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| Rec Bowl kicks off football season Saturday |
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8/19/2016
By Dan Manley
Advocate Sports Editor
No longer is the Recreation Bowl “the regular season game of the season” in high school football in Kentucky.
Times changed.
The Recreation Bowl did everything it could to keep pace with the changes in the Kentucky High School Athletic Associations modifications to high school football over the years.
Ultimately, the officials running the game simply couldn’t keep up.
However, when the Recreation Bowl of the “old days” slowly faded, the event simply was re-invented and will continue Saturday, now reaching its 69th year of existence.
The opening game Saturday evening at 4:30 p.m. at Cunningham Field will match a couple of old rivals once again as the Paris Greyhounds take on the Frankfort Panthers.
Paris won last year’s game, 21-12, behind a stellar performance of senior quarterback Kobe Garrard while the Panthers lost star quarterback Anthony Robinson to a knee injury early in the game and he was lost for the season.
Paris went on to complete an unbeaten regular season, losing to Paintsville in the second round of the playoffs to finish 11-1, while Frankfort struggled the rest of the way without Robinson and ended up 3-9.
So Frankfort will come to town Saturday evening looking for a different outcome (revenge, payback are really not appropriate here) while Paris is hoping to continue a resurgence of its program even though it was hit heavily by graduation.
In the nightcap, Montgomery County will unveil a new coach, a new coaching staff, a lot of new players, a new offense and a new defense as they face a Collins squad that defeated them 7-0 in last year’s Recreation Bowl.
In the current state of high school football, signing two-year contracts for the Recreation Bowl is more or less a have-to situation which is why we’re seeing a repeat of last year’s games.
If you had the right four teams involved there should be a chance in the future that there could be a switching of opponents in the second year but that of course, wouldn’t work this time around.
The second game Saturday night is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m.
Paris vs Frankfort
Coach Craig Foley’s team was hard-hit by graduation, including Robinson who didn’t play but a few snaps a year ago.
Now the coach will have to pull a few rabbits out of a few hats to try and come up with a competitive team in 2016.
Tremayne Jones is the player that Foley is counting on to help make things happen for the Panthers. He was a running back a year ago and will move to the quarterback position this time around.
The Panthers do have eight seniors on their small squad and will count on the offensive and defensive lines to provide a base for the team to build on.
Meanwhile, Paris coach Brian Washington has done quite a job in promoting his program at the small school and despite losing several outstanding players from last year’s team the Greyhounds are expecting to bounce back with a solid team.
Junior quarterback Aaron Maggard brings experience to the table having shared the spot with Garrard last year and he has a terrific go-to guy when he throws the football in Jekobi Wells.
After that, the ’Hounds simply have a lot of athletes, like Tayjin Cunningham, Jordan Davis and Jaques Dumphord who all look like playmakers.
MCHS vs Collins
The Indians will enter the season as a real mystery team with a new offense and defense, a new head coach, several new assistants and a busload of new players.
All of that new may translate into some growing pains early in the season for Coach Jamie Egli and his crew.
The Indians lost much of their offensive firepower from a year ago in their passing game but do return leading rusher Jake Harvey and all-purpose offensive threat Dillon Akers.
Coach Jerry Lucas will bring a Collins team to town that was 5-7 a year ago and won a playoff game.
They have a terrific trio of juniors in quarterback J.R. Lucas, the coache’s’ son, running back Nasean Roseberry and receiver Dalton Maggard.
Lucas isn’t quite as tall as you might like your quarterback to be but is very deceptive and is a triple-threat kind of guy. He completed 136 passes in 245 attempts a year ago for 22 touchdowns with 17 interceptions.
Roseberry, the Star of Stars in last year’s Recreation Bowl, ran for 933 yards and seven scores and caught 25 passes for 201 yards and two more TDs a year ago.
Maggard had 35 catches for 709 yards and 12 touchdowns.
The key for the Indians early on will be to try and limit their mistakes and prevent the big play as they try and settle in to their new alignments and learn to play with new players.
Linebacker Alex Stepanchuk and linemen Kevin Payton and Kris Moore will be some of the players that will be heavily counted on to help some of the younger players get their feet under them early in the season.
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