[VoR_58]

Hats off to Raceland. They showed up ready to play and played good hard nosed football. Pikeville was just better though plain and simple and came into it with a refuse to lose attitude.

[Sportsdadof2]

Sucks that the state game was a blowout. But Pikeville is the real deal and on another level than ANYONE in 1A.

[Scotty_Bronson]

Biggest difference in Pikeville and everyone else is consistency. Off-season work is how you produce what they do year in and year out. I felt like we took steps toward bridging that gap last off-season. Obviously not as far as I thought BUT, I don’t think we win the Hazard game this year without improvement from last year. So there was growth. We need more improvement though. There is a lot of talent in the youth league and at the MS level. We need to find the blueprint that teams like Pikeville, Mayfield, Beechwood, and the like have laid to create championship programs. Raceland is the next tier, but the gap is still significant. Going to call it for awhile boys. This one stung pretty good for me. Congrats to Pikeville. Rams hold your heads high and thank you for a season full of memories.

[RAMDAD50]

Biggest difference in Pikeville and everyone else is consistency. Off-season work is how you produce what they do year in and year out. I felt like we took steps toward bridging that gap last off-season. Obviously not as far as I thought BUT, I don’t think we win the Hazard game this year without improvement from last year. So there was growth. We need more improvement though. There is a lot of talent in the youth league and at the MS level. We need to find the blueprint that teams like Pikeville, Mayfield, Beechwood, and the like have laid to create championship programs. Raceland is the next tier, but the gap is still significant. Going to call it for awhile boys. This one stung pretty good for me. Congrats to Pikeville. Rams hold your heads high and thank you for a season full of memories.

We will see how the “off season” work pans out next year after the super class graduates. No I’m not starting crap. Let’s be honest here…last year and this year was Pikevilles supper class. Next year will end ours. Back to normal after next year for the Rams

[bac2369]

Not surprising. I said all year 1A was Pikeville- big gap- Raceland- big gap- Paintsville/Hazard- everyone else.

---

Pikeville needs to move up to 2A. There is no competition for them in 1A. They are just to good for that division. I know Pikeville is losing a bunch of all time great seniors so maybe someone else will have a chance next year.

Or put Mayfield and Beechwood back in 1A. I’d love to see some Pikeville vs Beechwood/Mayfield matchups.

1. Big Gap between Pikeville and the rest.

2-A,B,C Raceland, Hazard, Newport Central Catholic.( These teams could beat each other)

Paintsville, Bethlehem, Campbellsville, KCD, Louisville Holy Cross ( These teams not even close.

[bac2369]

Raceland down fall in this game is being conservative. I do however take a shot after that miscue on the Pikeville punt.They got greedy on 4th and decided to go for it instead of taking a shot points. That could of made it 6-6 or 6-3 still, instead it goes 14-3. Same thing again Raceland gets conservative with 3 runs the. Try’s to throw on 4th.Then before the half you get Pikeville to 4th and don’t take a timeout and let them take 1 shot for a touchdown. The play call may of changed if you take the timeout. Reward your defense. Those timeouts can’t be taken with u to the locker room. The touchdown before the half basically sealed it me. Once again in my opinion during a critical time early Noah Wallace never got enough touches. 5 touches for him.. that’s not near enough.. Raceland didn’t start taking shots until it was a little to late. They also run most of there stretch plays to the short side of the field. They also ran just 1 of those bubble screens that’s been there bread and butter all season.

Congrats though to Pikeville on a great season and the title.

Congrats to Raceland on an excellent season as well..

[Truewords]

Pikeville is the class program in 1A and in the eastern part of Kentucky in any class. They do loose an extraordinarily talented senior class but the stalls are not left empty. Raceland has nothing to be down about they are a very good team but just were up against to much today.

[pirateforlife]

Not surprising. I said all year 1A was Pikeville- big gap- Raceland- big gap- Paintsville/Hazard- everyone else.

---

Pikeville needs to move up to 2A. There is no competition for them in 1A. They are just to good for that division. I know Pikeville is losing a bunch of all time great seniors so maybe someone else will have a chance next year.

Or put Mayfield and Beechwood back in 1A. I’d love to see some Pikeville vs Beechwood/Mayfield matchups.

1. Big Gap between Pikeville and the rest.

2-A,B,C Raceland, Hazard, Newport Central Catholic.( These teams could beat each other)

Paintsville, Bethlehem, Campbellsville, KCD, Louisville Holy Cross ( These teams not even close.

