[RunItUpTheGut]

Harlan County, Belfry, and Johnson Central seem to be the consensus top three among posters.
After that there is a wide variety of different top 10's.
Other teams popping up after those top three seem to be Somerset, Whitley, Williamsburg, Bell County, Pulaski, Hazard, and some others who have several votes.

Lets try and break down those teams from 4-10.
Personally, I think Wburg and Hazard are very good teams. Very good 1A teams. To be honest, i think they could give some of these other teams in the top 10 a heck of a game, but if they were to have a schedule consisting of the top ten teams in the mountains, I think there lack of depth and lack of numbers would set them with the worst records out of the bunch.
If we look at this like a league, it starts to make sense. Like in any league, upsets can and do happen. Even the Ravens lose to the Bungles once in a blue moon....

So, if we look at it like that, we can go a little more in depth.
Ill start with my top ten i had posted.
1. Harlan County
2. Belfry
3. Johnson Central
4. Knox Central
5. Whitley County
6. Bell County
7. Pulaski County
8. Somerset
9. Williamsburg
10.Hazard

If these 10 teams played each other, for a total of nine games in a sort of round robin type style, then it starts to make sense.
Harlan County, IMO, would be 8-1 at worst. It could possibly be a 9-0 type season because i dont see any team on that list who would be a facvorite over them. They could get an upset loss, but it doesnt deter the fact that they would still be the best team.

Then Belfry. Belfry should go 7-2 or somewhere in that area against these other teams. I think them along with Johnson Central could be in a crazy tie and only the game between them could decide who would be ranked ahead of one another.

I look at this the same way with the next few teams in Whitley, Bell and Knox.
The best part is, these three teams really do play each other. I wouldnt be surprised if each team goes 1-1 against the other two. Knox, IMO should be considered the favorite among the three, with Bell, who will struggle this year compared to the past and Whitley who could go from really good to really bad, but i see these three teams on the same level with Pulaski and Somerset not to far behind. I find that Somerset and Pulaski are going to be very even. As noted earlier, i could be wrong, but i think the two will have a very close game come the first game of the year. That leaves us with Wburg and Hazard who, if they played the other teams on this list would probably pick up an upset or two, but overall find themselves at the bottom of the list. And to me, thats not a bad thing. There 1A schools and being considered in a list of top ten teams where severla 3, 4, and 5A schools are also eligible.