[Oledad92]

When I played high school football our cross county rivals was a much bigger school that had almost 4 times the enrollment we did and yes they beat us most of the time and sometimes really bad  but being the small school when we did win it was great. The whole community looked foward to this game every year and there was  over 5,000 fans at this game every season. Manny years we played over our head and kept it close when we had no business in the game. To me there is nothing like county rivalries and even if you lose every season it will make it so sweet when you do win one.Painstville would have as good as shot as any mountain beating Johnson Central this year

Paintsville would have as good of a shot as any mountain school I agree. The only problem is there ain't one to beat 'em
  
Idk what y'all are putting in your cornbread over there to give these eagles super powers but its working.

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Johnson gonna have to travel out of the hills and hollers to be challenged.

That is the truth!

[zaga_fan]

I'll go ahead and put my two cents in here.

I was wondering why a game this lopsided has a two-page thread, but I see there's some folks in here just shooting off about stuff.

But anyway, I'll sum up my thoughts.

On the game in general:
Johnson Central is a powerhouse and Perry Central can't really compete with them right now. Perry scored first against the second string at 35-0, made another big play against the subs, Matney called a TO to put some starters back in and forced a field goal, JC got the running clock going in the second quarter, Commodores returned a kick for a TD and JC scored at the very end of the half. Second half was all JV and Perry scored on a TD pass from the punter after a bad snap (I would imagine there were ineligible guys downfield but it was a busted play and no one threw a flag). JC scored at will on offense and returned an interception for a TD as time expired. A considerable amount of points on the board (in comparison to other JC defensive performances this year) for the Commodores but I guess that happens when you put up 75 points.

On the state of Perry Central football:
I don't think lack of support or bad coaching is something you can point out as an issue for the Commodores.
They took a shot on a young Jordan Amis at coach in 2014, but most everyone else is great and you have a ton of playoff wins and some rings between those coaches.
2010-2013 | Justin Haddix
2014 | Jordan Amis
2015-2017 | Tom Larkey
2018-2019 | Ovie Canady
2020 | Mark Dixon

I talked to Coach Matney for a little bit at the middle school game between JC and Perry just a couple weeks ago. The middle school plays Paintsville tomorrow and Breathitt Thursday. They aren't dodging anyone right now, but you could make the argument the schedule hasn't always been this tough.

As far as the administration, they've invested in one of the best football facilities you can find in Eastern Kentucky or anywhere. There's a new weightlifting program and they've expanded the facilities inside the school as well since the campus is a short drive That being said... what's the problem?

You can look at the roster over the last several years and it would tell you the story. Perry Central has been a 5A school with 1A or 2A numbers on the sidelines.
There have been some some freak athletes that chose not to put on pads and play.
There have been middle school students who chose to compete in the playoffs with Hazard or Breathitt rather than try to build something at Perry.
Dixon has got the numbers up and they had a big 8th grade night for the middle school this year with a ton of players that look to feed into their program instead of a school down or up the road.
Kids aren't playing both ways and there's a lot of young talent on the field. It may be a few years until you see a real change in the wins and losses, but I don't think you can say they aren't doing the right things to get the program moving.

[Hoot Gibson]

I'll go ahead and put my two cents in here.

I was wondering why a game this lopsided has a two-page thread, but I see there's some folks in here just shooting off about stuff.

But anyway, I'll sum up my thoughts.

On the game in general:
Johnson Central is a powerhouse and Perry Central can't really compete with them right now. Perry scored first against the second string at 35-0, made another big play against the subs, Matney called a TO to put some starters back in and forced a field goal, JC got the running clock going in the second quarter, Commodores returned a kick for a TD and JC scored at the very end of the half. Second half was all JV and Perry scored on a TD pass from the punter after a bad snap (I would imagine there were ineligible guys downfield but it was a busted play and no one threw a flag). JC scored at will on offense and returned an interception for a TD as time expired. A considerable amount of points on the board (in comparison to other JC defensive performances this year) for the Commodores but I guess that happens when you put up 75 points.

On the state of Perry Central football:
I don't think lack of support or bad coaching is something you can point out as an issue for the Commodores.
They took a shot on a young Jordan Amis at coach in 2014, but most everyone else is great and you have a ton of playoff wins and some rings between those coaches.
2010-2013 | Justin Haddix
2014 | Jordan Amis
2015-2017 | Tom Larkey
2018-2019 | Ovie Canady
2020 | Mark Dixon

I talked to Coach Matney for a little bit at the middle school game between JC and Perry just a couple weeks ago. The middle school plays Paintsville tomorrow and Breathitt Thursday. They aren't dodging anyone right now, but you could make the argument the schedule hasn't always been this tough.

As far as the administration, they've invested in one of the best football facilities you can find in Eastern Kentucky or anywhere. There's a new weightlifting program and they've expanded the facilities inside the school as well since the campus is a short drive That being said... what's the problem?

You can look at the roster over the last several years and it would tell you the story. Perry Central has been a 5A school with 1A or 2A numbers on the sidelines.
There have been some some freak athletes that chose not to put on pads and play.
There have been middle school students who chose to compete in the playoffs with Hazard or Breathitt rather than try to build something at Perry.
Dixon has got the numbers up and they had a big 8th grade night for the middle school this year with a ton of players that look to feed into their program instead of a school down or up the road.
Kids aren't playing both ways and there's a lot of young talent on the field. It may be a few years until you see a real change in the wins and losses, but I don't think you can say they aren't doing the right things to get the program moving.

My comments about the overall shortage of quality high school football coaches in the Commonwealth of Kentucky were not directed at Perry County Central's current coaching staff but Perry County Central's football program has suffered from the same kind of ineptitude in past years that Johnson Central suffered through for many years. If Mark Dixon stays at PCC for an extended period and receives the kind of support from the district administrators and community that both Bill Musick and Jim Matney have received at Johnson Central, I have no doubt that PCC will build a program that will be competitive with JC - but that is a big IF for a program with PCC's history. It takes time and continuity for coaching staffs to build competitive football programs. 

That being said, I think that it is an indisputable fact that the overall quality of high school football coaching in Kentucky does not measure up to the coaching talent in most southern and midwestern states. The evidence for my statement can be found in the number of blowout wins by a handful of schools in both the regular season and playoff games every year. Every state has its powerhouse football programs but top teams in states like Indiana and Ohio face better competition from teams representing schools with comparable sized enrollments than top teams in Kentucky do. 

1A teams like Paintsville and Hazard should not be able to field better football teams consistently than much larger 4A/5A schools like Perry County Central and Johnson Central. Historically, the reason that Hazard and Paintsville have been able to dominate their much larger rivals has been that the larger programs were poorly managed for many years. Hopefully, both Perry County Central and Johnson Central are both on the right track to field football teams that will be competitive with schools their own size and will stay on the right track. JC fans saw what can happen when a district makes a couple of bad hires. The quality of JC's varsity football program took a nosedive when Bill Musick left. Fortunately, the strong foundation that Musick helped build was still there when Coach Matney came to JC.

I would like to see JC playing in the most competitive 4A district and region in the state. Running clock games do not help teams build strong football programs. Nor do they help develop football talent.

I hope that JC supporters never forget that their football program is and will always be one bad hire away from mediocrity and not grow arrogant and complacent from all of the recent success that the program has produced. I appreciate the dedication that Jim Matney and all of the football coaches on his staff, as well as those at the Johnson County elementary schools and Johnson County Middle School have brought to Johnson Central's football program. It would be great if every team in Kentucky had similar systems in place. Ultimately, what is important is raising the overall level of competition in Kentucky because that is what builds character and creates better opportunities for student athletes to succeed in life.