Not really a legitimate argument against what he argued. Getting a division one athlete at a Blair Oaks sized school is near impossible. That does not mean that they do not have better athletes than 90% of their competition (which they do). Great coaching is what gets them the other 10%. To say it's because of coaching that they blow out Boonville, for example, is comical. They win by 30 because of the athletes but win by 45 because they are coached better than the other team. It's not the X's and O's, it's the Jimmys and Joes. That's just the reality of it and anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves.
I agree with a lot of this to an extent. I do think they have better athletes than most of the conference schools on a yearly basis, but a lot of that comes from development too. They don't play in the same youth league as most of the other conference schools, but other schools go undefeated in 7th and 8th grade and then are below .500 when they are juniors and seniors. I know all kids develop differently so you can't go off of MS necessarily but other schools do have talent, they just lose kids to a lot of different reasons. There are way too many coaches that don't focus on their Freshman and JV so their kids don't develop like they should.
I personally think coaching makes a lot bigger difference than 10%. BO was not more talented than Lutheran North or Cardinal Ritter in years past. They just flat out outcoached those guys. I watched SoBo give Trinity Catholic all they wanted in 18 when they had no business staying within 50 of those guys, but the SoBo staff outcoached Trinity and made it a game. Coach LePage had a great staff when he came back to BO, some of those guys have retired, but he still has a lot of quality assistant coaches and I think that part gets overlooked in football way too much. When Coach Walker was at BO he had a great staff. He brought some former coaches/players from JC with him, also had Coach Duke on staff, who might have Tipton in a title game this year. So they have been very fortunate to have some really good coaches through the years.
As I've stated before, there are so many things that have gone in to the sustained success at BO, but Dr. Jones and Coach Lepage are at the top of that list. IMO if he hadn't left he would probably have 9-10 Titles. There has been one coach that won a title not named LePage, and that was the year after he left the first time.
