[16thregioner]

Raceland may be the most experienced team to ever take the field in our area. The Ram defense should be lights out considering every player on it has the equivalent of 2 full years of high school experience with a few having 3 and nearly 4 full years of experience of playing high school football.

They are facing a team in Ashland whose entire offense with the exception of a couple of players is getting their first career varsity start. Defensively, Ashland does have some experience returning but this is experience from a defense that gave up 262 yards rushing to East Carter, 394 yards passing to Russell, and 105 yards rushing to the Greenup quarterback in their last 3 regular season outings.

Put simply, this is as "David vs. Goliath" as you'll ever see in an Ashland-Raceland matchup where Raceland is actually playing the role of Goliath. They've done all the right things at Raceland as far as players taking the COVID year and holding back. Getting Lykins and Webb was icing on the cake. The only thing they haven't done right is getting their turf installed. That's a little disappointing as I would have thought they would have had the whole community out there trained in cutting and gluing numbers and hash marks round the clock to get that inaugural game played for this team. The field looks great. Whatever the case, though, Raceland is a 14 point favorite over Ashland no matter where the game is played.

There are no excuses for Raceland this year. It's state championship or bust.

As an aside, though, does Wheelersburg's field come with Ohio refs? If that's the case, expect flags any time a Kentucky team scores a long TD or hits a big play. This one could end up 0-0.