2024 Record – 0-11
Head Coach – Clay Hooper
2024: The Hawks struggled through a rough 2024 season going winless under coach Sonny Judd’s third season and with his resignation following, the new head coach will be Clay Hooper, who will be in charge of trying to rebuild a once proud program, which has gone through several transitions recently. Hooper, who had been an assistant coach under Brent Thompson at North Hardin is putting together a staff and will attempt to rebuild a program which although struggled to win once in their last twenty two games with a large returning class in most positions.
Offense: The Offense, which scored just 119-points in 2023 was worse in 2024 with just 79 and Hooper’s first order of buisness will be put together an attack while finding replacements for graduated runningbacks and receivers. Romeo Bartolonei are the returning runners with both Chris Dunn, Lucas Evans and Rayquan Bradley gone. The Quarterbacks are still young with Junior Brady Abell and Sophomore Owen McDowell back, but only Brock Brown and Rayquan Bradley are returning after their top four are gone. The Offensive Line is a different story with Luke Heady, Rylee Cundiff, Maddox Coffman and Gavin Jurcak back.
Kicking: With Landon Turner gone, Hooper will look for another kicker.
Defense: If any department really struggled, it was the defense as it allowed more points (471) than in 2023 (357), but if there is a silver lining it’s that Hooper has plenty of retuning parts to work with and should be able to put together a competitive bunch. The Defensive Line should look pretty much the same with the absence of Jameson Pena Santos. Heady, Coffman, Cundiff should be back and doing double duty on both sides of the ball. Trenton Despain should help as well. Linebackers should return Brock Brown and the defensive backfield was hit pretty hard with only Romeo Bartolomei back.
2025 Schedule: For the Hawks, Hooper will debut his team in regular season action on August 22nd against Thomas Nelson (2-8) @ Campbellsville, then a home game against Russell County (5-6). September will see the Hawks on the road for two straight at Elizabethtown (4-7), then Green County (2-9) the following week, then home for two straight against Butler County (1-9) and Adair County (10-2), then three straight on the road against Edmonson County (6-5), Glasgow (5-6) and then Hart County (12-1) before finishing up the regular season at home against Taylor County (6-5). LaRue County will face four teams with winning records and two with double digit wins, still it’s not a bad schedule to start out with for a developing program.
Summation: Anytime a program goes through a dark period like LaRue County, there’s always a transition period and hopefully Hooper can see a light at the end of the tunnel after season one. The biggest question is whether it happens in season one or much later.