Pikeville’s JV team could beat 90 percent of 1A teams

[Patriot1]

I said for Raceland to have a chance to win they’d have to catch a couple breaks and unfortunately for them Pikeville caught those. The scoop and score and Hail Mary play before half killed them. If Raceland could hav head one of those plays go their way they’d had a shot

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Blake Birchfield is Mr. Football. Thanks for listening.

The UK commit from Douglass will probably end up with it.

Losing Parker Fannin hurt too.  He was one of our best players on both sides of the ball and his loss hurt strategically and from a morale standpoint.  Pikeville also executed better and took advantage of opportunities that they had to put the game away.

Orange Blaze if you find out anything about the young man that got hurt please let me know I hope he is ok.

[Scotty_Bronson]

Via Facebook, Parker is doing okay. Dislocated elbow. I hate it for him. Kids got a ton of grit!!

[Patriot1]

Biggest difference in Pikeville and everyone else is consistency. Off-season work is how you produce what they do year in and year out. I felt like we took steps toward bridging that gap last off-season. Obviously not as far as I thought BUT, I don’t think we win the Hazard game this year without improvement from last year. So there was growth. We need more improvement though. There is a lot of talent in the youth league and at the MS level. We need to find the blueprint that teams like Pikeville, Mayfield, Beechwood, and the like have laid to create championship programs. Raceland is the next tier, but the gap is still significant. Going to call it for awhile boys. This one stung pretty good for me. Congrats to Pikeville. Rams hold your heads high and thank you for a season full of memories.

We will see how the “off season” work pans out next year after the super class graduates. No I’m not starting crap. Let’s be honest here…last year and this year was Pikevilles supper class. Next year will end ours. Back to normal after next year for the Rams

I look for it to be the same 2 teams again next year and Pikeville has a very good sophomore class this year if they can develop a few of those young lineman and a couple of linebackers they will be hard to handle again and those young lineman played a lot this year

[16thregioner]

Again, thankfully you have nothing to do with sports. I couldn’t imagine any parents allowing you to coach youth sports. enjoy the easy path, it always pays off.

I think kids can get a lot out of sports.  

They can learn it takes a lot of work to achieve goals.  They can learn no matter how hard you work, there may be someone better still because people have different talents.  They can learn about competition and compassion.  They can learn how to work with others and relate to others from different walks of life.

They can also learn that most youth leagues are rigged with stacked teams consisting of the league administrators kids.  They can learn that life isn’t fair sometimes and you’ve got to learn how to deal with it.

None of that has to do with the current state of high school sports, though.  By the time kids get to high school, the days of innocent competition are over.  I wish it were the old days where everyone just played for the school in the district they lived in and where kids didn’t focus on one sport year round.  That’s not the way things are anymore, though.  Pride is a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it.

[Beagle1]

All true words 16th. Guess that’s why I guess it’s so freaking beautiful to see a team that gets recruits in and holds everyone back, still get it handed to them so decisively!!!!!
Absolutely Beautiful

[Kentuckysfinest]

All true words 16th.  Guess that’s why I guess it’s so freaking beautiful to see a team that gets recruits in and holds everyone back, still get it handed to them so decisively!!!!!
Absolutely Beautiful

Hahaha

[Beagle1]

Still waiting on my boy
Ram-a- devil = Rams-will -never
To comment on the events that transpired this beautiful afternoon!!!!!!

[Patriot1]

Via Facebook, Parker is doing okay. Dislocated elbow. I hate it for him. Kids got a ton of grit!!

Thanks Scotty I hope everything works out for him

[Micro-Brew]

I thought for certain the kid had broke his arm. Great news if true that it was just a dislocated elbow.
Raceland had some big plays just really sink them early, if those plays don’t happen then Raceland could’ve been right there. They have a very very good team and I expect they’ll have a great shot at being rt back in that title game next year. But once again the Panthers were just too much. The physicality seemed to start taking its toll in the 3rd and 4th qtrs. Congrats Panthers on a great season. Absolutely Impressive

[Slic Ric]

I said for Raceland to have a chance to win they’d have to catch a couple breaks and unfortunately for them Pikeville caught those. The scoop and score and Hail Mary play before half killed them. If Raceland could hav head one of those plays go their way they’d had a shot

---

Blake Birchfield is Mr. Football. Thanks for listening.

The UK commit from Douglass will probably end up with it.

