What the heck is a Greenwood Gator and why the heck are they tearing up 5A, District-Two? @GHSGatorSports @gwgatornation @GHSGatorFball @GWoodFootball @1776Bank @minguabeefjerky @KyHighFootball @kyhighs @HLpreps @MaxPreps @PrepSpin

Gators just a few points from 7-0

If you seriously don’t know about the Greenwood Gators and the team’s steady rise to prominence in the commonwealth’s second largest football classification, then we have to wonder where you have been. Chris Seabolt departed after going 4-8 in 2017. William Howard took over in 2018, and has gone 26-23 since in one of 5A’s toughest districts. Who are the Greenwood Gators? The are a rising problem for opponents finding them dotting the schedule, that’s who!

Fletcher W. Long, KPGFootball Senior Scout

I coached for a time in the state of Tennessee. There were counties in Tennessee where, if you played a high school located in that county, you knew you were in for problems.

Rutherford, Sumner, Williamson, and Robertson were all such counties, from time to time, and for the majority of the time I hung around the Volunteer state. If the name of the school was Murfreesboro anything (Riverdale, Oakland, etc.), or Big G (Gallatin High), or Independence, or Centennial, or Springfield and/or Greenbrier High, it was likely to be a long night.

Warren County is becoming one of those types. Warren East is 7-0 and ranked this week at No. 7 in the AP weekly top ten for 4A. Warren Central has come back from off its terrible losing streak and is consistently finding the winner’s circle like in the “old days.”

Greenwood is 6-1 and ranked No. 10 in the AP weekly top ten for 5A. Bowling Green (Senior) High (tied for 3rd in the AP, weekly top 10 in 5A) and South Warren (No. 5 in the AP, weekly top 10 in 5A) have alternated as 5A state champions with BG winning in ’20 and South Warren winning last season.

Point is, the entire commonwealth of Kentucky is seeing there is quite a bit of football getting played in Warren County, Kentucky. It is fast becoming one of those counties.

Now we may have slipped in a name amongst the Warren County, tough guys for which you weren’t prepared. The name which may have startled you is Greenwood High.

Greenwood is 6-1. Greenwood is ranked 10th this week in the AP, weekly top 10 for 5A and sure to rise in the poll after the performance it rendered this past Thursday night.

The Greenwood Gators pummeled the Christian County Colonels Thursday night in Hopkinsville, Kentucky at its “Stadium of Champions,” 42-0. Football purists can easily remember a time that score would have likely been just as lopsided in the other direction.

Who are these reptilians? Who are these man-eating, cold-blooded, apex predators? To KPGFootball’s scouting staff, they are beginning to look an awfully lot like 5A title contenders seven-games into the season.

Consider the following…

Greenwood’s only loss this season was a 5-pointer (20-15) in the opener to a team (Bardstown) which is 7-0 and presently ranked 2nd in the 3A, Associated Press (AP), weekly top 10. Since then, Gator Nation has reeled off consecutive victories against Franklin-Simpson (5-2), Allen County-Scottsville, Warren Central, Logan County (6-1, ranked no. 5 in the AP, weekly top 10 for 4A), Glasgow (5-2), and Christian County.

They have done it with a balanced offensive attack. QB, Ryan Huff (’25), has passed for approaching 1,100 yards in 7-games and leads the team while also being among the leaders in 5A for passing TD’s, and passing efficiency (having yet to throw an INT on the year).

With as productive and efficient as the “throw game” has been, the running attack has yielded equally impressive numbers. Even Huff, not a runner by trade, has scored a rushing TD.

Tel Tel Long (no kinship with our own Fletcher Long, though Coach Long would love to claim him) is the club’s leading ground threat and has one of the team’s two INT’s on the year. Lofton Howard, is the team’s leading TD-maker on land and has 62-tackles, 12 TFL’s, and 4 QB-sacks, though the CCHS statistics have yet to come online which would make these numbers potentially higher. Howard leads his team with 9-rushing TDs on the year.

Colton Smith leads the ball club in QB-sacks. Going into the game with CCHS, Smith had seven (7) to rank among the leaders at the 5A level.

PK/P, Drew Smothers has demonstrated his kicking/punting skills are certainly no laughing matter (reference to the famous comedy duo in the 60’s/70’s called the “Smothers Brothers”). Smothers has converted on close to 93% of his PAT’s on the season; laugh at that.

So, the grand total of the above described production is the following: Greenwood sits at 6-1 with Bowling Green, South Warren, and Owensboro Apollo (6A, District 1) remaining. Is the party over? Can the Gators continue to flourish over such a daunting stretch?

We don’t know. It is hard to say.

BG and South Warren will be tough. That would be an unenviable stretch of games for either Frederick Douglass (5A) or St. Xavier (6A) truthfully.

Apollo is a game in which the 5A Gators might even be favored, particularly at home. Let’s say the Gators drop tight ones to BG and South Warren and beat Apollo; that puts the battle tested, hardened, Gator roster entering the playoffs 7-3. Wouldn’t that be a “tough out” for any western Kentucky 5A team?

So who are the Greenwood Gators? Probably an opponent you should think twice about scheduling in the future, if you even have a choice.

This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!

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