Kentucky commit Grant Bingham and Johnson Central will play twice in central Kentucky but third game got cancelled

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Grant Bingham, second from right, is a UK football commit but was athletic enough to qualify for the state tennis tournament.

Kentucky commit Grant Bingham of Johnson Central will open his season with two games in Lexington. Johnson Central will play August 20 at Henry Clay and August 27 at Lexington Catholic — two easy chances for UK fans in central Kentucky to see him play.

Johnson Central coach Jim Matney says his all-state offensive lineman is a “solid player” that continues to try and get better.

“We are trying to get him better and get him ready for UK,” Matney said. “We have had several kids out of the mountains do well in the line in college including recently with the boys from Belfry at Louisville and UK. A lot of schools are having success with mountain kids and he will be one because he’s a tough kid.”

Matney understands it’s important to let Bingham work on skills he’ll need at UK.

“We want to have him ready for Kentucky so we work on his overall package. He does not do a lot of pass blocking with us. We try to put in some extra time (with pass blocking) to get him ready for college,” the Johnson Central coach said. “He’s not had any letdown in his workouts since he committed to Kentucky.

“He has been pretty level-headed despite turning down Notre Dame, Michigan, Miami, and others. He’s a little bigger now but it is good weight he has put on. You can see he is thicker.”

Johnson Central and Bingham thought they would be playing in central Kentucky a third time but before a scheduled game at Danville on September 17 got dropped.

Matney said Danville coach Mark Peach called him to let him know Danville would not play Johnson Central.

“He said he didn’t have very many players out. He said he was left in a very difficult situation,” Matney said. “My side of it was that it is almost impossible to find another game this close to the season and late July and would hurt my kids very badly.”

Matney said the schools’ athletic directors agreed to the game and both teams had it listed on their schedules on the Kentucky High School Athletic Association website. However, Matney worried when a contract never got sent to Johnson Central.

“We waited weeks for a contract. I really don’t know what to say. I don’t say to be ugly but it is a very unfortunate situation. Coach (Peach) said he just did not have the players to play us. It’s a horrible situation for us. We were just desperate for games when we got this worked out I thought.”

Matney says the only way his team will now get to play a full 10-game schedule is if a game with Rock Creek Christian of Maryland can be worked out.

“It is a mess and I hate it for our kids. We are used to things happening and dealing with adversity. If you are a decent school in the mountains you have a hard time getting games and then this one gets canceled in July. If a mountain team had canceled on someone this late I know we really would have got criticized but it is what it is I guess.”

2 Responses

  1. Danville has went from a former state powerhouse, to not being able to field a team. It’s really kind of sad. Go Rebels!

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