Baker Mayfield v. Tim Couch

Baker Mayfield was in Cleveland from 2018 through 2021, and is now going to play quarterback for Carolina.  Tim Couch was in Cleveland from 1999 through 2003.  Mayfield appeared in 60 games for the Browns; Couch appeared in 62.  So let's compare them:

Record as a starting QB:

Mayfield:  29-30

Couch:  22-37

Passing stats:

Mayfield:  1,185 completions in 1,924 attempts (Completion percentage 61.6)

Couch:  1,025 completions in 1,714 attempts (Completion percentage 59.8)

Mayfield:  14,125 passing yards

Couch:  11,131 passing yards

Mayfield:  92 TD's, 56 Interceptions

Couch:  64 TD's, 67 Interceptions

Mayfield:  Passer rating 87.8

Couch:  Passer rating 75.1

Running stats:

Mayfield:  158 carries for 571 yards (3.6 yards per carry)

Couch:  124 carries for 556 yards (4.5 yards per carry)

Per Game stats:

Mayfield:  19.8 of 32.1 for 235.4 yards, 1.5 TD's, and 0.9 Interceptions

Couch:  16.5 of 27.6 for 179.5 yards, 1.0 TD's, and 1.1 Interceptions

Oh, Kentucky

Bill Straub in the Northern Kentucky Tribune: "Once you work your way through the briars, brambles, and bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go in Kentucky politics, you’ll discover that elections often come down to just two issues – abortion and guns."

So let's imagine you're in western Kentucky from out of state and trying to figure out how where to take the fam to eat tonight to kick off your #freakinweekend in style. Well, here's some (270) foodie 411 for you:

-- Tapas have come to Owensboro.

-- Tacoholics is expanding again in Henderson.

-- Patti's is not quite back yet in Grand Rivers, but they do now have that new grill named after the town's founder.

Loretto is getting sidewalks!

This interactive map, from Frankfort's Kentucky Center for Statistics, looks like so much fun, and I can't wait to find out what it is that it's teaching me.

Oh, Kentucky

I was in Munfordville and got to pick up the July 11 Hart County News-Herald. My favorite item was the "Buzz Around Bonnieville" column by Linda Watts: "No matter where you call home, we all have the same basic issues facing our communities today; the lack of affordable housing, small businesses struggling to make it, trying to keep prices competitive while making enough to pay the bills and the older population facing loneliness with family members living miles away to pursue their careers." She used that as a springboard to talk about her thankfulness "that we live in a community that offers so many actives and opportunities for fellowship." She mentioned the recent county fair and an upcoming ribbon cutting and grand opening at Barbour's Fresh Produce in Munfordville.

Ryan Van Velzer of Louisville's WFPL lays out how Owenton avoided water contamination downstream from the Jim Beam spill.

A murder in Hazard has a local homeless shelter and the city reviewing its processes and policies. "Somehow we have to be a compassionate city, but we also have to protect our city," a city councilperson says in Katie Kelley's story in The Hazard Herald.

(Refugee) farm to (Hickory & Oak) table, in Bowling Green. Neat Madison Martin report for WBKO.

Ray Hagerman, president of the Madisonville-Hopkins County Economic Development Corporation, in the local Messenger: "Madisonville is at a 15-year record for open jobs, and our employers are struggling mightily to find the talent they need in those positions. Economic development has organized two job fairs in the first half of this year, and both had hundreds more available jobs than they attracted job seekers. Studies show that people with military experience tend to have a high rate of civilian work success, and so we see Fort Campbell as a crucial pipeline of talent for our community's prosperity. And we saw Madisonville Military Day as a great start to tapping into that talent."

The National Association of Agricultural Educators nabbed itself a couple of recruits from Caldwell County High.

Mural reveal! Today at 2 Central in the old Clinton Bank lot.

Turning to sports, forget about live racing at Ellis Park today.

Oh, Kentucky

Is Allen, Kentucky, on the brink of being no more?

