[RunItUpTheGut]

This is one of the most unwise statements I have ever seen from RIUTG.....I am almost shocked as his usually has good insight. Kickers are very important and McCoy won a couple of games for the Colonels this season and will be missed although they do have another kicker who is going to be pretty good too. If kickers are not important, how come kicking into the endzone is so important if you can do it. I remember Bell with Merrick and he kicked into the endzone about 85% of the time.

Whitley also loses several of their offensive linemen, but with Bobby Gibbs as the offensive line coach they should be fine. As far as skill players they do not lose anything and will have some young kids who are going to make them better with competition in practice and challenge for playing time. I think they should be better and will continue to improve for the next couple of years.

Mccoy was very important to this team this year.
Theres no doubt about that.
I got my ass chewed in many threads this year because i was talking about how Whitley was doing a good thing by kicking even when they were getting blown out.
However, you brought up Merrick, which may have been the best kicker of all time coming from a mountain school. Theres no comparison. Also, where are you getting that we kicked it into the endzone?
Ask Chili, Whitley onside kicked it every freakin time we kicked the ball of at SW the other night, which IMO is just stupid, but if he could kick it into the endzone we would have been doing that insrtead of onside kicking it.

I think its safe to say he's the best kicker to ever put on a Whitley jersey, but the kid could have kicked 5 field goals against teams like Russell, Rock, and Harlan Co, and we still would have gotten beat.
You have to have tealent at the SKILL positions, or you'll lose every time.

As for Gibbs, im sure he will have the O Line ready to go but IMO, Whitley needs to get a new OC. Letting Gibbs call the plays is hurting us and its showing. He's the reason were running it up the middle on 3rd and 20 everytime. Something has got to change or we will struggle next year as well running plays like that. Black is a defensive mastermind when given talent to work with and should run the defense.