Losing Parker Fannin hurt too.  He was one of our best players on both sides of the ball and his loss hurt strategically and from a morale standpoint.  Pikeville also executed better and took advantage of opportunities that they had to put the game away.

Orange Blaze if you find out anything about the young man that got hurt please let me know I hope he is ok.

Dislocated elbow. An orthopedic surgeon on the field popped it back in & then they took him for X-Rays which were negative. Very swollen so the sling will stay on a week & then they will evaluate him.

[Hambley]

Ya know after watching that game I honestly think Raceland has improved since last year and I really like their LB’s. That being said if Raceland was gonna win that game they were gonna have to take some risks and I feel that their play call is risk averse. That offensive scheme didn’t work last year and didn’t work this year. Pikeville even altered their offense and went wildcat WAY more then they have all year. It’s SUPER tough for teams that haven’t been at Kroger to get good starts. We saw that today. Pikeville scored 21 points without having to get into the red zone. Big plays are a killer in that game every year. The play befire half time was a killer. Hensley is Pikeville’s tallest WR and had a mismatch in single coverage. Raceland has nothing to hang their heads about , they are a good team and get better every year. I also saw A LOT of good sportsmanship out there. The Raceland / Pikeville rivalry is a good one and I like to see it. Great year to both teams.

[VoR_58]

Again, thankfully you have nothing to do with sports. I couldn’t imagine any parents allowing you to coach youth sports. enjoy the easy path, it always pays off.

I think kids can get a lot out of sports.  

They can learn it takes a lot of work to achieve goals.  They can learn no matter how hard you work, there may be someone better still because people have different talents.  They can learn about competition and compassion.  They can learn how to work with others and relate to others from different walks of life.

They can also learn that most youth leagues are rigged with stacked teams consisting of the league administrators kids.  They can learn that life isn’t fair sometimes and you’ve got to learn how to deal with it.

None of that has to do with the current state of high school sports, though.  By the time kids get to high school, the days of innocent competition are over.  I wish it were the old days where everyone just played for the school in the district they lived in and where kids didn’t focus on one sport year round.  That’s not the way things are anymore, though.  Pride is a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it.

goodness that is such a great post.

[Tailback44]

Hail Pikeville. The Panthers are building a dynasty. My friends from Hazard say Pikeville needs to move up to 2A LOL.

[Micro-Brew]

Quick question for the Ram posters.
Why did #1 not play? Was he banged up? Or was he in and I just missed it?
Also how many total carries did Wallace get?
I haven’t seen the final stats

[KYHSFB]

How much longer will Mike coach?

[RAMDAD50]

Quick question for the Ram posters.
Why did #1 not play? Was he banged up? Or was he in and I just missed it?
Also how many total  carries did Wallace get?
I haven’t seen the final stats

Wallace got hurt early in the game. It looked to me that he came in on a tackle and his left shoulder drove into the turf. He was holding his left side the rest of the game. Someone told me that Jules had the flu. I’m not 100 on that but that’s what I was told

[Westside]

Raceland has a really good team. They kept it close for a while. As others have stated, Pikeville was as good as any team in 1A-4A.

[Scotty_Bronson]

Jules getting sick hurt us bad as it took away our most physical And atheletic CB. He would have still had a tough out on Hensley, but it would have helped out considerably. Not sure why Wallace only had I believe 6 or 7 touches. Lot of ifs, buts, why’s, and what for questions after this one. I don’t question everyone’s best effort was put forth though. Just too many shortcomings to over come against a team like Pikeville.

[Westside]

Boykin being hurt for Pikeville I'm sure affected them some.

[Truewords]

Boykin being hurt for Pikeville I'm sure affected them some.

It didn’t effect them one bit. He was a great extra to have this year but team was best in class before he transferred in. Next year he will be a focal point in their success.

[Redneck]

Champions are made in the off-season. I ain’t saying that Raceland didn’t hit the weight room, we all know better. Pikeville won the state chanpionship last year and was in the weight room the following Monday getting after it. They lost some good players from last years team and a lot of people had Raceland picked because of how many players they had coming back. Pikeville wasn’t going to be denied.

[Spud6]

Boykin being hurt for Pikeville I'm sure affected them some.

It didn’t effect them one bit. He was a great extra to have this year but team was best in class before he transferred in. Next year he will be a focal point in their success.

Boykins is just a junior too. Him, Bevins and Anthony is the backfield is scary once again next year.