[Fly Like a Duck]

^
I think this is the biggest challenge schools like Bell face now.
I expect to see the city Schools in rural areas snatch up all the athletes for better chances at winning which is a complete flip flop from a decade ago.

I've long said that consolidation in some of these counties across our state were the worst thing to happen for football.

In many of these rural county schools, you often had one football playing school (usually the biggest town/county seat) that had a football program & then one to a handful of other community schools in the county that didn't have football (either due to lack of numbers, agricultural communities and/or there was just no real care for the sport....often due to the time of when football was played interfering with the growing and harvest seasons).

So, what you get is here we are years later and the football programs at the new "_____ County High School" is a bigger, more populated school...BUT.....the football program is still largely made of from boys in town. In short, you have a lot of these 3A, 4A and even some 5A schools that are just that in size, but in terms of where they draw their football players from, it's actually a 1A MAYBE 2A school. 1A football program in a 3A, 4A, 5A school.

Now, I don't think this has effected Bell (not much agriculture going on there) and it doesn't effect "county" schools in populated areas much (Jefferson, Fayette, NKY, Warren, Hardin, Pulaski, etc)...BUT....your independent schools within those counties (programs that have been around for 100 or more years where has LONG been part of 'the way of life' are usually the best programs.

Jefferson and Fayette don't have any independent-city programs, but NKY (Beechwood/Highlands), Warren (BG), Hardin (Elizabethtown. They aren't the best football program, but top to bottom athletic programs they are and it's not even close), Pulaski (Somerset. They aren't the top dog right now, but they aren't going anywhere). The list goes on and on (Owensboro and O'Cath dominate Daviess County programs, Mayfield is still king of Graves County, Russellville is king in Logan County, Bardstown> Nelson County schools, etc.)

I don't know if it will shift, because where there are Independent schools within the county, they are still (in most cases) the flagship program within the county...but, I definitely don't see them going anywhere; that's for sure.