Your guide to the 2020 Lexington high school football season
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2020 Kentucky high school football preview
The 2020 high school football season kicked off Friday, Sept. 11. High school sports beat writer Jared Peck wrote numerous stories in the Herald-Leader and on Kentucky.com previewing the season around the city, region and state and highlighting the top players and games and rankings. Click below to read all of his stories in case you missed any of them.
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Ahead of a high school football season that seemed like it would never come, the thought of being under Friday night’s lights after months away from the game and apart from each other seems like a victory in itself.
Every team’s primary opponent this year is the coronavirus pandemic. Players know they have to do all they can to stay safe for themselves, for their families, for their team and for the season. The threat that they could lose their season to the pandemic makes it even more precious, especially for seniors.
“All this summer I didn’t think we’d get to play,” Tates Creek senior JT Acosta said. “They’ve given us a great opportunity to go out and go play football. That’s what all of us love to do. I’m glad we get the chance to.”
In Lexington, teams like Frederick Douglass and Lexington Christian have state title hopes in their respective classes. Paul Laurence Dunbar comes off its first winning season since 2005 and has its sights set on a district crown and more. Expectations at Lexington Catholic never waver.
While Bryan Station and Henry Clay adjust to new head coaches and Lafayette tries to regain the form that made it a state power, Tates Creek looks to maintain its momentum after earning district and regional trophies last year with its best team in decades.
Meanwhile, there’s a new program in town as Sayre begins varsity play for the first time since the 1970s. A separate story on the Spartans is scheduled later this week.
Frederick Douglass
Herald-Leader Class 5A preseason No. 2 Douglass has the depth and talent to make another visit to Kroger Field thanks in part to their big guy in the trenches, Jager Burton, a 6-4, 271-pound four-star offensive guard and recent Kentucky commit who also plays some defense but primarily helps set up Coach Nathan McPeek’s big-play offense.
McPeek steps into the head coaching role after three years as offensive coordinator and has a number of offensive weapons at his disposal, including senior wideout Dekel Crowdus, another UK commit who has returned to Douglass after a year in Florida, and junior receiver Dane Key who has already racked up multiple Division I college offers.
While the Broncos relied more on the run in 2019 and still have dangerous senior rusher Darius Neal to help carry the load, McPeek plans a more balanced offense this year with 6-7 junior transfer Samuel Cornett at quarterback. Cornett moved to Lexington early this summer from the state of Washington.
Key can’t wait to see defenses try to handle what all Douglass can do.
“Whenever they try to double-team me, Dekel’s going to be wide-open, if they try to double team Dekel, I’m gonna be wide-open, and if you try to double-team both of us, we’ve got even more receivers who are are going to make plays like Isaiah Allen, Jakari Cowherd and Cam Dunn,” Key said. “We’re all gonna go out there and make plays.”
The Broncos’ defense was the second stingiest in the class and keeps three-year starting senior lineman Romarion Warner and boasts junior Ty Bryant and sophomore Isaiah Kenney in the secondary, who both have already been offered by UK.
Lexington Christian
With 18 returning starters and a larger roster than previous years, Coach Doug Charles believes his Herald-Leader Class 2A preseason No. 4 LCA has another contender, but they’ll have to break in a new quarterback.
Last season, the Eagles defeated eventual Class 2A champ Somerset by a point in the regular season (its only loss) and were a failed two-point try away from staying in their district finals.
Drew Nieves, a 5-9 junior, takes over LCA’s traditional dual-threat QB position, one that was run by his older brother Logan on LCA’s 11-2 squad in 2017.
“Drew is an easy choice for us,” Charles said. “He’s got a lot of arm talent. He got a lot of ability and we think he’ll do really well running our team.”
Junior Xavier Brown, the team’s leading rusher and third-leading receiver who just got his first Division I offer from Maryland, figures to be a bigger part of the offense this year along with senior wideout Will Vernon.
Senior linebacker Mattie Lebryk, the team’s leading tackler, heads up a solid defense that keeps the Eagles in games and also includes junior linebacker Jeffrey Selby and junior safety Mason Moore, the son of UK great Marty Moore, an LCA assistant.
Lebryk likes what he has seen in practice.
