For years, the trophy for a forgotten Kentucky high school rivalry sat in a basement.
Now the old oak barrel has something to do again.
It had been a while.
Way back in the day, Kentucky Country Day and Sayre had a strong rivalry, replete with a spirit week and, yes, a barrel. Throughout the 1970s, the rivalry was a highlight, with the two schools competing in cross country, football, boys and girls soccer and volleyball.
The prevailing school would earn the Old Oak Barrel as a trophy.
Eventually, Sayre dropped its football program. The rivalry disappeared. The barrel wound up in a basement at Sayre.
But Sayre brought football back in 2018. The barrel was eventually rediscovered. And coaches Matt Jones and Chad Pennington decided it was time to revive a rivalry between two schools — and two football programs — that have far more in common than their private-school roots.
They’ve also become pretty good at football.
Pennington, the former NFL quarterback, led Sayre to the Kentucky Class 1A state championship in 2024. A year later, Jones led Kentucky Country Day to its first state championship.
Now the defending champion Bearcats and their predecessors met Friday, Aug. 21 at KCD in a game the two coaches have affectionately dubbed the “Tuition Bowl.”
And this time, Sayre took the barrel home with a 22-19 victory.
Two Small Schools, Two State Championships
Kentucky Country Day is fresh off a Class 1A state title after defeating Raceland in frigid conditions at Kroger Field on the campus of the University of Kentucky.
The Bearcats finished 13-1 in 2025. Their only loss came against Campbellsville during the regular season, a defeat they avenged in the postseason on the way to the first state championship in program history.
Jones is the longest-tenured coach in Jefferson County, Kentucky’s largest county and home to nearly 30 football programs.
He readily admits his competitive nature has played a role in what KCD has built.
“I’m intensely competitive. Probably more so than I should be,” Jones said. “But I’ve relaxed a little, you know. But still, it gets intense. Football’s intense. You gotta have an intensity about it. You gotta have a little seething fire under you. And I think we’ve done a good job of that too.”
But there is an interesting contradiction at the heart of KCD’s success.
Football is incredibly important to Jones and the players inside his program. Outside of it, football is only one small piece of the KCD experience.
Jones said that in his 15 seasons at KCD, the school has held only four pep rallies.
“My son is in third grade here,” Jones said. “I wouldn’t pull my son out of this school to put him in a public school. No matter what happened, no matter what. It’s just too good of a school, too good of an environment, too good of people, too much care. … Football is a small piece in this place.”
That perspective doesn’t mean KCD takes football lightly.
The expectation inside the program is quite the opposite.
“I think the kids know, if I’m playing football, what’s expected of me? Summer workouts and the winter workouts,” Jones said. “We’ve installed that 16 years ago and didn’t blink. This is what it takes.”
The distinction is important to Jones. Football can be taken seriously without becoming the identity of the school.
“Some schools it is the tail that wags the dog,” Jones said. “And that’s just not who we are. It’s not everything we’re going to be. We take it incredibly seriously in our room. But out there, we also understand your perspective.”
Chad Pennington Builds a Similar Program at Sayre
About 70 miles east, Pennington has built something remarkably similar.
Sayre is also a small private school where academics come first and football is part of a larger student experience.
The school discontinued football years ago before Pennington resurrected the program in 2018.
Yes, that Chad Pennington — the former Marshall star who spent more than a decade in the NFL and was a starting quarterback for the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins.
When Pennington began building Sayre’s program, one of the coaches he turned to for advice was Jones.
“Coach Jones helped me start the program here,” Pennington said. “I met with him in the first year. ‘Hey, coach, just tell me some things that you think will help build a program.’ And I’m so thankful and fortunate and grateful to him.
“We’ve got a great relationship. We talk quite frequently, and I just have a lot of respect for him and how he does things.”
The advice apparently didn’t hurt.
Pennington’s teams have won 60 games since the program’s return and Sayre captured the 2024 Class 1A state championship.
One year later, Jones and KCD won theirs.
Asked whether the two programs mirror each other, Pennington agreed.
“They do, they do,” he said.
Then he added one more similarity.
“Even in tuition, too.”
Why They Call It the ‘Tuition Bowl’
Ah, tuition.
That brings us to the nickname Jones and Pennington have affectionately given the rivalry.
The “Tuition Bowl.”
Jones recalled a conversation with Pennington about the crowd they could expect when the schools played.
“I was talking to Chad, and he’s like, ‘Man, it’s the same thing you’re dealing with,’” Jones said. “We’re talking about fans tonight. I was like, ‘Your fans haven’t bought that many tickets.’ He’s like, ‘Coach, they’re not coming. We don’t have any fans. I’ll have like 10 parents. They’ll be there.’
“But it’s fun. We’re going to call it the Tuition Bowl.”
For KCD, it turned out to be considerably more than 10 fans.
The school planned a large tailgate and carnival-like atmosphere around Friday’s game.
“Everybody in our school community will be here,” Jones said beforehand. “And that’s what you want. It’s changed so much from when I first came … a small little wine and cheese crowd. That was all we had.”
But the nickname is new.
The rivalry isn’t.
An Old Oak Barrel Brings the Rivalry Back
KCD and Sayre once had a spirited rivalry that extended beyond the football field.
The fall competition between the schools included multiple sports, and the winner earned possession of the oak barrel.
When Sayre discontinued football, that tradition eventually disappeared.
Then the barrel was found in a basement at Sayre.
Jones and Pennington decided it deserved another life.
“So we decided we’re going to play every year now. Forever,” Jones said. “They’re bringing it tonight. And we’re starting this tradition back again.
“You want to try to create those rivalries and those special things. We want to make sure we opened the season with them and set the tone. It’s a great way to start.”
The revived football series is still young. KCD won the 2025 meeting 31-28.
Friday night’s rematch was every bit as competitive.
Sayre Takes the Barrel Home
Sayre struck first when Gage Pennington let loose a 66-yard touchdown pass up the sideline to Jake Morita.
KCD answered immediately.
Freshman Braylen Batts-Hobbs returned the ensuing kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown. Later in the half, KCD fullback Nic Doster broke free for a 75-yard score to send the Bearcats into halftime with a 13-7 advantage.
Sayre rallied in the second half, and a dramatic final five minutes ultimately ended with the Spartans prevailing 22-19.
The defending state champions had been beaten by the team that preceded them as Class 1A champions.
More importantly for this particular night, the old oak barrel was headed back to Sayre.
For Pennington, however, bringing back the rivalry means more than adding another game to the schedule or another trophy to the case.
It’s about reconnecting two current programs with the students and players who established the rivalry decades earlier.
“It’s the guys who came before us first, you know, who set that foundation,” Pennington said after the game. “Guys from Sayre when they had a football program, guys from Kentucky Country Day when they had a football program back in the day.
“And now you’re seeing how we are resting on the shoulders of those people. And so that’s really important.”
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