LOOKING BACK

 Friday evening was a tough experience for the Corbin Redhounds against a Danville Admiral team that was ready to play.

In a first half plagued with Redhound turnovers, the Admirals took full advantage and opened up a 29-7 halftime lead.

The Redhounds came out at halftime and shut down Danville on the first series of downs and scored a touchdown and a two-point conversion to cut the lead to 14, only to have the Admirals respond by scoring twice more for a 43-15 win.

I did not feel it was a lack of effort on behalf of the Redhound players, quite the contrary, I felt on several instances the extra effort made may have led to fumbles a couple of times.

The Redhound team has some issues, but I do not feel a lack of effort or lack of leadership should be concerns.

I do not know about the rah, rah leadership, but if you are on the field playing and cannot see leadership through the example of effort from Brady Foley or Matt Jewell or Grant Grigsby then you simply would not recognize leadership.

The main issue as I see it, is overall team speed. I feel the coaching staff does a very good job of compensating with their defensive schemes, and trying to maintain ball control on offense.

This Redhound team will bounce back and play well for the remainder of the season.

Coach John Calpari and his Dominican Republic team lost out to Brazil last Saturday, which I believe eliminates their hopes of playing in the Olympics. I am a big Coach Cal fan, but I am glad he will be returning to Lexington and zeroing in on his job as head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky.

This job he took on to coach the Dominican Republic has taken away from time he could have used to cultivate relationship with an incoming group of freshmen.

Yet, another concern is recruiting blue chip prospects for the class of 2012. This time last year, Coach Cal had already locked up the premiere recruiting class of 2011.

UConn, Duke, Kansas, North Carolina and others, I am sure have made up ground with many blue chippers over the past few weeks.

The ‘Cats have already lost out on Andre Drummond, a 6’11”, 260-pound center signed with Connecticut, while Brandon Ashley, a 6’8” forward went another direction as well.

Two players Coach Cal covets most in this 2012 class are Mitch McGray out of New Hampshire and Shabazz Mohammed of Los Vegas, Nev.

McGray is a 6’10”, 210-pound power forward, and Mohammed is a 6’5” shooting guard and rated the number one player in the country.

Decisions by the two young men and several other 2012 hopefuls are very prominent to Kentucky’s basketball program. These decisions should come within the next month or so.

Former Redhound All-State and Eastern Kentucky All-American Steve Bird continues to work as an assistant coach at South Florida University on the staff of Coach Skip Holtz. I noticed Steve conferring with Coach Holtz several times on television during South Florida’s big win over Notre Dame the first weekend of the season. They registered their second win Saturday, 37-7 over Ball St.

I understand Steve’s son Brian, is having quite a season as a junior in high school as a quarterback. It is in the genes with the great Bird family.

Steve’s dad and Brian’s grandfather is an all-time Redhound great, Jerry Bird. Jerry’s bothers are Calvin, Billy and Rodger, all fantastic athletes. These Birds certainly feathered the Redhound nest.