[nekysportsfan]

Injuries have somewhat derailed Ashland this season. They are still winning, though, because they haven’t played a very difficult schedule. 1A Raceland is the best team they’ve played and they barely beat them. Losing the guy who beat Raceland, Cade Brandt, to a broken collarbone has hurt them badly. They don’t seem to have found a way to get the ball to their best running back, Keontae Pittman, very much at all on a consistent basis. The QB Ratliff has been mediocre at best the past couple of games. They’ve lost their best DL Junior Jones again to injury along with another starting senior DE in this past week’s game. DE Ryan Bryant has been out for most of the games this year. They are having a lot of “fools gold” wins at this point over bad teams. Harlan County just won their first one this season. GW is 2-2 and pretty average this year. Ironton is on the right path but are still pretty average this year. Russell is down. If Ashland can somehow get these injured players completely healthy, then they might have a slim chance of beating Johnson Central. The fact is, though, that Johnson Central is still bigger, stronger, and faster than Ashland across the board. The game in Paintsville at the end of the season could be ugly.

As for the next few weeks, though, Boyd, East, and Greenup will beat themselves so no worries for the Tomcats. They’ll be 9-0 and ranked #1 in the AP poll going into the Johnson Central game. Unfortunately, though, I fear reality will smack them in the face at that point.