Boyle County celebrated a 34-7 win over Frederick Douglass last year. Tonight the two powers meet again. (Chris Zollner Photo)
There’s a lot on the line tonight when unbeaten Frederick Douglass (9-0) plays at Boyle County (8-1).
Both teams have state title aspirations and the winner tonight likely will be guaranteed home field advantage in the playoffs until the state championship game.
Boyle (8-1) lost to Class 4A district rival Lexington Catholic, the Rebels are still ahead of Catholic in the KHSAA RPI rankings and beating the 5A Broncos would obviously keep Boyle No. 1. Douglass is No. 1 in 6A but a loss to Boyle could give Scott County, which hosts Lexington Catholic tonight, a chance to move in front with a win.
The Rebels smacked Frederick Douglass 34-7 last year but Boyle coach Justin Haddix says the Broncos have a “really good football team with a lot of guys back” who will remember last year’s loss.
“I think it will be a big-time game,” Haddix said. “I think we will have quite a few college coaches here, which is what we want. It’s going to be a great game at our place and a big challenge for us. I am looking for a great atmosphere.”
Both teams are loaded with future Division I players and Douglass coach Nathan McPeek hopes an improved defense is key for his team.
“We knew coming into the year we would be pretty good on defense (Douglass is allowing an average of five points per game) and that we had a bunch of future Division I guys on defense,” McPeek said. “We play hard and really fast. Our defensive coaches have done a great job. But last year coming into the game we were not giving up a ton of points and they smacked us pretty good.
“We have an elite kicker (Cooper Ranvier). He is kicking the ball in the end zone 90 or 95 percent of the time on kickoffs and you better be pretty good to go 80 yards against our defense because we can run at all three levels.”
Still, McPeek knows what Boyle did to his team last year when it built a 21-0 lead in the first quarter.
“I am excited to see how far we have grown from that experience,” McPeek said. “We went to the state final last year and I do not know if we would have done that if Boyle had not done that to us. We had started taking things for granted and it shows up in a game like that.”
“The venue is going to be crazy with cannons and fireworks going off. We don’t get that a lot. It is all football on Friday nights in that area. I am excited for our kids to be part of that.”
Douglass has five players who had Kentucky scholarship offers and Boyle currently has three — defensive lineman Tommy Ziesmer (a UK commit), sophomore receiver/returner/safety Montavin Quisenberry and freshman defensive lineman/running back Brock Driver.
“It’s kind of similar to when we played North Hardin during the COVID year and now five or six kids that played in that game are now at UK,” McPeek said. “There are not quite as many UK commits in this game but there are a lot of future Division I players, so I am sure we’ll have a lot of college coaches out to see this game along with a lot of fans who just want to see a great football game.”
