[Panther369]

^^^i said this very thing in the preseason about Pikevilles play calling and or decision making in terms of them sinking their eggs into one basket the last several years and got laughed at. The season ended up playing out how I said it COULD. I didn’t predict it but definitely called this being a season that Raceland or Pikeville would fall. The Panthers were blessed with players like Anthony, Hensley, Pugh, Wright, Birchfield, etc that allowed them to pretty much call things however they wanted and the JIMMYS AND JOES made things happen. Not the Xs and Os. This year they had Anthony but while they had some really REALLY good atheletes at WR, they didn’t have a Hensley or a Lockhart (so), or even Estep type threat that good teams had to worry about on the outside, that was just as deadly to go to the house as a the RB. The QB play wasn’t as good as it had been in the past either. Duty was solid, showed signed of being really damn good against LCA. But it never really happened again. Pikeville has crazy talent and depth coming up maybe more than they have had in their run. That being said, they have to fix the play calling. Bc if they sink all their eggs in the Wright basket the same thing will happen to him that happened with 35. Idk why they wouldn’t bring Hensley, Stanley, or Branham from the MS To handle the offense. They had a crazy amount of talent to work with and they kept things balanced. Sure, Wright was the bell cow, but they made it so you couldn’t key on him. Idk, there’s just a lot of odd things I’ve seen coming at Pikeville for sometime now. Starting with the AD stepping down, to kids leaving other atheletic programs there. Not saying anything is “sketchy” going on there or anything like that. Maybe it’s just the ups and downs of a small school program. But this season definitely exposed some of Pikevilles issues.

I personally feel like if somebody had stepped up and fixed the play calling, and special teams, this season would’ve been a different story despite the injuries.

Injuries hurt and then they exposed the lack of good/quality play calling.

The games where somebody other than the “wannabe OC” called the plays, the panthers looked like they were contenders. Look at LCA and Boyd games. The players were more enthusiastic, the plays were less predictable, and overall they looked like a Panther team we are used to seeing. 

until the OC issues are fixed, without a stellar line, the Panthers are gonna struggle. Special teams needs to start from scratch and work their way back to the top.