To be a good football team, a lot of things have to go right on a regular basis. To be a great football team, everything has to go right.
Unfortunately for Owensboro on Saturday afternoon at Kroger Field, not a lot went right — but that didn’t stop the Red Devils from giving it their all the entire game.
OHS coach Jay Fallin said the 10-0 halftime deficit felt larger because of the way Bowling Green was playing defense.
He was right.
Coming into the game, the Purples defense had dominated opponents this season. They had allowed just 780 rushing yards on the year and were holding teams, on average, to less than 10.0 points per game — a stat they improved on Saturday.
The Purples shut out four teams this season, including St. Xavier in their opener and Covington Catholic in last week’s semifinal.
Owensboro had 299 yards of total offense in the loss, with just 20 of those yards coming on the ground.
The point is, the Purples defense is legit and it lived up to the hype.
But to an even bigger point, Owensboro could have thrown in the towel early on when they were getting stopped time after time, but they didn’t.
They could have hit the Bluegrass Parkway and been home early if they called it in when they were down 17-0 but again, they didn’t.
If the Red Devils couldn’t have mustered a score, it would have been the first time they’d been shut out since they fell 47-0 Sept. 9, 2016, against … the Bowling Green Purples. But Owensboro wasn’t the only team BG kept scoreless that year, as it had five shutouts en route to a 70-22 drumming of Pulaski County in the state championship.
Bowling Green pushed Owensboro junior quarterback Gavin Wimsatt to the brink all afternoon. Even though he threw for 279 yards and a score, Wimsatt still delivered two picks — but that’s just a testament to BG.
Wimsatt is going to take some flack for his performance Saturday but it’s not all his fault. In just his second full season as a starter, Wimsatt, according to 247sports, is the No. 2 quarterback in next year’s class. That’s a lot of pressure on someone who can’t even vote.
Wimsatt is talented. There’s no denying that. His recruiting will heat up again this summer and he’ll be in the running for Mr. Football next season.
The Red Devils graduate several standout seniors, including Austin Gough, Treyvon Tinsley, Ethan Avery, Justin Millay and many others. While that may sound like OHS will be depleted next season, it means anything but.
Although it’s never been confirmed, rumors have circulated that Gough has literally run through a brick wall for his teammates. Maybe that’s not completely true but if presented with the challenge, Gough would definitely give it a go because that’s what his teammates and fellow seniors mean to him and the rest of the 2020 class for the Red Devils.
Owensboro will reload and be a contender again in Class 5A, but the leadership this year’s seniors provided can’t be measured.