A former auction house on U.S. 68 in Carlisle is being converted into a combination fireworks store/petting zoo.

It's Scouts BSA camp season.

Good jobs news from Bardstown and Paris.

The new physician-in-chief of UK HealthCare's Kentucky Children's Hospital and chair of its Department of Pediatrics is a Smilax native who introduces his Leslie County hometown to the HP family of #ohky labels.

Oh, Kentucky

4.0 at 83.

"Justice by geography:" 99 percent of defendants in Hopkins County have the money to post bail; 17 percent do so in Wolfe County. Eye-opening Kentucky Center for Economic Policy study--as recapped by Danielle Grady in LEO Weekly.

The great-great-great-grandson of Hopkinsville's founder is investing anew in the town's future.

"'Is that a threat?,' Stapleton asked. 'It's a promise,' Malone retorted." More fantastic meeting coverage--this time from the Carter County Emergency Management Services board, by Jeremy D. Wells in the Grayson Journal-Enquirer.

Oh, Kentucky

Man, oh, man ... everything's complicated (Walton edition).

25. Floyd
23. Jackson
20. Martin
16. Knox
10. Harlan
9. Bell
8. Leslie
7. Breathitt
6. Clay
5. McCreary

Thursday morning at Paducah's Kentucky Career Center: "Come join us and bring a friend! We are working on improving reentry into our community and improving public safety. If you cannot attend, see if someone you know or work with can come in your place."

Tomorrow morning at Lexington's UK Gatton Student Center: "The event is free and open to the public, though reservations are requested, as space is limited. Participation is highly recommended for elected officials, community and economic development leaders, existing businesses within Opportunity Zones and those looking to develop projects in Opportunity Zones."

Cincinnati's Buffalo Wings & Rings eyes rollout of 25 Kentucky stores in the next five years, and you could be their person in Winchester.

Speaking of (No. 25) Floyd County, bravo to Prestonsburg's Girl Scouts Troop 5185 and everyone else who spent their Saturday mornings cleaning up around Jenny Wiley State Resort Park--which, by the way, is awesome:

Oh, Kentucky

Good jobs news from Glasgow.

IGA and Kroger (along with a bunch of other workplaces) will be going head to head for employees at a hiring fair in West Liberty next week.

Opening in Fort Mitchell. Closing in Owensboro. Coming back in Madisonville. Came back in Beattyville.

I am tempted to enroll as a nontraditional, commuter student at Hazard Community and Technical College just to give this cool-looking CDL simulator a spin.

The nation's highest-paid state CIO is the one in Frankfort, per Lexington's Council on State Governments, reports Louisville's Courier-Journal.

Essential Hendersonian Douglas White weighs in with a typically outstanding update on the back and forth on the former Player's Club golf course.

The horse-racing track that Churchill Downs and Keeneland are planning to open in Oak Grove has moved a step closer toward a projected 2020 opening.


Heavenly Treasures shared in Washington County and beyond.

The alleged Nancy apple bandits have been apprehended.

Oh, Kentucky

Glen Drury Week rolls on in Lawrenceburg.

It looked dire for a bunch of kitties at the Estill County Animal Shelter. But then Richmond's WBON TV did a story--adoptions surged, and somebody set up a GoFundMe account.

Here's a creative protest organized by 35 overflow prisoners from Louisville's main jail.

The standoff between Poor Peoples Campaign activists and state police continued Wednesday.

Equipping Kentucky's truckers to blunt human trafficking?

Making Haldeman great again.

Retirement is booming among Kentucky's public employees.

Schools in Hardin County are struggling to hire enough teachers, and "there's not a school district in the state that doesn't haven't the same problem," the local human-resources director tells Katherine Knott of Etown's News-Enterprise.

A cooperative of students in eastern Kentucky has built and is auctioning a bunch of "tiny houses."

