucky report in about various scrimmages around Kentucky.
The below is what we have been told from our people reporting in to us. We will start out West…
Bowling Green High School- 14 at Hopkinsville High-7…These teams met in the nightcap of a double feature, with the first scrimmage being between Logan County and Christian County (below reported).
The scrimmage ended up BGHS 14, HHS 7 and featured significant reps, divided close to equally, between the varsity and JV units. The offensive line for HHS was shaky from what we have been told and Hopkinsville was unable to run the football (at all) against a Bowling Green varsity front which isn’t ether as big or physical as Purple units of the past.
Reece Jesse was able to get loose on an 80 or so yard vertical rout where we saw, demonstrated fully, the type separation speed one would expect to see from a FBS, power 5 guy with offers from Purdue and Missouri. New center, William Hughes, rolled the first snap of the night back to the QB and it ended up a turnover. That being said, the former Team Kentucky Future Star and now sophomore in high school grew more comfortable as the night went along and his snap became less of an issue.
Hughes did some nice things in pass protection, as did his line-mates. In fact, the poor review of the O-Line only extends to its run-blocking, as the unit pass protected quite well.
QB Jay Bland, while he made some nice throws, and he has all the ability one would want at this level, has to continue to improve his decision making ability. He tried to force some throws into tight areas which were double and even triple covered and had 4 int’s on the evening in roughly around two quarters of work. HHS had seven or so turnovers on the evening. In a 4 quarter game, that will get you killed.
The defense will be the strength of the team this year in Hopkinsville as Denarius Red Barnes was completely unblock-able and ran around BGHS’s backfield all night reeking havoc. When Eric Grubbs comes back off injury, this unit is going to be hard to handle.
Logan County HS-28 at Christian County-7…
The days of Logan County being anyone’s doormat are long gone as Todd Adler continues to win in Russellville, Kentucky and regularly. The Colonel offense is non-existent. Consider this…but for a Donta Abren to Cameron Coleman 30-yard TD strike on 4th and 15, Logan County blanked the Class 5A, District 2 team the preseason CalPreps computer believes to be the 38th best football team in Kentucky, regardless of classification. We are afraid it is going to be a long year for the Colonel faithful. We don’t know how much of the scrimmage was Logan County is that good versus Christian County is that bad.
Todd County-14, Ballard Memorial-0…Todd County-14, South Fulton (TN)-0…
Consider this…Todd County is a power running team which uses play-clock and time of possession as an important emphasis in its overall offensive philosophy. The Rebels seek to run you down physically. In other words, losing to them 14-0 in a scrimmage with a 24-minute running clock is getting murdered.
Ballard Memorial is pathetic, maybe one of the worst teams in Kentucky high school football. South Fulton is bad too, but they are in Tennessee and out of our coverage area so we will spare them any criticism.
We really think Darell Keith is doing a fantastic job in Elkton, Kentucky and we will know more about that when they scrimmage both Hopkinsville and Marshall County on the 16th. However, the only thing Friday night showed with any clarity is how Ballard Memorial continues to annually decline. The Bombers (aptly named we might add) were terrible when Coach Mark Brooks got the job. Brooks hasn’t done anything, under his watch, but observe his program lose (not gain) competitiveness.
Meanwhile, in Eastern Kentucky…
Breathitt County-30, Rockcastle County-18…
We wouldn’t recommend you putting a lot of emphasis on the score here for several reasons. First, neither coach (Kyle Moore for Breathitt/Scott Parkey for Rockcastle) were going to show much more than the base package on either offense or defense. Moore’s charges were vanilla on both sides all night, Parkey showed more defensively, on his shifts and zone coverages, than he showed on offense.
For instance, as an example of what we are telling you, All-Stater Charles Andrew “Geeny” Collins had five touches. By five touches, we literally mean he touched it on offense only five times. Regardless, in five touches, he scored twice, one time on a 60-yard run from scrimmage and the other on a seam with him aligned in the slot, perfectly thrown, covering 25-yards.
All-State candidate at receiver, Brandyn Slaughter, played one play. He took off on a go-route, also called a 9-route in the route-tree; gained both immediate and easy separation from the corner and safety trying to cover him, and caught a perfectly thrown ball, in-stride, for a TD. He left the game, to never return, immediately following.
Dalton Manns scored a couple times too. Yeah, he’s the down-hill power-back. One of his TDs was a lengthy run of approximately 30-yards where he showed the ability to separate when even with a back four defender. His possessing separation-speed is an ability we might not have attributed to him prior to the scrimmage.
The offensive line, featuring two players at guard both of whom were playing in the first varsity action in which either of them had ever before played, and two tackles who were also playing their first varsity action along the offensive front, got better as the scrimmage progressed. All-State (first-team) center, William Long (Class of 2021), who has started 25-consecutive, regular season varsity games, was a stabilizing influence up-front for the young line and Breathitt gained, as the scrimmage went long, the ability to run the football more and more effectively.
Defensively, it will be much harder to run the football at the Breathitt County’s first-team defense. Long, at NG, is an immovable object right in the middle of the line.
When Long has the wind to play defense, in addition to what he brings to an offensive line, he makes it about impossible to run in the middle of the line of scrimmage. Plus his quick charge off the line into the opposing center tends to impact the exchange. He caused several high, hard-to-handle snaps and one where he caused a fumbled exchange with the QB working from under the center.
These are scrimmages where information, including score, was communicated back to us. If we missed your team, then start following us on either Twitter (@KPGFootball) or on Facebook and DM us. We are happy to cover you, if you will help us do it.
This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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