[Hoot Gibson]

Bell:
+Win over a quality 6A Bryan Station team on the road
+Win over a quality 9-1 3A Wayne County Team
+Win over a quality 6-4 4A Whitley County Team
+BY FAR the strongest SOS, playing LexCath tough and losing on the road vs. a Good Harlan County by 6
- No truly signature win
- Has lost twice, unlike Breathitt

Breathitt:
+Win over a good 2A Somerset on the road
+- Win over a quality 1A Hazard on the road, but it was much closer than expected
-Otherwise poor SOS including a closer than expected win over an average Morgan County team

Belfry:
+Win over a good 4A Johnson Central on the road, the best win of any of the three teams
-No other wins that stand out
+Good loss @ Ashland where Belfry had a chance to win the game
-Bad loss at home vs. Henry Clay

Based solely off this I think all this proves is all three teams are a toss-up as mentioned. Bell has more quality wins (3), against a harder SOS and thus get the nod.

Breathitt gets the slight nod over Belfry for having one more quality win, and for having no bad losses to penalize them.

Belfry doesn't have the SOS of Bell, have losses unlike Breathitt, but is the only team to play up and beat a good team.

FWIW, being undefeated Breathitt would have had the best argument,,, but their two best wins have did nothing to help them out. Although Somerset is the #2 2A team, they lost to Whitley County at home and have not looked dominant by any means the past two weeks against questionable competition. Hazard is a 3 loss 1A team. Though they are highly ranked, they have zero quality wins. In addition, the glaring game to pick apart of Bell's is clearly their narrow win at home vs. Whitley County. The problem with that is that if you do, then Breathitt must be punished as well since Whitley beat Somerset (Breathitt's clear best win) on the road 3 weeks later.

You can go around and around nitpicking to make a case, but to me it is painfully obvious that these teams are simply too close to call...and based on the explanation I bolded, is the only fundamental way to assign a tangible order.

I don't think that early wins and losses deserve equal weighting with late wins and losses. Belfry's defensive performance on the road against Johnson Central in the last game of the season is a bigger accomplishment than anything that Bell has done. I don't expect that either Covington Catholic or Highlands, if JC upsets CovCath, will be able to contain JC's running game to the extent that Belfry did. I would rank a healthy Belfry team #2 to Harlan. Breathitt's wins don't even begin to compare.