Now old Coach Lyon realizes he is probably a lot older than most of you so the terminology of “the freshman fifteen” is probably a term with which many of you are unfamiliar. You see, back in the day, “the freshman fifteen” referred to the fifteen or so pounds a kid, away from home for the first extended period of time, would gain in his first year in college. The weight gain was attributed to unrestrained and unmonitored eating and consumption of beer in vast quantities.
There are football teams which will come out the other side of this dead period, put on the pads, and find out which rising freshman, across Kentucky, are going to add to the roster and maybe even start. These are KPGFootball’s 15 additions to our pantheon of high school, varsity, football stars who we believe will be added to the Friday night roster either immediately or sometime this Fall.
We aren’t saying these are, necessarily, the best freshman football players in Kentucky in the Class of 2023. We will determine that when we pick our KPGFootball Freshman All-State Team at the end of the 2019 season. We are saying we believe these fifteen to be the most necessary to the varsity’s success in 2019.
If we have the information of where a kid is attending HS, we will put that. If we don’t know where the kid will attend, we will provide his hometown. These players will not be listed in any particular order, but by position groups. Today, to break it up we will feature 8 players and we will finish up tomorrow with the final 7…
Ladies and Gentlemen, these are KPGFootball’s Freshman Fifteen…
LINEBACKERS…
Oscar “JT” Adams, 5-9, 175 pounds, LB, Christian County HS…
JT is a super-freaky athlete destined to start as a 9th grader at LB playing for one of the more storied programs in the history of the 5A classification in Christian County HS. One reason we believe he is most likely to see the opening, Friday night roster is the fact the Colonels are way down, talent-wise, from where they generally are.
JT made the All-American team in football as an 8th grader and was the Defensive MVP for the East in the game. Adams won a state championship in middle school wrestling and competed for Team Kentucky’s wrestling team garner All-American honors in his second sport. He has played on Team Kentucky future stars twice and was the Defensive MVP of the 2018 game. The son of a coach, his football IQ is off the charts.
Carson Wright, 6-0, 190 pounds, LB, Pikeville HS…
For one, Carson has been timed at 4.52-seconds in the 40-yard sprint. Before anyone dismisses the time, you should be equally aware the kid has a vertical of 34-inches and a squat of 365-pounds, with a 9’8″ broad-jump, all of which collaborates his 40-time. For those new to this site, we have many times explained the correlation between vertical explosion and running speed so use the search engine and make yourself familiar with that concept if you aren’t already.
Carson is powerful (365-squat/245-bench), explosive (34-inch vertical/116-inch broad jump), fast (4.52-40), and changes direction quickly making his ability to transition off-the-charts elite for his age, or any other if we are being honest (7.0-second L-Cone/4.10 (a.k.a. 5-10-5) short-shuttle). One of the top national publications in the game, Youth1.com, called Carson a “…[s]trong tackler and…relentless in pursuit of the ball from the Outside Linebacker position.” We would agree with that.
As for highlights, Carson’s season in 2018 was so exceptional his highlights have been bifurcated. Here are his offensive highlights should you be in a hurry and here are his season highlights but you might pop some corn as it may take a while. The chances this kid isn’t in the Pikeville HS starting lineup come its opener are roughly Zero.
DEFENSIVE BACK…
Jeremiah “J2” Monroe, 5-11, 130-pounds, Male HS…
Before you tell us freshman don’t play varsity at Male HS, we would like to bring up four names…Vinny Anthony, Jr., Elijah Manning, Jayshawn Monroe, and Selah Brown. Those four should all take a bow as the four of them were prominently in the game plan when Male played Scott County at Kroger Field to win the Class 6A Kentucky Football Championship last year.
If a freshman is good enough, even the mighty Bulldogs will play him. They want to win way worse than stand on policy.
Now, Monroe won’t start out on the varsity roster. None of the four above did with the exception of maybe Vinny Anthony; but, by the time the stretch run hits in 2019, we believe Jeremiah will be in the lineup defending the back-four.
Jeremiah “J2” Monroe was this year’s defensive MVP for Kentucky-8th Future Stars. The way Kentucky’s defense performed, that is quite a mouthful.
With the defense for Kentucky basically pitching a shut-out, being deemed the MVP is particularly special. Kentucky’s defensive MVP, Jeremiah “J2” Monroe is special.
Jeremiah is a corner/safety prospect with plenty of length as he is 5-11 now, with really long extremities, giving him both length and anatomical evidence he is likely to get significantly taller and longer. When you look at the kid, he’s basically a slender and long-necked kid, with a short trunk, and really long arms and legs. We call that “high-waisted.” “High-waisted kids,” at Jeremiah’s stage of development, aren’t close to done growing either long or tall.
Late physical developers, like Jeremiah, tend to lengthen and don’t tend to get to their full running speed until on into High School. J2 Monroe is already clipping the 40-yard dash at 4.8 seconds, which is blistering fast for his stage of development and he will steadily gain in running speed as he strengthens and conditions with the high school team.
