Kentucky-Ohio high school football rivalry heats up Friday
Kentucky football fired the first shot last Friday with the state’s No. 1 team, Louisville Trinity, traveling to Cincinnati and crushing Anderson High, ranked 24th nationally by USA TODAY, 59-13, in one of those rare moments of absolute Bluegrass supremacy over Ohio football.
The rivalry moves to Northern Kentucky Friday when Eddie Eviston’s impressive sophomore-led Covington Catholic team, coming off a 50-6 romp at Ryle, hosts Cincinnati Elder at 7 in Park Hills followed by Beechwood kicking off against Cincinnati Indian Hill just a couple of miles out the Dixie Highway in Ft. Mitchell at 7:30.
Not sure two Northern Kentucky teams have ever hosted a pair of teams that could well win Ohio state titles in their respective classes on the same night and have a serious shot at competing for a win. But there it is.
Elder, of course, is Elder after an opening week 35-3 crushing of Ohio semifinalist Middletown behind do-everything quarterback Kaden Estep. In CovCath’s favor is that this game won’t be played at The Pit in Price Hill, one of the nation’s iconic high school stadiums, where Elder beat CovCath, 28-20, last season.
This should be the game of the week in Greater Cincinnati.
But don’t discount Indian Hill at Beechwood in what will be the Tigers’ opener. A defending regional titlist Indian Hill beat Roger Bacon, 35-14, last week behind star quarterback Devlan Daniel, who threw for a pair of TDs and ran for another. Great debut for returning Beechwood head coach Noel Rash and a veteran team headlined by a pair of Kentucky Mr. Football candidates – speedster Tyler Fryman and quarterback Emmett Queen, both signed with Power 4 schools.
If CovCath-Elder isn’t the Greater Cincinnati Game of the Week, then this one is.
NKU and Fox 19 partner up for sports coverage
It didn’t take Northern Kentucky University new Vice-President for Athletics Mike Odom long to be able to announce a new “strategic partnership” for Norse sports with FOX 19 as a new outlet for NKU athletics.
“FOX 19 is proud to welcome Northern Kentucky University Athletics as a new partner,” said FOX 19 General Manager Jennifer Rieffer in the announcement. “The partnership will air selected NKU athletic events (to be announced) on WXIX as well as on the ROCK Entertainment Sports Network (RESN), which will also carry The Darrin Horn Show starting this week.
“We’re incredibly excited about our new partnership with FOX19 and the opportunity it creates to expand the visibility of Norse Athletics throughout Northern Kentucky and the Greater Cincinnati region,” Odom said, “. . . this partnership provides another powerful platform to share those stories, grow our brand and introduce even more people to what makes NKU Athletics special.”
The ROCK can be found on Altafiber cable channel 253 and on Charter Spectrum channel 999. The website is watchrocksports.com.
Interesting inside replay stuff for NFL, MLB
As an added attraction at last week’s Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame Summer Reunion, NFL replay official Chad Adams and 30-year MLB umpire Randy Marsh passed along some inside info to the attendees.
Adams noted that he’s an in-stadium replay guy, assigned to one referee all season, and that ”everything’s not done out of New York City.” When the referee is on his headset, he’s talking to both “the in-stadium replay guy and New York City,” said the Cincinnati-based Adams, who’s worked 130 games and a Super Bowl.
“You start every game perfect,” Adams said, “and that’s how you’re expected to finish. Haven’t had one yet.”
As for Covington native Marsh, who on his retirement became an assistant to Joe Torre, MLB’s chief baseball officer, and helped usher in the use of replay, talked of some of his advice for umpires.
“Timing is so important,” Randy says. “Don’t call the pitch too soon, don’t call the play too early.” And how the introduction of replay “has been tougher for the veteran guys to get used to it,” Randy says, because “they didn’t get to use it in the minor leagues like the younger guys did”
And that for every call overturned, he says they have to send the video to both teams with an explanation of exactly why it happened.
Adams said that flag NFL coaches throw onto the field asking for a replay isn’t always asking for one. He told of how New England’s legendary prickly Bill Belichick once tossed one out onto the field and got the referee over to the sideline on a clear call that wasn’t in question.
When asked why he threw the flag, Belichick said he wasn’t looking for a replay, he said, “I just wanted to yell at you.”
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X @dweber3440.