Oh, Kentucky

New York Times profiles Marshall County students who spoke out for gun control after shooting

‘Almost No One Agrees With Us’: For Rural Students, Gun Control Can Be a Lonely Cause https://t.co/N7pxgE24GD

— Ryland Barton (@RylandKY) May 22, 2018

Good guys with guns, in Madisonville next school year.

Greetings from Asbury Park, New Jersey; Paducah and seven other places, per USA Today.

"There are several guidelines, which include: ..." reads the tee-up to a bulleted list in a Kentucky Standard staff report on a Bardstown-Nelson County Tourist and Convention Commission grant program. For my money, the most interesting of those guidelines are that "(r)equests may be made for start-up and/or operational costs, including staffing, for local non-profit organizations’ tourism-related project or event" and that "(f)unds awarded to festivals and events are normally awarded on a sliding scale, for no more than three consecutive years. (Assuming, of course, all other guidelines are met.)" Both seem well-conceived to me, assuming the notion of the granting program is to spark new tourism-oriented activities, as opposed to sustaining them. Anyway, I find this whole report interesting, congratulate the not-credited Kentucky Standard staffer (maybe an intern) who put it together and wish the Bardstown-Nelson County Tourist and Convention Commission the absolute best of luck in achieving its goals.

OK, the primaries ... localwise, my wife and I rocked the Hopkins County Precinct 27 vote late yesterday afternoon at our local Shriner’s Rizpah Temple. We were accompanied by our daughter and one of her fourth-grade friends, who spent their day off playing together, and at the polls we ran into my wife’s parents, a woman we go to church with, a couple we used to go to church with and the woman who owned our house two owners before us. Nary a fistfight broke out, so we celebrated by taking the girls for milkshakes and me a corndog. My wife, who is all about sensible choices and self control, thought long and hard about a white-chocolate Twix and dark-chocolate KitKat—but passed on both so as not to spoil her supper. The joke was on her, however, as it turned out my 4 p.m. corndog was powerless against my almost-undefeated appetite--I still ate double helpings of mac-and-cheese and white beans just a couple of hours later. As my wife and I tidied up the kitchen and the girls frolicked with some neighborhood kids in the sprinkler, we listened to (sublime) Danny Koeber read returns on WFMW Classic Hit Country AM 730, as they rolled in from the Hopkins County Clerk downtown. The big news was that barbecue-magnate Kevin Cotton edged two-time-incumbent/hailed-CPA/gospel-singer David Jackson in the Republican primary for mayor--and, furthermore, Danny divulged after polls were closed that he had heard a rumor that Democratic challenger David Oakley, who was unopposed in the primary, would discontinue his campaign if Kevin beat David J. (David O and Kevin both used to work for the city, but it was unclear whether David O was considering forgoing the November general because he and Kevin are friends or because his main goal was to unseat David J or some other reason.) Anyway, all of this is fine with the two eligible-voter Democrats in this Precinct 27 house, as, though we think David J has done a fine job and have had nothing but positive experiences in our interactions with him, we also love Kevin (and his barbecue) and believe he is an inventive thinker with a heck of a lot of energy and a demonstrated orientation toward the least of these. We couldn't vote in the GOP primary yesterday, but we had already pretty much decided to cross lines and cast for whichever Republican come November. I think Kevin will do great.

And, statewise, here's the AP's unsurprisingly sturdy roundup.

Oh, Kentucky

Sen. Mitch McConnell speaks after 'skinny' ACA repeal vote fails https://t.co/nQTqta9enU via @YouTube

— Sandra J Gobely (@Sundaughter9) July 28, 2017

Good jobs (and cinnamon-roll) news from Madisonville. Also good from Bowling Green and Henderson.

Hiring in Hebron.

Rightsizing the City of Bardstown.

The "Southern Pennyrile" eyes "Generation Z."

"Our mission is to provide our students the best possible education and this initiative is a monumental step in doing that" in Whitley County.

Broadband expansion is complicated.

"A Day Journal: Lexington by Bike."

Meanwhile, in Paducah, ...

