You could hardly blame Fairdale High School’s host Bulldogs if their focus was in one place – and one place only – Saturday night in the UPS King of the Bluegrass Bowl in this suburb just south of the giant Louisville-based United Parcel Service hub that serves as its sponsor.
How could it not be? Visiting Beechwood quarterback Cameron Hergott is Kentucky’s first-ever Mr. Football to return to, as it were, defend his title. The super-senior is the first ever to get the chance thanks to a new Kentucky law allowing all high school students to reclassify to the class they belonged to before Covid-19 struck more than a year ago. And while such laws were proposed in other states, only Kentucky followed through.
So there was Hergott, all 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds now, up from a lean 185 a year ago, and looking every bit the part of a Mr. Football. The Eastern Kentucky commit has the scholarship opportunity he somehow did not have after a senior year leading the Tigers from Ft. Mitchell to a 10-2 season and a first-ever 2A state title.
He has something else, as well. Last week, Cameron was the focus of a major piece in The Washington Post that when you printed it out — along with the 122 comments — totaled 10 full pages. No college — dare we say very few pro athletes — will get that kind of treatment not to mention the four accompanying photos.
The Post story, of course, was as much about the politics and the culture of the Kentucky law — and Hergott’s part in it — as it was football. And it was almost shockingly positive for a major piece in an outlet like The Post in its treatment of both the player and the Beechwood program.
“I was a little leary of it,” Beechwood Head Coach Noel Rash said at first. He knows how these stories can go. But it didn’t. Â
So there he was, Cameron Hergott in the flesh, sprinting hard right toward the Fairdale bench after taking a shotgun snap with at least 10 of the 11 Bulldog defenders in hot pursuit. And then he stopped, pivoted and flipped the ball in a perfect throwback to the other side of the field to a wide-open running back Avery Courtney who would accelerate the final 20 yards up the sideline and into the end zone before he met a Bulldog.
Maybe it shouldn’t have been a complete surprise as the Beechwood pair had already combined for a 37-yard screen pass touchdown in the first quarter. But now it was 14-0 and Beechwood was off and flying.
Was this a surprise, that 2A school Beechwood would be pounding a two-time district champion 5A Louisville program that had been unbeaten a year ago until sidelined in the playoffs by the pandemic?
Maybe not after pregame warmups. Beechwood dressed out 55 players to Fairdale’s 37 with a coaching and sideline staff at least three times that of the host school. And if the CovCath-Elder crowd at The Pit Friday night was pushing 8,000, this one might have been pushing 800 — and half of those were Beechwood fans.
No band for the home team. No cheerleaders either compared to the dozen for Beechwood. And for the entire pre-game warmups, no shoulder pads for Fairdale. Uh oh. Not a good look against a serious, physical program like Beechwood’s Tigers.
Not a good result for the home team, either. Even with two Hergott scrambling touchdowns — one from 54 yards out, the other from the 24 — called back because of penalties, it didn’t matter as Avery put two more first-half TDs on the board — a 10-yard pitch around left end and a five-yard burst through left tackle — for a 28-0 Beechwood lead at halftime.
“I thought I might score a couple of TDs,” Courtney said, “but when I got to four . . . ” all he could do was shake his head. This was a young man who played at barely 150 pounds a year ago. “I couldn’t put on any weight,” he said. But this year the 5-foot-10 senior is up to 175 pounds and like Hergott a year ago, with no college suitors yet. On this night, Avery racked up 95 yards unofficially on 11 carries with his four TDs.
But at that size now and with that burst — despite the weight gain, he’s picked up speed, not lost it, Avery says. And he gives Beechwood just the kind of pressure relief for Hergott that Rash said they would have for their high-profile star.Â
So does two-way threat Parker Mason, a compact safety-wide receiver with a leaping interception and a spectacular diving, fully laid-out catch of a 34-yard Hergott pass at the 1, leading to the final score of the game, a Hergott sneak.
Give credit to “the seniors below me,” Hergott said after the game with a smile at the thought of his classification status. “I’m in my fifth year here,” and how he and the guys in the class below him will all be making this their final season together.
For Rash, who said before the game that the best way to deal with all this would be for his team to not let the pressure be on Hergott. “The pressure’s on us,” he said — as a team.
“It starts with our O-line,” Rash said, “they did a really special job out there.” They allowed the Tigers to call their game, do their thing, spread the ball around, Rash said.
And the defense, which took the ball away from Fairdale with a pair of interceptions and twice more on fumble recoveries after big hits, well, they didn’t allow Fairdale a first down until 7:50 left in the second quarter — and that was it for the first half.
“We’re a ways from where we have to get,” Rash said of his team that completes its tour of Kentucky next weekend at Paintsville. But they have time. “The list is long,” he said of needed improvements, sounding like every football coach everywhere.
And yeah, Fairdale’s short punts were hard to handle resulting in a couple of lost fumbles. And that game-opening kickoff sequence when Fairdale bounced an onside kick off a Tiger helmet with a pair of front-line Beechwood players colliding as they went after the ball, giving it to Fairdale, started things off in Keystone Kops fashion.
As for Hergott, “I felt I could have played better,” he said after finishing unofficially with six of 11 passing for 150 yards, no interceptions and two TDs with a couple of drops on perfectly thrown balls of more than 30 yards.
Rash saw it a bit differently. “Cameron is always awesome,” he said simply.
Personal stats aren’t his goal this season, Hergott said. “I just want to get a little better every day — and win a state (championship).”
Dan Weber writes a sports column for The River City News. Contact him at dweber3440@aol.com.
Photo:Â Cameron Hergott in 2020 (Brian Frey/RCN file)