Area football needs a competitive Whitley Co.

Corbin and Williamsburg have both been at the cusp of the pinnacle of high school football in their respective classes in recent memory.

Williamsburg at Class A, and Corbin at Class 4A have been to the state finals.

While two out of three ain’t bad in the world of classic rocker Meatloaf, what the area needs, and hopefully new Coach Zeke Eier can deliver, is a Whitley County football program that can play at that level.

No pressure there, coach!

While the Colonels struggled in 2020, it isn’t like Coach Jep Irwin left the cupboard bare.

As Coach Eier said in his interview, there is some talent.

Can he, like Coach Tom Greer at Corbin and Coach Jerry Herron at Williamsburg, harness that talent and take it up the notches necessary to not only play with Corbin, but with the likes of Pulaski County and Southwestern that the Colonels must get past in the early rounds of the playoffs?

Whatever you think of Coach Irwin’s decision to leave after two seasons, one thing he did was up the caliber of opponents the Colonels faced during the regular season.

Adding the likes of Hazard and Bell County during the regular season to Corbin, along with district opponents Pulaski County and Southwestern, is setting Whitley County up for success in the playoffs. The win/loss record may not be as stellar, but, in the end, it is about being ready to play in late November when it is win-or-go-home time.

While Coach Eier will, no doubt, want to put his own mark on the schedule, there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

A few other random thoughts:

• I made my second visit to Whitley County’s Charles M. Lawson Gymnasium to snap pictures for the paper Monday night. I doubt I’m the only one that finds it incredibly dark in the area of the parking lot by the gym entrance. Can we please get some more lights on that area so I can quit tripping over the step that I know is there, but am batting 1,000 when it comes to hitting it?

• Watching the Whitley County Lady Colonels play basketball right now is something. Coach Sean Pigman has an aggressive, hardnosed bunch that seems to take pride in the way they play on both ends of the floor.