Hoptown's Roller Dome has a new owner and is undergoing renovation.

Oh, Kentucky

An HP exclusive from Mother's Day at Pennyrile Forest State Resort Park:

You've got until June 30 to submit your proposal for reopening the old "Arby's Island" Western Kentucky Parkway convenience center at Beaver Dam.

A 50-cent-per-hour raise is on the table for Pulaski County workers.

Valvoline HQ has opened grandly in Lexington.

SpanTech, a conveyor manufacturer in Glasgow, has worked with the state to launch an apprentice program for high-school juniors.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Bowling Green): "Treat our nation’s drug epidemic as a health crisis and less as a ‘lock-‘em-up-and-throw-away-the-key’ problem."

The American Medical Association reports that eight of the 10 U.S. counties experiencing the sharpest decline in life expectancy from 1980 to 2014 were in eastern Kentucky.

Meanwhile, one afternoon at Middlesboro Mall, ...

Oh, Kentucky

Hopkins County results in D presidential and R congressional races. #KYPrimary #Comer #Sanders pic.twitter.com/u0MM7puChr

— Will Cox (@WillCoxKY) May 18, 2016

The NRA wrapped up its big convention in Louisville on Sunday.

Flatwoods strikes back at the federal directive on bathroom usage by transgender people.

The new Kentucky State Police cadet class has arrived in Frankfort.

They shan't drive 55, across U.S. 45 and U.S. 641.

A couple of new U.S. Department of Agriculture grants are intended to help spur job creation and aid utility management in "persistent poverty areas" of Kentucky.

CovCath is launching random drug testing for all students next school year.

Kentucky for sale:

Oh, Kentucky

Kentucky Oaks Mall celebrates the USA! pic.twitter.com/fel3TMnnqS

— Kentucky Oaks Mall (@kentuckyoksmall) July 1, 2015

With this week's Lewis County Gazette, you get a broadsheet U.S. flag for displaying in commemoration of Independence Day.

Remembering President Nixon's July 2, 1978, visit to Hyden ... 

Good jobs news in La Grange. Maybe also in Cox's Creek?

The City-County Park public swimming pool in Princeton is set to open (at last) on Friday. I'm so happy for those people. I'll have more on this story in "Comments"!

"This is truly an exciting time for Norse Nation."

"Helping Kentucky fans find love with other Kentucky fans."

"Want to know more classical music, but not sure where to start?"

The next Prairie Home Companion host is going to be a Murray boy, per his mom.

Rest in peace, James "Bubbles" Switzer of Vanceburg. "Aside from being a member of the city council, bus driver, dispatcher, deputy jailer and a contributor to many volunteer projects to help the city, he was a friend to everybody."

Oh, Kentucky

Protest of a proposed McDonald's at 473 Main St. in downtown Lex., April 4, 1983. Details http://t.co/oWWk4jyWTx pic.twitter.com/vgW5HMCOfo

— KY Photo Archive (@KYPhotoArchive) June 10, 2015

Good jobs news from Princeton.

"Carrollton police had a very different plan for Adam Horine. They wanted him out of town and out of the state. They wanted to rid themselves of this tormented petty criminal. They wanted to make him someone else’s problem."

The vice president of tourism expansion and marketing for the Bardstown-Nelson County Tourism Commission says the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, Elizabethtown Sports Park and Meade County fly-fishing craze are drawing visitors to the state's eight-county "Lincoln Trail region."

Mitch McConnell, who set ensuring President Obama was not re-elected in 2012 as his primary goal as leader of the Senate of the United States of America and then failed to achieve that goal, now says that "Obamacare" is hurting Kentucky.

The Republican nominee for governor of Kentucky, Matt Bevin of Shelburne, N.H., agrees.

The Kentucky/Indiana all-star basketball series might be in crisis.

Happy one-year birthday to Dolly Parton's Hazard library!