Cade Sullivan, 5-10, 160-pounds, Somerset HS…
Cade Sullivan is a player whom we ranked in our top-20 prospects in the Kentucky Class of 2023, released last year at about this time. While we ranked him 11th, there were fans quite a bit upset he wasn’t ranked in the first ten and even some still whom believed he was the class’s very top prospect.
Cade was a Team Kentucky fixture having played both Future Stars and FBU multiple times and was one of three or four Kentuckians who garnered an invite to the FBU, Top Gun Elite Showcase. Cade was squatting more than twice his body weight (315 pounds) last year and can play both corner and strong safety.
Cade has consistently covered 40 yards in the 4.7s and also aligned in the backfield, with Korbyn Goff, in middle school. Running speed isn’t in question here.
If Cade doesn’t see the field initially as a DB, he may be the place-kicker. We are told Sullivan regularly kicked the ball inside the opposing 5 yard line in middle school at North Pulaski. Sullivan made a 38-yard field goal in live game action in 7th grade.
Sullivan, a stand-out soccer player, is excellently conditioned, like one would expect. We wrote last year we would consider Cade for the Middle School Heisman Award were there such an animal. This kid, with all the things on a football field he can do (Corner, Safety, RB, PK, Punter, etc.) maybe the easiest choice in Kentucky for a freshman who will see the field early on Friday night.
OFFENSIVE LINEMEN…
Guy Blythe, 5-11, 225-pounds, OG, Christian County HS…
One of our competitors recently said every list needs a wild-card. We don’t know whether that is true. We like wild-cards but can say for sure having one or two of them is necessarily a necessity.
Guy Blythe is our wild-card because this is a kid who hasn’t been on the camp-combine-Team Kentucky circuit at all. However, being we have covered Team Kentucky more than any other press outlet in the commonwealth, we feel particularly qualified to say Guy Blythe would have easily made the team had he but auditioned.
Guy Blythe showed the whole commonwealth, both at McCracken’s Border Brawl powerlifting competition and, again, at the Kentucky State High School Powerlifting Championships, that if he isn’t in the lineup it will have nothing to do with his being physically inadequate.
Blythe, weighed just a hair under 220 pounds (219.8) in Paducah and benched pressed 230 pounds and power-cleaned 215 pounds, though only still an eighth-grader at that time. Guy went on to the State Championships and won the middle school division in his class there with numbers similar to what he posted in Paducah.
In recently speaking with Blythe, Guy tells us he is benching 260-pounds now, power-cleaning 230, and squatting 385. What generally keeps freshman off the field are more physically imposing upperclassmen, which Christian County doesn’t have in 2019, and their not being physically ready.
Blythe is physically on par with anything he would likely face across from him. Now the question is can the staff at CCHS get him ready to play? We believe in those guys and believe they can. With the road that lies ahead, we also believe they must!
Braiden Myers, 6-2, 210-pounds, offensive center, Southwestern High School…
Now, offensive center is the hardest slot to fill along any team’s line of scrimmage. First, he has to snap the ball and any misstep in that chore is a game-changing, momentum-shifting event in a football game. Second, he has to make the run and protection calls for his line-mates. Third, and not to be discounted, he has to block what the other team puts in the zero to one technique either directly over top of him or shaded to one or the other side, just in the gap.
The gap an offensive center is responsible for, being the most direct line to the QB and the football, draws a player the defense considers it’s best and most terrifying down-lineman. Myers, with a beast across from him in Tennessee’s EJ Smith as good as most the NGs he could face in a varsity game next year, if not better, handled the snap like an all-pro and appeared to have the lanes and gaps blocked appropriately all afternoon. Myers limited most of E.J. Smith’s heroics, in the most recent Tennessee-Kentucky game to plays against the punt-protection.
Myers, whom we watched with particular interest as we know how critical the offensive line play is to the eventual outcome, performed as well or better than any center we have seen play in a good while. We have heard it said the best thing the casual fan can say about an offensive lineman’s play is “We forgot he was even out there.” The reason this is a complement is the casual fan only notices an offensive lineman when something goes terribly wrong.
We would imagine the vast majority of fans at Fortera Stadium, during the most recent Kentucky-Tennessee Future Stars’ classic forgot Myers was out there. We don’t remember a time when a huge play in the backfield was occasioned by some furious charge through the center of Kentucky’s front.
Myers who has long arms and legs and looks as though he might have additional growing to do will “fill out” and add “good weight” as he strengthens in a high school strength program. However, he’s on par with what starts at the center slot across Kentucky on Friday nights now.
Myers moves his feet well and plays with his hips sunk and over his backside and feet, lunging into bad position rarely, if ever, that we could tell. We loved his feet, lateral movement, and his aggressive punch.
His snap was instantaneous, consistent, and belt-high, arriving to the QB on a pulse. By arriving on a pulse we mean to indicate the ball arrived in the QB’s hands in time for him to do something with it before the rush had any chance to stifle the play.
