The Sporting Times covered four area games over the course of the first week of the high school football season.
The team covered Franklin-Simpson vs. Elizabethtown, South Warren vs. Hopkinsville and Glasgow vs. Russellville Friday and highlighted its Week 1 coverage with Bowling Green vs. North Hardin in the Rafferty’s Bowl Saturday.
With those four games now in the books, we are now familiar with how five local teams operate. Although it is hard to tell much about a team that has played just one game on the season’s schedule, I give a brief overview of what we learned about them in Week 1.
- Bowling Green (1-0):
Similar to each season, Bowling Green didn’t rebuild – it just reloaded.
The Purples kicked off their 96th season of football by rolling past North Hardin, 42-7, in Saturday’s 15th annual Rafferty’s Bowl at Houchens-Smith Stadium.
In his first game as Bowling Green’s starting quarterback, junior Beau Buchanan played like a veteran QB, completing 18-of-26 passes for 226 yards and two touchdowns.
Along with Buchanan, sophomore running back Vito Tisdale had nine carries for 61 yards and a pair of scores while senior wide receivers Nash Hightower and Ziyon Kenner each tallied a touchdown reception.
With the Purples’ victory over the Trojans, BG has now won 11 consecutive Rafferty’s Bowl appearances, 16-straight games at WKU and 28-straight games overall.
Bowling Green, who hasn’t suffered a single defeat since a 45-19 decision at St. Xaiver on Sept. 4, 2015, travels to Pleasure Ridge Park for a 6:30 p.m. (CT) contest Friday.
- South Warren (1-0):
In a rematch of last season’s meeting in the quarterfinals of the Class 4A state playoffs, South Warren hosted Hopkinsville at home to kickoff its season.
Carrying momentum from its slim 28-24 victory over the Tigers last December, South fired on all cylinders Friday en route to a lopsided 35-14 win. In his very first start as a high school quarterback and his first game as a Spartan, junior Gavin Spurrier piloted his new club to success.
Spurrier, the grandson of the former Florida and South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier, completed 14-of-30 passes for 263 yards and two touchdowns with an interception.
Along with Spurrier, Clayton Bush and Caleb Lloyd each tallied touchdown receptions while Cody Eblen and Christian Winn each ran for a score. Additionally, Bush also threw a touchdown pass to Issac Young.
The Spartans performed at a high level in Week 1 and will do quite the same Saturday against Warren Central (0-1) in the innagural Citizens First Bowl at WKU.
- Glasgow (1-0):
The Scotties kicked off their 2017 campaign with a marquee 21-13 win over Russellville in their own Scottie Bowl Friday.
Coming off an 8-3 season a year ago that ended with a 47-28 loss to DeSales in the quarterfinals of the Class 2A state quarterfinals, Glasgow showed that it used that season-ending defeat as motivation throughout its summer workouts and improved in many areas.
Glasgow returns to action Friday in a road contest at Bardstown (0-1).
- Franklin-Simpson (0-1):
At times Friday, Franklin-Simpson played like it did all throughout the 2016 season – but some of the things it did were much different.
The Wildcats knew it would be tough opening their season against Elizabethtown, a successful program from Class 3A that went 10-4 last year and made it to the state semifinals. However, I don’t feel that F-S – or anyone – knew in fact just how tough it would be.
Elizabethtown, who returned 17 starters, had multiple players record big outings Friday in its 55-23 win, highlighted by quarterback Tyler Durbin and running back/wide receivers Jay and Joseph Becherer. That trio presented the Franklin defense with a huge challenge, one that the defensive unit couldn’t control.
Along with the Wildcats’ defense not being as stout as it has been in recent years – especially in 2016 – the club also experienced flaws on the offensive side of the ball.
Quarterback Rylan Thomas, who began the season as the starter for the first time, showed some nerves early, throwing a pair of interceptions on F-S’ first two drives. The Wildcats also fumbled twice to tally a total of four committed turnovers.
The bright side for Franklin-Simpson is that it was just one game. Coach Doug Preston’s squad is very capable of turning things around next week and ending up running the table. Thomas will have a much better outing – as well as the rest of the offense – and the defensive unit will be ready to shut teams down.
- Russellville (0-1):
Russellville fell short to Glasgow in Friday’s Scottie Bowl to host Glasgow, 21-13.
The Panthers and Scotties battled from start to finish, but Glasgow ultimately came out on top. After a 153-yard, four-touchdown season in 2016, junior quarterback Jacob Naylor completed just one pass, but it was a 16-yard TD pass to wide receiver Edward Barber.
Russellville will look to regroup Friday, as it travels to Fort Campbell (1-0).
