[Hoot Gibson]

Hoot, in all seriousness, if  Lynn Camp stepped out of the ring Friday night, and St. X showed up to play Pikeville instead,  what would you predict for the final score? 

Also, do you think Johnson Central would win at Pikeville?

I have pledged to stop predicting running clocks, so I will decline to answer. Pikeville has a great 1A team, and I will leave it at that.

In this game, I think Hazard should win comfortably.

Fair enough.  But you really think JC would "run the clock" on Pikeville ?

I think that Pikeville would have given JC a good game early in the season, following the loss of Carter Conley. I think that any of the top 4 teams in 4A would beat Pikeville by a comfortable margin now.

So now only higher class school improve but not the lower classes now I am not arguing that Pikeville would beat any of those schools but they wouldn’t lay down for any of them either that is a biased statement since your school is 4A

Johnson Central lost their entire OL from last season. That OL now has a full season of experience. JC also lost a running back early in the season who was averaging nearly 150 yards per game. He was replaced by a running back who started as a sophomore but had rushed only once this season when Carter Conley was injured. Johnson Central is leading the state in rushing, in all classes. Their average yardage per carry is down slightly because they lost the top lineman in the state and some other outstanding players from the OL, but I don't think that Pikeville would slow down JC's rushing game.

Nobody would expect for Pikeville to lay down for any of the 4A or larger schools, but the fact is that Pikeville lost its only two games against good teams from bigger schools. I know that they have improved since the Corbin and Covington games because their offense looked pretty bad in those two games - but it is hard to judge how much they have improved because of the quality of teams that they have beaten during their current winning streak.

I concede that JC has not played a strong schedule during their winning streak either, but they are playing the same sort of schedule that has been preparing them for the 4A finals in 6 of the past 7 seasons, so I believe that they are good enough to make it there again, but that is not to say that they will. JC will probably need to depend more on its defense this season because Grant Bingham is not out in front of the running backs creating running space for them. That being said, Johnson Central's OL is playing very well and depending on how deep JC's playoff run is, they could finish with three 1,000 yard rushers.

I really don't understand this seeming need on the part of some Pikeville fans for everybody else to believe that the Panthers are capable of beating any team in the state. They are not. Neither is JC, Corbin, Lexington Catholic, or Boyle County. Most fans are just happy to see their teams win the state title in the class in which they are competing. It's nice when you manage to beat a good team from a larger school, but that should be a bonus when it happens. From this time forward, teams will only be playing within their own classes and that is really all that matters. Prior wins and losses don't mean squat, but results of games that will never be played mean even less.