[Hoot Gibson]

From my outsider's perspective, Pikeville's biggest problem is it's line. I saw a lot of comments following the Johnson Central about the loss being due to a lack of effort, but what I saw was the Panthers' offensive and defensive lines getting manhandled.

Pikeville's line is good enough to win another 1A title, but the early season struggles have been the inability of Pikeville's skill players to overcome it's line getting dominated. Duty is a good quarterback, but he looked like a catcher struggling to catch knuckleballs on a windy day against JC. He did a good job just avoiding getting sacked because of bad snaps.

I didn't see all of the Belfry game but I thought the Pirates line play was the difference in the game, although Pikeville was much more competitive than they were against Johnson Central. Pikeville did a much better job containing Varney than Johnson Central did.