[Coach Howard]

I appreciate the sentiment and support. I think the idea behind the split is that we are not getting all of the football players in the county out to play right now. It's causing the numbers to be low at the high school level and they want to get those numbers up. The split has already happened at the 5th/6th grade level and I do think that it will move up to the 7th/8th grade level next year having at least two different teams in the county possibly three teams. Whether this is right or wrong I can't say, I guess only time will tell. I do know that since the consolidation we have played in back to back to back championship games in the Big Sandy Conference and were fortunate enough to win one of those. I think that given the opportunity to play Belfry, Johnson Central, Perry, Hazard, Prestonsburg, New Harlan has opened our kids eyes as to what football is like in the surrounding counties and this gives our kids more confidence when they play them at the high school level.