While we’re not close enough to fall and high school football kicking off the third week in August for specific team-by-team looks, we’re close enough to take a general glance at the landscape of prep football here right about now.
And for everyone in these parts, a state championship game is where it all ends in December at UK’s Kroger Field . And where it did for three teams here – state finalists Ryle in Class 6A and Cooper in 5A and state champion Beechwood in 2A.
All three have to be thinking the same thing for 2025. And for Cooper, with loads of offensive talent back, the road may be a little smoother with Highlands moving down to 4A to join Covington Catholic in a division where the top two teams in the state may be in the same district.
No surprise that four of the schools mentioned – Ryle, Cooper, CovCath and Highlands – all return top, experienced, talented quarterbacks. Ryle’s Nathan Verax, Cooper’s Cam O’Hara, Highlands’ Rio Litmer and CovCath’s Cash Harney may be the core of the best overall quarterback corps ever in Northern Kentucky high school history.
And then there’s Beechwood, which says goodbye to longtime quarterback Clay Hayden after another state title season and has a big call to make although the Tigers were able to line up speedy Tyler Fryman at the Wildcat spot to run the ball.
And while we can’t do the scheduling in any detail here with the KHSAA’s official website not up yet for football, we can hit the highlights that we know, like the way a tough Cincinnati Elder is on the schedules of both CovCath and Highlands, with the Bluebirds also adding perennial power Boyle County, which could be a preview of the Class 4A playoffs.
How about the way Ryle surely isn’t ducking anybody with an opening five games against CovCath, Conner, Cooper, Christian Academy of Louisville and Highlands.
Speaking of Conner, with Beechwood state-title-winning Noel Rash returning to take over for his friend, David Trosper, who died tragically 10 days ago from a heart attack, the Cougars will open on the road at Madison Central before returning to Northern Kentucky to face cross-county rival Ryle in Union.
CovCath has an interesting schedule. Not only do the Colonels play Louisville Central in addition to Elder, they add a home game against Indianapolis Cathedral. With road games at Simon Kenton, Beechwood and Highlands, they could use that one in Park Hills.
As for Beechwood, the Tigers get CovCath at home, as noted, and will also host St. Henry in a first-ever district matchup for the newcomer Crusaders.
Speaking of challenging openings, Cooper kicks off at Cincinnati Anderson, comes back to host Highlands and then heads to Ryle.
Biggest story in high school basketball here?
As big a deal as the transfer of Mason County’s 6-foot-4 junior-to-be guard Braeden Myrick, a 19.1ppg scorer, to a CovCath team that returns its three leading scorers might be, or former Cooper Ninth Region-winning coach Tim Sullivan ending up replacing the Ninth Region’s all-time winningest coach Dave Faust at St. Henry after his retirement, or regional champ Cooper moving girls’ coach Justin Holthaus over to succeed Sullivan might all be, we’re thinking the top story could well be in another place.
That’s because as much as nearly three dozen of the nation’s top college basketball programs are recruiting five-star former Newport guard Taylen Kinney, the 6-foot-1 do-everything star now signed with Adidas and competing as a 20-points-plus-per-game scorer for Atlanta’s Overtime Elite program as a player ranked as high as No. 12 in his class nationally, you have to think when all the visits are over and the offers are in, Kinney’s final college choice will come down to a Louisville program that has been recruiting him harder and maybe a bit more personally than anybody from Day 1 or . . . .
Or a Kentucky program that is – well – Kentucky, and offered Kinney in August of 2024, one of 12 UK offers for the Class of 2026. And a UK program the Kinney family has been fans of, he says, and has been recruiting him since John Calipari was the coach.
Think Kinney isn’t a big deal? Look him up on Google these days and his first listing is as an “Internet Personality,” which makes sense when you see his numbers – he has more than 320,000 followers on Instagram and more than 850,000 on Tik Tok.
Kinney has just finished back-to-back visits to both – Louisville in the first week of June, UK in Week 3. And here’s what he had to say about that in an interview with Kentucky Sports Radio.
“We got a great relationship, a great relationship,” Kinney told the KSR interviewer of his U of L connection before his UK visit that gives Louisville fans hope. “Louisville fans are definitely pulling for me,” Kinney said, “I don’t know about Kentucky fans. They said a couple things that are crazy. But they’re definitely pulling for me, some of them, they just say stuff about other players.”
As for UK, Kinney said: “I have a good relationship with the staff. I talk to (assistant) Cody Fueger and Mark Pope here and there. I like how Coach Pope came in, built the entire team, and transformed them into a winning team.”
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.