Says YouTube user "capnvid47:" "When I was around eight living with my family in Hyden, Kentucky, we set up a UHF antenna (a rare occurrence in that mountainous area) to get the KET (Kentucky Educational Television) transmitter in nearby Hazard, which with the rest of the statewide network signed on in 1968."

It looks fantastic, capnvid47. Congratulations!

This Week's Games

The season is running out quickly now, and the playoffs are growing closer.  With two weeks left in the regular season, here are the latest standings in our end of the Commonwealth:

Class 1A, District 1:
Mayfield:  7-1, 2-0
Russellville:  7-1, 2-0
Fulton Co:  1-6, 1-2
Fulton City:  0-7, 0-3

Class 2A, District 1:
Caldwell Co:  8-0, 2-0
Murray:  5-3, 2-1
Ballard Mem:  7-2, 1-2
Crittenden Co:  3-5, 0-2

Class 3A, District 1:
Paducah Tilghman:  4-5, 2-0
Trigg Co:  4-4, 1-1
Fort Campbell:  2-6, 1-1
Webster Co:  1-7, 0-2

Class 4A, District 1:
Owensboro:  7-1, 2-0
Madisonville-N. Hopkins:  6-2, 2-1
Calloway Co:  1-7, 1-2
Hopkins Co. Cent:  0-8, 0-2

Class 5A, District 1:
Hopkinsville:  6-2, 3-0
Graves Co:  5-3, 3-0
Christian Co:  3-5, 2-2
Owensboro Apollo:  1-7, 0-3
Ohio Co:  0-8, 0-3

Class 6A, District 1:
McCracken Co:  7-1, 2-0
Henderson Co:  4-4, 2-0
Daviess Co:  2-6, 0-2
Marshall Co:  2-6, 0-2

Here are this week's games (home teams listed first).  Some odd scheduling quirks.  We have another Battle of Fulton -- the second one this season.  Can't these teams schedule Hopkins County Central?  Meanwhile, I have no idea why Christian County is going all the way to Knoxville to play the Fulton Falcons.  For that matter, I don't know why North Bullitt is coming to Calloway County.

Murray High, on the other hand, has played a great schedule -- as has Madisonville.  I would love to see that Murray/Madisonville game.

I think Eric should be very nervous about that game in Henderson County.  Meanwhile, I know exactly how the folks in Russellville are feeling about their big game with Mayfield -- I used to go through this every year when Mayfield was in Heath's district.  I went to three Heath/Mayfield games when I was in high school, and I think about those three games as much as I think about all the other Heath football games I saw put together.

Friday, October 24, 2014:
Ballard Mem (7-2) v. Massac Co. (Ill.)
Caldwell Co (8-0) v. Crittenden Co. (3-5)
Daviess Co. (2-6) v. Marshall Co. (2-6)
Fulton Co. (1-6) v. Fulton City (0-7)
Henderson Co. (4-4) v. McCracken Co. (7-1)
Hopkinsville (6-2) v. Graves Co. (5-3)
Knoxville Fulton (Tenn.) v. Christian Co. (3-5)
Madisonville-N. Hopkins (6-2) v. Murray (5-3)
Russellville (7-1) v. Mayfield (7-1)
Trigg Co. (4-4) v. Fort Campbell (2-6)
Webster Co. (1-7) v. Paducah Tilghman (4-5)

Saturday, October 25, 2014:
Calloway Co. (1-7) v.  N. Bullitt (1-7)

Oh, Kentucky

HeathPo: Tune in. Turn on. Drop out.

Happy 175th, Berea Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)!

Good Dippin' Dots, associated specialty foods and jobs news from Paducah.

The feds have reportedly negotiated a natural-gas feud between Todd County and Tennessee.

But a fight between Po Boy's Raceway and its neighbors on Hickory Smokehouse Road in Christian County is at an impasse.

Thirteen school districts in the state have been approved for e-education in emergencies. (And the Kentucky desk is reminded to apologize for its historical dearth of Campton, Louisa and Williamstown coverage.)

