By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
First-year Simon Kenton football coach Joe Wynn feels like he never really left Northern Kentucky after playing football at Dayton High and becoming head coach at Newport for three seasons before his last four years at Mason County.
There’s a reason Wynn, whose Mason County teams racked up a 36-14 record, won a pair of district titles and earned a spot in the 2022 state semifinals, is so at home here. He never actually left.
With the way interest rates skyrocketed when he took the Mason County job, “It just didn’t make any sense,” he said, to buy a home then, not for someone on a teacher’s salary. So he commuted back and forth to Maysville every day.
Now his commute to school from his new home in Independence is “just a couple of minutes.” But the excitement for winning football that his program brought to Maysville is what he plans for southern Kenton County.
“We want to put a good product on the field,” Wynn says. “The kids are showing up every day and working hard.”
And so is the football staff. “We had a great game-day environment there with fireworks and the middle-school kids at games,” Wynn says of what they hope to bring to Simon Kenton.
“It’s a marquee-type job, everything is there from ability to compete to community support” for football. “We want Independence shut down” on Friday nights, Wynn says.
But they’ll be competing differently. No more exclusive two-platoon for the Class 6A program. “Our best players need to be on the field,” Wynn says.
Of the top nine players for this fall, he lists seven of them on both offense and defense. “A lot of things we’re doing, we’re doing for the first time.”
In fact, there are no “returning starters” listed. This Pioneers’ team is a “new” program.
“Everyone will earn a spot,” Wynn says as Simon Kenton attempts to bounce back from a 4-7 season last fall in what was the resigned Roy Lucas’ fourth season as head coach.
Although there’s one player, wide receiver/defensive back Grayson Harris, Kentucky’s No. 1 receiver in 2024 with 89 receptions for 1,368 yards and 13 TD, who the Louisville Courier-Journal lists as one of 10 players in the running for Kentucky’s Mr. Football.
“He’s a stud,” Wynn says of the 6-foot, 185-pound senior with 4.5 speed in the 40. “And he’s an all-state punter. We’re going to see him in a lot of places. He’s going to play multiple spots.”
Now the key is to find a quarterback to get him the ball. “We’ll be young in spots,” Wynn says, “we need to get experience and find a quarterback.”
The battle to succeed the graduated Brady Lee, Class 6A’s top passer, is between sophomore Grant Webb and senior Caleb French (who returned to football this year). “We’re going to let that play out and see who can lead us.”
With “playing guys both ways for the first time in a long time, reps will be crucial for us to grow and be where we need to be come district time,” Wynn says of a schedule that opens with a home game against cross-county rival Dixie Heights, Friday, Aug. 22.
Two-way seniors Wynn expects to lead his team start with middle linebacker Brayden Schoborg (6-3, 230) also a tight end and hearing from Ivy League schools, along with tight end/linebacker Tucker Ober. Another TE/LB is junior Kyle King.
Jordan Pendleton is a senior running back/wide receiver/safety who “will be a two-way starter,” Wynn says while senior Eli Mullins is looking “really good at free safety.” Senior Landon Brown is also penned in as a RB/S with senior Paul Snyder a two-way lineman, another player Wynn classifies as “a stud.”
SIMON KENTON PIONEERS
2024 SEASON: 4-7 record, lost in first round of Class 6A playoffs.
STARTERS RETURNING: Not listed.
DISTRICT: Class 6A, District 6 with Campbell County, Great Crossing, Ryle.
HEAD COACH: Joe Wynn (54-27 in seven seasons, 18-13 at Newport, 36-14 at Mason County.
2025 SCHEDULE
Aug. 22 – DIXIE HEIGHTS, 7 p.m.
Aug. 29 – at Western Brown (Ohio), 7 p.m.
Sept. 5 – COVINGTON CATHOLIC, 7 p.m.
Sept. 12 – at Beechwood, 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 19 – at Conner, 7 p.m.
Sept. 26 – at Lexington Bryan Station, 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 10 – GREAT CROSSING, 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 17 – CAMPBELL COUNTY, 7 p.m.
Oct. 24 – at Ryle, 7 p.m.
Oct. 31 – COOPER, 7 p.m.