[PHSFAN]

The unfortuante thing for Paintsville is that they play Pikeville at the end of the regular season. Pikeville will start out slow because they may play possibly the toughest non-district schedule of any class A team in the state. With Pburg, NCC, Corbin, and Belfry in the first 5 weeks Pikeville could very easily have a losing record going into district play. The good thing for Pikeville is that those losses won't matter and will only make them a better team. Sure Paintsville returns more starters but Pikeville is a larger school with more depth and they will reload with new players like they do every season. Pikeville is #5 in the(the other websites)class A rankings and Lynn Camp is #8 I believe. Paintsville is not ranked but presaon rankings don't mean much. Go ahead a write it down because I have seen it happen many times and I GUARANTEE Pikeville wins another district title in 2005. By the time the end of the regular season and playoffs come around(after Pikeville has taken some losses from out of district opponents and adjusted to their new coach and system)Pikeville will be a very good team. They finish the regual season with Paintsville and Hazard and I will be shocked if either team comes within 2 TDs of Pikeville. Pikeville is the king of Class A football in the mountains and they have still for the most part owned their district(besides 2001)when they have not had good teams for Pikeville standards. Pikeville gota major upgrade with the addiation of Coach Jackson from their previous head coach and it is going to be hard for any team in district 8 to hang with them in the future.