This is Kentucky’s best offensive center in our opinion in his class and he will play on Friday nights. If it were our decision, and we know Southwestern is a Class 5A football team, we would rock along with him from snap-one. Just saying…
Matt Alex Ladd, 5-11, 265-pounds, offensive center/defensive lineman, Trigg County HS…
What we particularly like about Matt is he has always played at offensive center. His snap is wrote muscle memory and as constant as a sun’s setting or rising. It’s money.
We saw his ability to deliver in last summer’s Future Stars’ game where he took the majority of snaps at center in the Kentucky-Tennessee game which fell to Kentucky 31-28 in overtime. Ladd has what we would call an offensive center’s build. He’s around 5-11 inches tall with long enough arms to pull off being an inch or so undersized. He weighs in the 265 pound range.
Now in the advent of the Spread offense, which commonly employs a shotgun formation and requires a five to seven yard delivery, accomplished centers are a real commodity. The reason is defenses tend to focus a lot of pressure up the middle.
For most teams, the offensive center tends to be one of the smaller up-front players. The quickest path to a QB dropping to throw the ball or even to hand the ball to a RB is the straight line right up the gut.
So centers have to win the leverage battle while being able to dig in and powerfully explode, low to high, on any A-gap heat headed toward the backfield to wreck the play. Centers have to be powerful, explosive, strong.
Matt Alex Ladd checks all three boxes. Now we cover powerlifting as many football players we cover compete. We got to see Matt compete both at the Border Brawl in Paducah, Kentucky and at the Kentucky Powerlifting Championships.
We are unsure of what his present lifting figures are as we publish this article today. However, we were at the Border Brawl when he bench-pressed 245-pounds at that competition back during the winter. We have heard he is power cleaning 225-pounds at present while dead-lifting and back-squatting four plates (405-pounds) plus. Those are crazy figures for a kid at his stage of development.
For the just because he can lift doesn’t make him a football player crowd, whom we know are out there (and generally the parents of players as weak as puppy-pee), we have the following to relate. Ladd made last year’s Future Stars team, KPGFootball’s All-State MS team, was ranked in the top-10 of Kentucky’s Class of 2023 football players, made this year’s Future Stars team, and is projected to start for Trigg County High School this Fall as a freshman. He can play a little.
We have often told you, on this site, that 8th grade Future Stars players are practically high school varsity depth chart guys. By depth chart we mean in the two deep, many of whom are already first team by the time the game kicks-off. All good offensive fronts start with having a cornerstone at offensive center. One has to have a Man in the Middle. We think Trigg County High School has its man in the middle in rising freshman Ladd.
We have been to a few Trigg County practices and want to tell you this…they are loaded, particularly in the skills. However, that being said they could us a player or two up-front on either side of the line of scrimmage.
We have seen Ladd rep some at NG and have been very impressed with his reps there. We think Ladd, should he fail to pop the lineup at offensive center, would be a starting option at NG too. That is why we listed him at both positions.
Evan Miller, 6-2, 305 pounds, OT, Breathitt County HS…
Evan Miller, who is presently 6-2, 305 pounds, blew out his size 17 cleats at the Team Kentucky Future Stars Somerset combine. If he’s growing out of size 17 cleats, he’s not done growing and figures to get quite a bit taller. This article is about what a kid can do now and not what he is likely to grow to do later.
As for right now, look (if you will) at the picture to the left of Miller’s name. Look how long both his arms and legs look relative to his trunk. He is high-waisted, with a short trunk, and long extremities. In other words, Miller at RT is a long journey with his reach for any rush-end to circumvent.
We believe Evan will play as soon as he hits the varsity roster. For one, Evan has a frame you don’t see every day particularly not playing 2A football up in the mountains. Secondly, Breathitt County, having moved down to 2A for the 2019 season, was a 3A, District 7 football team which, in 2018, lost its first three before reeling off 8 straight W’s, but finished the year getting blown out by Bell County at home in the second round.
Breathitt graduated some valuable up-front players it will need replaced, though they will be very good at many skill positions. Kyle Moore, pretty much like any coach, could use an infusion of size, quickness, and agility like Evan Miller.
Even should Miller not start out in the front-five, he can still kick-off or even kick field-goals like his father did before him. That should fully demonstrate the type of versatility, value, and athleticism we have in Miller.
Miller has the quickness to play along the interior and get out ahead of plays and block down the filed with the athleticism to cover-up second, and even third-level, defenders with the length and mobility to protect the QB from the upfield, edge rush.
Miller played left tackle in 8th grade this past season, which should give the reader an idea about this kid’s ability. Teams put their best OL athlete at LT to protect the QB’s blind side.
At the next two levels (HS and college), we believe Miller would be excellently deployed at either guard or tackle, though we would play him at tackle. Tackles, with the frame to play there, are in critically short supply at the high school level.
Evan Miller was invited to The University of Tennessee’s prospect camp and additionally camped at both UK and U of L. He was selected for the Kentucky Future Stars earlier this month. We believe he will be ready to play when the season opens 60 or so days from now.
There you go fans, there are the first 8 of our Freshman Fifteen. Join us tomorrow as we fill-in the final 7.
This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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