Bubs

Typically, Cumberland doesn't have to travel far to play a district game. They do make one long trip to Somerset which is in Central Kentucky and really has no business geographically being in a mountain district. For the most part their district games are 30 minute to one and a half hour bus trips. The shortest being Evarts and Harlan, 30 minutes max. And the longest being 2 1/2 hours to Somerset. The other longer trips are to Lynn Camp and Williamsburg and they are about 1 1/2 hour trips. Somerset is really in a bad spot, they are better suited geographically to be in the same district as Danville and other central Kentucky teams but opted instead to move into this district to avoid having to play Danville in the playoffs. To Somersets credit, they do still play Danville in the regular season but now they don't have to face them unless they both make it to the state championship. Other districts face the travel problem as well and they are actually worse than what Cumberland has. The mountain 3A district is spread out all over the place. It consists of Rockcastle Co, Bell Co, Knox Central, Madison Southern, Clay County and Perry Co. Central. The shortest trip would be Bell to Knox Central and vice versa, its only 30 mintues. The other trips are at least an hour and a half. The 2A district is another one like that, it consists of Middlesboro, Whitesburg, Cawood, Knott Central, Breathitt County and Leslie County, except for Whitesburg to Knott Central trust me there are no short trips in that district. Some of these problems will be remedied in a few years when Whitesburg, Fleming Neon and Letcher consolidate into one school, and Cawood, Evarts and Cumberland do the same. It will probably put both schools into a 3A district and make longer and shorter bus trips for every 1, 2 and 3A school involved. Because Cumberland, Evarts and Fleming Neon are 1A schools and Whitesburg and Cawood are 2A schools both districts will be losing several teams and then the 3A district will be getting two teams in return. But by the time that rolls around, the KHSAA will have to realign the districts and may solve these problems before they become one.

Man, that is one screwed up playoff format! I thought it was tough trying to figure out our district here in Kentucky, usually in our district everyone beats everyone else and we have to use tiebreakers to figure out our 1-4 seedings. This year the same thing would have happened but in the last two weeks of the season some of the teams involved in the tiebreaker lost district games and we didn't have to use the system. Our districts and playoff system is a whole sight different than that one you guys use. Most of our districts have four or more teams in them, some have 8 or 9 teams in the same district. And the state is broken down into four regions, regardless of class. But we don't have to play the larger schools in the region to make the playoffs. I will use our district and region for example. In Cumberlands district there is 7 Class A teams including CHS. During the course of the season we have to play all of our district teams, and then schedule 4 non district games. These non district games are used to break ties for the playoffs, and out of state opponents are not used in this format. For example, Williamsburg High played 3 out of state non district teams, two from Tennessee and one from Virginia. If we would have had to resort to the tiebreaker system then they would have been the odd man out, and would have been a four seed. Anyway like I said the state is broken down into four regions and there are two districts per class in each region. For example Cumberland is in region 4 district 7, in the playoffs we are paired with region 4 district 8, which includes Pikeville, Hazard, Phelps, Jenkins, Fleming Neon, South Floyd, Paintsville and Allen Central. These teams compete for four playoff spots and then are matched up with our top four district teams. I actually favor going back to our old set up where only two teams from each district make the playoffs, or maybe take three and give the one a bye week. I just think that four teams is to much and some districts only have four teams in them and that means they can go 0-10 and still make the playoffs. Anyway we play three region games in the playoffs with the third being the Regional Championship. The winner plays in the state semi-finals or sectionals if you will where the four region winners are paired against each other. Region 1 always plays Region 2 and 3 always plays 4. The winners advance to the state championship games in Louisville at Papa Johns Stadium.

I am from Kentucky and was able to get over to Virginia and watch a game this year. The game I got to watch was Gate City at Powell Valley, it was a great atmosphere one I had not experienced in a few years. High school football games used to be like that at my old high school (Cumberland, Ky) before the mines shut down. Some questions I have are about the classification system that Virginia uses. Is class A divided into two different sections, and how does that affect the Districts? Another is about the new ranking system. Do you guys get points for your strength of schedule and wins or losses against out of state opponents? And does this determine who gets into the playoffs or what? How many teams can make the playoffs out of a district such as the LPD? Can all of them make it or just two or three or what? In Kentucky our Classes are divided equally so that there are the same amount of schools in each one. The schools with the bottom quarter of enrollment make up 1A and then they work their way up until each class is filled. However there is a significant difference between our top 1A schools and our lower 1A schools. Teams such as Danville, Mayfield, Beechwood, Newport Central Catholic and the likes usually battle it out every year for the state championship, and more years than not they could play with most of our 2A, 3A and 4A schools. 2A is ususally a toss up between our mountain schools, since Corbin was placed in the western bracket a few years ago. Last year the 2A state championship came down to Corbin and Breathitt, which Breathitt won 55-12. 3A has some of our best heavyweights, Boyle Co., Paducah Tilghman, Fort Thomas Highlands, Covington Catholic, Bowling Green, Hopkinsville, Bell Co., Rockcastle Co., Mason Co., and such. This is usually our best and most competitive class. 4A is usually decided between the Louisville schools, Male, Saint X or Trinity. Most of these teams have enrollments of over 1600, and field teams with anywhere from 150-225 kids on the roster. No joke, most underclassmen don't even dress on Friday nights. If I'm not mistaken last year Trinity graduated 60 seniors, these three teams could beat some of the small college teams here in Kentucky. Well I hope I haven't taken up to much of your time, look forward to talking football with you guys!! By the way, I am a huge fan of SWVA football. Most schools play a quality brand of football, (running the ball and great swarming defense) that most football purists love to watch.