[eratia]

Wishful thinking? Ashland returns allmost all their skill players and by far the most of them will be seniors and 3 year starters. QB is a four year starter, and should be even more accurate next year, hopefully.

Defensively 8 seniors return and at least 6 started last year for the whole year and the rest started some of the time. Returning juniors are no slouches either with one all area player and another starter.

You might be right tho. What I like about it is Johnson Central and Ironton play at Putnam next year, you gotta like Ashland's chances to win at least one of those two barring injuries. Rowan loses Cross this year too, not to say that they'll be weak but that's a big loss.

Things don't look that dismal to me, what are the five teams you see beating Ashland?

Lawrence County will be a hostile environment and they will be very physical and tough to beat, Raceland is also a team that Ashland struggles with when they have inexperienced O-line as they will this year. GW is tough, Ironton is tough no matter where you play them, Rowan County is simply reloading, and the future looks bright for them. They won't roll over and play dead for the Tomcats. Johnson Central is also a very big hurdle. You couple that with there's always surprises in district, and Ashland could end up even worse than 5-5. Maybe not. I guess that's why they play the games.