[smoke1015]

Still feels good this morning. I will be less humble and gracious than most for the next few days, especially about the schedule conversation.

A good football team is born in practice but championship teams are made with strength through adversity. The strongest steel is forged by the fires of hell. Pounded and struck repeatedly before being plunged back into the molten fire.

To continue to deny that Bell County played a schedule that hurt them last night is shortsighted. A schedule like Bell played allowed two things, a nice win total and some big stats for your star athletes. What it does not do is sharpen instincts, humble your players or force your team to actually get better. Ask KCD how their schedule prepared them for Paintsville, better yet ask Eminence (one of the winningest programs in the state since 1986) how their regular season schedule and success prepares them for a run every year. Hint they've won a single playoff game, and consistently win 8 or more games every year.

Bell County was in last night's game by the sheer determination of London Stephany and London Stephany alone. Had that kid not been on the field it would have been a worse night for Dudely than it already was. 1400 yard rusher Brandon Baker was nowhere to be found, most of Bell's designed plays failed and Stephany was able to recover and turn it into something. Bad snaps all night long that he was able to make into something, the first fumble-TD for instance. All week we heard how he would be chasing down Belfry's backs and all I saw was Issac Dixon blow right by him several times. Hunter Bailey and the defense that recorded 72 TFL on the year could get nowhere near the backfield let alone disrupt the mesh point. The Bell D line was manhandled all night long, Belfry had guys in Bells backfield all night as well credit to Stephany for avoiding most of that pressure. Peyton Hensley quietly racked up 100 yards. Belfry did what they do and rushed for over 370 yards just like they have all year because they were prepared.

In the end, the great Dudley Hilton coached a bad game. He brought an ill-prepared team to Lexington that had not faced adversity and therefore did not know how to deal with it. Poor play calling and he left 3 timeouts on the field. He made a bad decision to receive to open the game because he knew the MO all year has been score first, score fast. When things started to break down it became the London Stephany show and had he passed more out of the RPO we may be talking about a different ball game this morning.

In the end, the 3A title game was a really good football team forged in the fires of adversity vs a really good football player whose coach failed to have his team ready to support him when the easy wins of the weak scheduled regular-season ran out and it was time to step up.

Some say this game was closer than the score, I say the opposite Bell is lucky it wasn't worse.

Enjoy the crow.

One part of your comment I definitely find wrong. "Dixon blowing by Stephney"...No. Stephney was moved to corner and Haywood simply ran away from him. Or a couple of instances Stephney was trying to work around a wide receiver block and Dixon made a heck of a cut, etc.. Stephney definitely made several tackles. But once they started putting him at corner instead of safety he wasn't gonna recover to make tackles all the way across the field. By that time Dixon was getting slowed down, but still popping off 4, 7, and 15 yard runs. Dixon wasn't the only Belfry back that was tearing up yards. They ran behind their center and guard and just dominated. The rare time there wasn't a nice o line push, the backs simply ran out of tackles for 2 to 4 yard gains. Stephney was definitely the fasted kid on the field, but one man can't do everything. Luckily football is a team game.