[Orange Blaze]

1-A is very easy to preview.  Pikeville has about a 60% probability of winning this season.  Raceland has about a 40% shot.  Everyone else has no shot.

The one thing that gives Raceland hope this year against Pikeville is the graduation of Birchfield and Hensley.  They were a disproportionate percentage of Pikeville's offensive production.  Perhaps Pikeville has others ready to step into those roles, but that's 46 touchdowns that someone else is going to have to score.  That's a lot to ask of guys who haven't been that person before.

Raceland, on the other hand, really lost no one of note other than a few line players.  This is both an advantage and a disadvantage for the Rams, because there really isn't anyone of note returning.  If this were Madden, every Raceland player would get a 70s-80s ranking with no one in the 90s and definitely no 99s.  You can't use the word "great" to describe any single Raceland player...just a lot of "good" ones.  Can you win a title with a team like that?  We will see.

For the most part I agree. I would put Lundy as a 90’s player for your Madden reference but for the most part we have a lot of good athletes but no one else really stands out.  As has been stated before, the lack of a breakout player has always been the Achilles of Raceland.

As for Pikeville, one of the overlooked things that makes them great is their ability to adapt their system to their players.  I have no doubts that they will figure out a way to replace the production lost by Birchfield and Hensley as they have done in the past when great players have graduated.  The only thing that I see slowing Pikeville down is if McNamee retires and it’s hard to imagine him walking away anytime within the next 5 years.