Will Charles (CA) Collins, RB, Class of 2020, be coming around full-circle?

It has been our practice at the magazine to not comment on transfers until the players are enrolled in the new school and deemed eligible for action. We have broken that general policy on one prior occasion and the proverbial “All Hell” broke loose. So it is more of a suggestion than stated policy, etched in stone around the magazine; but, it is a guideline we try to allow to “guide” our reporting.

Still transfers happen all over Kentucky every offseason and do impact the high school game and the football power-structure. It is news, big news, in high school football circles.

This offseason has been no different as two of West Virginia’s better football players have transferred into Belfry and enrolled. Before you feel like Belfry is, once more, overusing its proximity to the West Virginia state-line; know that the door swings both ways. Belfry just lost a star player from off its roster to Mingo Central.

Last year, one of the best defensive linemen in the entire commonwealth transferred from off a Class 6A powerhouse to a Class 2A private school only to transfer right back before the season’s opening kick-off. Not to belabor the point, but the transfer is part of the modern day of football in Kentucky.

Photo: John Herndon; The Anderson News

Of course, not all transfer news is created equally. The guy to the left of this paragraph, Charles (CA) Collins, 5-11, 190-pounds, has been a regular rambling man since leaving middle school. It is rumored his travels may be taking him back to where it all began for him.

Our sources are telling us Charles Collins will play his senior year back at the high school where he attended 9th grade. Collins appears set to join Coach Kyle Moore’s Breathitt County Bobcats. In so doing, Collins would certainly raise the prospects this proud football tradition will continue its rise back to prominence, though now in 2A, instead of the 3A classification.

Breathitt County rebounded from an incredible four straight seasons of 4-7, from 2014-17, with an 8-4 mark in 2018. While the 8-4 mark doesn’t approach the Bobcat teams in 2011 and 2012, both of which finished 12-1 and lost to Belfry in the Regional Championship game, it is a step in the right direction for a program which has suffered a losing season in 4 of the previous 9 campaigns.

Should the Bobcats add Charles Collins, as is rumored, it would make the Bobcats one of Class 2A’s favorites to advance as far as the Regional Championship game, in 2019, if not further. Collins may be the best pure running-backs in the 2020 class in all of Kentucky.

After attending Breathitt County his freshman year, where there is no record of his playing on the team which finished 4-7 in 2016, Collins transferred the first time to Montgomery County. There, Collins, in helping the Class 5A football team finish 10-3, gained 2,004 yards from scrimmage and scored 29 rushing TDs in 194 carries while tallying 202 points.

For his Junior year, Collins transferred to Anderson County where he was named the Class 5A, District 6, Player of the Year by the district coaches. Collins ran for 1,474 yards and 21 rushing TDs in 11 games averaging more than 11 yards per carry to lead Kentucky’s second largest classification. Collins tallied 390 yards receiving and totaled over 2,000 all-purpose yards while scoring 170 points, 16 points shy of the Anderson County High School’s record for individual scoring in a season.

Defensively, where Collins doubles at linebacker, Charles tallied 29 tackles, 2.5 TFLs, and 2 interceptions. He certainly is worth more to a team in the offensive backfield but Collins would still be a solid add if he were primarily a defensive player.

Now, we don’t know the status of the paperwork between the transferor and transferee schools. What we do know, and have firmed up with our sources, is that both Collins, and his dad (who was an assistant coach on Mark Peach’s staff), have met with the Anderson County team and bid them farewell and smooth sailing. That is why the editorial board of the magazine okayed our publishing this article at this time.

We are coming into the “Dead Period” and when July 8th gets here, on the other side, it will (basically) be football season. The landscape has changed for Breathitt County significantly as the path to the Championship berth runs through Leslie County and Beechwood, and not through Belfry High School. Breathitt has moved to Class 2A for 2019 as has Beechwood.

As many of you are picking which teams you expect to do well in your respective areas we thought this news, which impacts both the roster he is leaving and the one he is joining, would be important information for you to know. This is why you pay to subscribe to this service. #ThisIsYUBelong!

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

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About Henry Lyon 1210 Articles
Have coached at the high school and middle school level. Have worked in athletic administration. Conceal my identity to enable my candor on articles published by this magazine. Only members of the editorial board are aware of my true identity.

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