[2000PHS]

Two great plays on special teams (K Phelps kickoff return TD and a 50+ yard FG) kept Paintsville in the 2015 game for a while, not their defense. Pikeville rushed for 401 yards in that game and passed for 3 TDs as well. They crushed the Paintsville defense.

Again, I never thought Paintsville was in the 2018 game but if they were, it was because their offense dominated time of possession by grinding out first downs with short gains on the ground and kept the Pikeville offense off the field. Paintsville ran 62 plays in the game to only 33 for Pikeville. But Pikeville again crushed the Paintsville defense by gaining 459 yards on their 33 plays, or almost 14 yards per snap on offense.

So the two games we are talking about Pikeville goes for 40 pts/game, 667 rushing yards on 78 carries (8.6 yards/carry) and is 22-31 for 314 yards passing with 5TDs and no interceptions.

I would love to see these numbers against the top teams in 1A from now on.

Now factor in the Kash Daniel effect in 2015 (Paintsville learned he wasn’t playing at about 4:30 on Friday) that’s a huge psychological hurdle to get over...and the two weeks Pikeville had to prepare this year while Paintsville had just been destroyed by Fred Douglas. Pikeville was the better team but they also were playing Paintsville at the perfect time.

Kash would have no doubt lowered these numbers on defense and also kept the chains moving and kept Pikeville O off the field more.

I still stand behind the thought that running clocks in the first half are worse than 21-17 at the half and 21-7 going into the 4th. We had a punchers chance in those games. The ones I mentioned were 1st round early KOs.