In less than 12 hours, a champion will be crowned in the 2020 UK Orthopaedic Surgery & Sports Medicine Class 5A State Football Finals as Owensboro and Bowling Green will battle it out at Kroger Field at 3 p.m. EST.
OHS coach Jay Fallin said they didn’t necessarily prepare for Purples early in the playoffs but he knew they had to put the steps in place no matter who they took the field against each week.
“We’re always trying to anticipate future opponents because you have to start getting film,” he said. “Film’s evolved so much since the old days where you had to drive and get a VHS tape and now, if you’re doing your job as a coach, you ought to have every game. You want to have every one of your opponents games throughout the season.
Fallin said there’s a fine line in keeping players focused on the task at hand but also getting them ready for future opponents, even if it is an opponent they’re pretty familiar with in the Bowling Green Purples.
Despite it being the week before Christmas, the weather has been relatively warm in recent weeks.
Fallin said they’ve been preparing for this but playing in the cold is never a bad thing.
“It is different and we’ve had really good weather overall for this time of year,” he said. “We talk to the kids about the weather, you have to earn the right to play in the cold. We say that in the summer when it’s hot and sweats running down your back. Remember soon enough, it’s going to be freezing cold out here. We’re just excited to be playing in the cold.”
It’s always assumed most teams get along but unfortunately, that’s not always the case.
For the Red Devils, Fallin said it’s been vital to their success this season.
“It makes everything easier,” he said. “We’ve had groups in the past where you might have somebody who was jealous of somebody else’s success and you can’t ever really be a team if that’s the way you feel. It just starts with our senior leadership. Guys like Austin Gough, Ben Flaherty, Ethan Avery, Logan Palmer, all those guys who get just as excited for their teammates’ successes as they do their own and when you have that and it’s legitimate, you’re going to reach whatever your top potential is.
“I tell kids all the time that when we practice right and we do things the right way, I can’t promise you we’re going to win a state championship but I can promise you we’ll be satisfied with the result, whatever it is because it’ll be the best we’re capable of.”
Bowling Green has just two blemishes on its record this season as the Purples fell to South Warren and Trinity this year. Since the loss to the Shamrocks, BG has been on a tear.
“They’re just a very good team,” Fallin said. “When you’re in a state championship game, especially now with RPI, the goal is to get the two best teams or two of the best teams in the state championship game and I think RPI has done that successfully in its two years in use.”
On defense, the Purples have statistically been one of the best teams in 5A this season.
“They’re led on defensive by their defensive front, very good defensive line,” Fallin said. “Anchored in the middle by Jeremiah Lightfoot, No. 37, very good player. They’re very good in the back end too and their linebackers are good and they’re very well coached. Mark’s their defensive coordinator, their head coach. They have a defensive identity as a team.”
BG has forced 31 turnovers this season with 20 of them coming during the playoffs, including eight against South Warren in their district playoff win over the Spartans.
Fallin said there’s a simple formula to force turnovers.
“Taking advantage of opportunities to force turnovers is about getting pressure on the quarterback to create interceptions and then being around the ball for fumbles,” he said. “You force fumbles and you’ve got somebody there to recover it. They’re a very opportunistic defense.”
While the Purples have done their fair share of damage on the defensive side of the ball this season, the Red Devils have had a standout season as well despite graduating several key players from last year’s state semifinal team.
“We’ve forced more turnovers this year than we did last year,” he said. “I think defensively, we had overall, a really nice performance on Friday. Now they racked up some yards in the second half but that’s a really, really good offense with a lot of talented playmakers we were going against. I think the defense has improved remarkably over the course of the year and really proud of that progression. I thought that was definitely on display early in the game on Friday.”
The Purples offense wasn’t where they wanted to be in the first few games of the season but since their loss to South Warren on Oct. 2, they’ve scored at least 20 points in all but one game with the outlier being their seven-point performance against Trinity.
“Offensively, they’re very good upfront,” Fallin said. “Their offensive line is led by (Jackson) Littlefield, coach (Gerald) Poynter’s grandson, which is a pretty neat connection. Quarterback (Conner) Cooper is very mobile and can also throw the ball well. No. 1 (Javeius) Bunton, the running back, very talented runner of the ball and a good corps of receivers. They have, like everybody, players that stand out on film but they’re a very well-rounded team.”
Fallin was asked about junior quarterback Gavin Wimsatt’s final drive last week against Frederick Douglass that ended with a Wimsatt seven-yard score to Ethan Avery.
He said Wimsatt has come a long way in two seasons.
“Experience is everything in life,” he said. “I can remember when he was getting ready to have his first start in a scrimmage against Franklin-Simpson as sophomore last year, and they were a very good team, because of the scrimmage setup, I was standing behind him and he was very nervous, visibly so. It’s what it’s like to be a quarterback in the offense we run and he’s very even keel now. That’s all about experience …
“My first game as a head coach, I was so nervous and anxious I could hardly focus on the game. Experience is everything and he’s got a lot of it. He’s getting ready to make his 24th start and has been in a lot of pressure packed situations where we needed him to step up and so I felt a very calm feeling and I knew in looking at him, I had a conversation with him right before the series and I said it’s going to be fine, just one play at a time and forget about what’s happened. Just execute us down the field and he did just that.”
For Wimsatt, he said it’s all about keeping the mindset that today is just another football game. He said the Purples put on their pads just like they do.
Even after their win over Douglass, Wimsatt said the Red Devils still feel like underdogs.
“We definitely do,” he said. “We feel like we haven’t gotten the respect we should have earned so we’ve got to go out there and earn it.”
He said as long as mistakes are kept to a minimum, they’ll have a chance to shock the state at Kroger Field.
“We need to play as a team like we have all season,” he said. “Stay together. Pick each other up when we make mistakes. Have a bad memory when we make a bad play. The simple things.”
When Kenyata Carbon had a pick six on the first play from scrimmage, junior Javius “Bird” Taylor told Carbon he’d get his interception soon enough.
On the next drive, Taylor did just that as he grabbed a deflection to give the Red Devils the ball right back.
He said he knew he’d have to be a leader this season.
“We had a lot of younger classmen coming up and I felt I had to take a leader role in getting them ready to play varsity,” he said.
Senior Austin Gough has been through a lot in his four years as a Red Devils. An injury last season cut his junior year in half but Gough returned to helped lead OHS to the state semifinals a year ago.
This season, he said it’s a great feeling to end the year at Kroger Field.
“It’s special,” he said. “It’s a roller coaster, like the game of football is a roller coaster, ebbs and flows. To end on the peak of the roller coaster is huge, it’s a great feeling.”
Gough is an intense player and he can be seen throughout the game picking up teammates and cheering them on. He said while he and Wimsatt have different personalities, it all works out in the end, which has helped lead them to this point.
“It’s balance, opposites attract,” he said. “We both are very level headed. I’m intense but I know how to speak to our guys and he knows how to speak to his guys. They listen and that’s huge for having a younger team. They listen to what we have to say because they know what we’ve been through and they respect us and our coaches.”
Owensboro and Bowling Green hit the field at 3 p.m. EST at Kroger Field in Lexington for the 2020 UK Orthopaedic Class 5A State Football Final.