Tomorrow is National Feral Cat Day, and Bardstown is ready.

Rest in peace, Dr. Barnes, a South Dakota native who appears to have come to love Kentucky at least as much as any of us.

Oh, Kentucky

Time to start planning that summer vacation.

Good jobs news from Elkton, Owensboro, Russell Springs, Henderson and Morganfield. Unemployment statewide? Up from 2012 to 2013 in 57 counties, down in 51, same in 12.

Toward Appalachian Innovation.

Paducah's Spring Tradition.

Purchase Parkway widening and new Lake Barkley bridging are among the state's road projects in the works.

Farley Elementary School, near Woodlawn-Oakdale (and not far from the (really) old Wal-mart site), is closing.

A richer John James Audubon experience is coming.

Oh, Kentucky

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

KYTC spokesperson Keith Todd reports the Dorena-Hickman Ferry is closed due to icy conditions.#WPSD pic.twitter.com/fFOhRTRwmg
— WPSD Local 6 (@WPSDLocal6) February 3, 2014

Unemployment in December 2013 was highest in Leslie County and lowest in Woodford. Fulton County's jobless rate is down from 14.8 percent in December 2012 to 11.8 percent in December 2013; it no longer ranks among the state's top 10 counties in unemployment.

"Kentucky’s job growth of 2.6 percent from September 2011 to September 2012 ranked second only to oil-booming North Dakota’s 5.6 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics."

ObamaCare here.

Clark County Schools have contracted with a private firm for drug-sniffing dogs.

Gina Kinslow in the Glasgow Daily Times effectively details how the state determines which intersections of state highways receive traffic lights--and why an intersection south of Edmonton fails to qualify.

Henderson's fantastic Gleaner has a new editor, and he's a WKU grad (and Bills fan) who says he plans to maintain the newspaper's hyper-local focus but extend it to new media formats.

The HoJo Florence/Cincinnati ... still Wild after all these years.

Bowling Green, roughly between downtown and the campus of Western Kentucky University, is amid a makeover.

The No. 2 UK rifle team takes down No. 6 Nebraska and next takes aim at No. 1 West Virginia.

Oh, Kentucky

Christmas in Appalachia, 1964:

Christmas in Laurel County, 2013.

In November, unemployment was highest in Leslie and lowest in Woodford among Kentucky's 120 counties.

"Let’s drop the pity for Appalachia once and for all."

The Benham Schoolhouse Inn is totally on my hope-to-visit list for 2014.

Good jobs news from Campbellsville and Hebron.

Beef boom.

A visit with Allen County's Old Order Mennonites.

New weapon in the war on drugs.

WKU has reportedly purchased from the ACT people the names of 83,000 test takers nationally, and the school is recruiting about half of them.

Christmas-parade reports: Bowling Green and Elkton.

Oh, Kentucky

I am so thrilled for my main man from Maysville.

Things are getting better, and it must be noted that education is challenging everywhere. But it's indisputable that Kentucky really does have some problems in this area ...

Unfortunately, #Kentucky is one of only eight states that does not give parents opportunity to chose public charter school for their child.

— Sen. McConnell Press (@McConnellPress) July 30, 2013

Centre College, on the other hand, is ballin'.

NKU is said to be tops for ROI, and Frontier Nursing University in Hyden, Murray State University and Somerset Community College are said to be the best to work for.

"The Clean-up Man" discerned it was time to move on from Paducah to Kentucky State's police department.

The Lexington-to-Versailles "excursion train" will be coming around the mountain when she comes.

UK's double-decker "Old Blue" bus, however, is parked in Lawrenceburg.

Lexington's Victorian Square wants deSha's out.

They're dying to get U.S. 60 widened in eastern Kentucky.

Good jobs news from Franklin, Hebron and Winchester.

You can look UPS who Louisville's top employees are at this Business First link.

The Clark County courthouse is getting a spiffying thanks to an Eagle Scout candidate.