[wooderson]

Wooderson I would like to here a comparsion of the 85' 86' Belfry teams and the recent state Championship teams. I do know that the 85' 86' teams had over 100 Kids dressed and they had some huge Guys too. On a different note, here is a good example of how much talent JCHS has wasted over the years in 1986 they took there Freshmen team up to Pikeville for a JV game and Honaker and Deramus both played the whole game but JCHS won. That same Freshmen team smashed Breathitt Co and everyone they played. That Freshmen team went undefeated, well to make a long story short, 3 or 4 guys from that Freshmen team transferred and 5 or 6 others didn't even play football 2 year later. People think Matney is such a great coach for turning JCHS around but they have always been loaded with talent and huge numbers of kids. Politics and other problems have kept that school down. The classes he has had since he has been there have been average. He has 4 loaded classes coming up in the next 4 years.

Ok here's my take on some of Belfry's best teams including the '85 and '86 teams. The '85 team was loaded but probably surprised a lot of Belfry fans by getting as far as they did. Many thought '86 would be the year they would be mature and good enough to make a run at the title. '85 was probably anchored by an incredible defense including Cook, Johnson, Stepp, Castle, Keenan and many more great defense players. They started a junior QB who would go on to become arguably the best QB of all time at BHS. There playoff run was epic, a hard fought road win over Clay Co. who was lead by a Pennington kid who was all-state QB. Belfry had to win this game without their starting QB who was out with a knee injury and Todd Castle stepped in admirably to lead them to a narrow 7-6 win (I believe). They then traveled North to Newport to the second coldest Belfry game Ive ever witnessed. Brutally cold on the river and still having an ailing starting QB and their best linebacker playing sick pulled off another tough road win. The state championship game was there for the taking all game long but the Pirates couldnt get over the hump and a late interception by Francisco sealed their fate against Paducah 26-14. The '85 team was good but lacked athleticism it would have taken to beat the '87 Pikeville team.

The '86 team was supposed to be the ONE. Loaded everywhere with senior leadership and an abundance of youth with talent. Still led by their now senior QB and another great defense(led by Chan Marcum, two young stud LB and the Lunatic Fringe) but surprisingly a sophomore RB (Mikey Scott) became the home run hitter they needed to find. Pretty easy 1st playoff game I believe against Leslie Co. which preceded the game that any Belfry fan can talk about for hours. Also the one that Danville fans can complain about for hours due to unforeseen weather conditions. Danville was probably the favorite to win it all, full of speed but being on the road. Belfry was smashmouth and would grind it out on long possessions to keep the speedy Admirals off the field. In what turned out to be THE DRIVE, Belfry took it around 90 yards eating up almost all of the 4th quarter clock to pull out the win 21-14. Let me say as a bystander at that game that it seemed Doug "Devil" Webb may have carried the ball 15+ times on that last drive (all while supposedly being hungover). Belfry went on to the state championship where the offense decided to stay home in Pike Co. and again lost 14-0 to Owensboro. The '86, IMO, is the one closest to the '87 Panthers but again they would fall short in a matchup of the '87 Panthers. Too many weapons on that Pikeville team for any team to stop.

Sorry for the long story but it was some great memories as a teenager. Some other teams that may be ranked highly in Belfry lore is without a doubt the '79 team who beat Highlands at the Fort in the famous break away jersey game and went on to finish state runner up. The '89 team is top 3 in my opinion, started 1-3 and turned it around by stopping Pikeville's 33 game win streak and came a foot from beating Highlands in the semis and without a doubt going on to win Belfry's first championship. Obviously the '03 and '04 are up there with the '04 being a tad better due to the extra year of maturity for the backfield tandem of Jones and Howard.
I would rank them
1. '86
2. '04
3. '89
4. '03
5. '79
6. '85
And yet none of these teams were really even close to the athleticism, strength or size of that '87 Panther team.