“We look pretty good,” Lebryk said. “It’s actually it’s a lot better than I have to be honest. We had multiple Zoom calls over the break and I think everyone really actually studied playbooks and we know what we’re doing, so when we get out here, we can actually start running plays.”
Lexington Catholic
The Knights move on from the Beau Allen era with 15 starters back, including a pair of 1,000-yard receivers in junior Blake Busson and senior Jackson Corbett.
With Allen having moved on to UK, LexCath turns to a pair of QBs who will share snaps — senior Josh Brownell and junior Jack Gohmann get the keys to Coach Nigel Smith’s pass-heavy offense.
“We have confidence in both of those young men,” Smith said.
Corbett likes the idea.
“You want competition,” Corbett said. “No one’s ever going to be Beau Allen. You’re not going get him in a while. “But the guys we’ve got. I really like.”
Ranked No. 7 preseason in the Herald-Leader coaches’ poll, LexCath also returns its entire secondary, including seniors JD Woodall and John Martin Simms and three of its four linebackers.
“We have a good number of returning players, who have logged a lot of game minutes in the past two years,” Smith said. “If there was ever a senior class ready to step into the leadership roles, we have it this year.”
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Three years ago, Dunbar went 0-10. Then Coach Wes Johnson came along. Things have changed.
“We’re returning 20 seniors off a team that was district runner-up and lost that game by touchdown,” Johnson said. His Bulldogs went 7-5 last year. “This group makes no mistake, their goal this year is to bring a district championship back to Dunbar for the first time in 20 years.”
Senior Jake Smith passed for nearly 2,000 yards in 2019 and should have another great season under new offensive coordinator Joey Thacker, who moonlights from his Franklin County girls’ basketball coaching gig as sort of an offensive guru on the gridiron.
Senior defensive back Mario Paul had two huge interceptions that helped Dunbar overcome a late deficit in their playoffs win over Lafayette. He’s proud of how far the Bulldogs have come.
“The senior class this year, we were mostly all together freshman year, so we’ve got that chemistry,” Paul said. “When we get out on the field, we really look at each other like brothers. So, when we play, it just comes easy.”
Tates Creek
The Commodores return only three starters of a historic district and regional championship team that made it all the way to the Class 6A semifinals. Coach Jonathan Smith believes that despite that turnover, Tates Creek will surprise some folks this season.
“A lot of people are probably saying, you know, this might be the year to get Tates Creek,” Smith said. “We do return a lot of talent, but it’s a lot of talent it hasn’t played on a Friday night. So my expectations are like any normal season, let’s get into district play, let’s be playing our best ball when we go in there and let the chips fall where they may.”
Bryan Station
New head coach Phillip Hawkins has been pleased with his Defenders this preseason.
“The kids are all the way bought in, you know, and they’re headed in the direction we expect them to be in this program,” Hawkins said. “This is a great group of kids. … I couldn’t be any happier right now.”
Junior Amodeus Taylor and Joey Bond combined for more than 1,100 yards and will benefit from an experienced offensive line that includes Division I prospect Josh Rowe, a 6-3, 260-pound two-star tackle.
“We’re changing up a lot of stuff,” senior receiver Dadrien Taylor said. “He’s teaching us a lot — discipline mainly. We’re trying to learn all the plays and get to know each other and play together as a family.”
Lafayette
Lafayette has suffered three straight losing seasons after back-to-back Class 6A state title appearances, but Coach Eric Shaw knows what success looks like.
“We’re trying to get our thoughts together and get ourselves in a position to be successful and finish games. That was the issue last year,” Shaw said. “We’re going to get out here and work our butts off.”
Henry Clay
Longtime defensive coordinator Demetrius Gay takes over as head coach on the heels of the Blue Devils first winless season since 1992. He has experience on the offensive and defensive lines, but there are a lot of questions heading into 2020.
All of Henry Clay’s skill positions are “up for grabs,” Gay said.
“It’s been different for the kids, and we’re learning a lot,” Gay said. “We’re pretty much a new staff. So they’re getting used to the coaches and coaches are getting used to the kids, but it’s been going great so far.”
This story was originally published September 7, 2020 at 7:37 AM.
