[EKUAlum05]

No, I'm not trying to make an excuse. This Central team just didn't look anywhere near like this should be a championship game. They could not get out of their own way. I think they probably had more penalty yards than offensive yards. I think they ran the first 3 plays and had 3 penalties. Then by the time they cleaned that up, they had already given Belfry something they have never had when playing Central, confidence. Once a team has that, it's hard to steal it back. I think the Central bunch is young but, 3a gets tougher next year as well.

Belfry has never had a confidence issue with Central. Heck the first time they lost to them was largely in part to overconfidence. The 3rd Game everyone was predicting a running clock for Central and Belfry took them to the wire. Belfry was Belfry. If anything "gave them confidence" it was Austin Hatfield taking his first carry 39 yards and then scoring two plays later while running over top of Central defenders.

Central didn't help themselves with 1st Half penalties (2nd Half they only had one penalty if I recall...credit to Scroggins).. but at the same time I would argue that Belfry's penalties, though fewer in number, were every bit as important. Until the last drive of the game when Belfry was playing prevent Central never proved they were capable of moving the ball against Belfry. The majority of Central's penalties came stacked on top of each other in the First Half. It certainly didn't help their offensive chances, but at the same time the fact remains they could not block Belfry's DT's and Belfry's secondary was too good.

I do agree that 3A gets a lot tougher... but as I said at the start of the year..until proven otherwise the path to Bowling Green will run through Central in the West and Belfry in the East. With 8 and 7 Starters back respectively for each team 2015 will only further illustrate this point.

At the end of the day Belfry is the 3A State Champs and Paducah Tilghman didn't even make it out of the Regional Finals. I recall an old proclamation before the season where you took exception to Belfry fans saying they would win 3A and boldly proclaiming that starting this year PT would own 3A. How you like that crow Medium or Medium Well?