Thursday, October 15, 2015

This Week in Western Kentucky

Only a few weeks left in the regular season, so we're basically waiting for the playoffs at this point.  But it's still glorious football weather throughout the Commonwealth.  Here are Friday night's games in our neck of the woods (home teams listed first):

Caldwell Co. (7-1) v. Fort Campbell (2-5)
Fulton City (1-7) v. Russellville (6-1)
Fulton Co. (0-7) v. Crittenden Co. (5-2)
Graves Co. (4-3) v. Christian Co. (6-2)
Hopkinsville (6-1) v. Calloway Co. (4-3)
Madisonville-North Hopkins (2-6) v. Logan Co. (0-7)
Marshall Co. (1-6) v. Trigg Co. (2-6)
Mayfield (6-1) v. Ballard Mem. (4-2)
Murray (4-3) v. Webster Co. (1-6)
Paducah Tilghman (4-3) v. Union Co. (5-2)

Most of these games are district mismatches, which is what we tend to get this time of year.  I would be tempted to go to Tilghman for the Union County game, but I would probably go watch Christian play Graves.  Interestingly, McCracken County has played its last home game of the regular season -- the 7-1 Mustangs are off this week, and they finish the season with road games at Muhlenberg County and Bowling Green.  But the Stangs are on pace to win their district, so they should get to host at least one playoff game.

Oh, by the way, Logan County is the Panthers.  I never knew that before.

6 comments:

  1. In all seriousness, I think they should re-do the schedules in Western Kentucky. Play most of the district games at the beginning of the season. Then, in October, when the weather is better, play all of the really fun rivalry games like Mayfield/Tilghman, Mayfield/McCracken, McCracken/Tilghman, Mayfield/Caldwell, etc. That would give the whole season a much better flow.

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  2. I totally agree. I think this for college, too--play the conference games first; play the rivalry games later and then have the national tournament.

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  3. In KHSAA football, I think shifting the schedule in this way would make the six-class setup kind of OK.

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  4. Here are all the teams in Western Kentucky -- but I've organized them by geography instead of size:

    Purchase Conference (10 schools): Ballard Mem., Calloway Co., Fulton City, Fulton County, Graves County, Marshall Co., Mayfield, McCracken County, Murray, Paducah Tilghman

    Pennyrile Conference (9 schools): Caldwell Co., Crittenden Co., Henderson Co., Hopkins Co. Cent., Madisonville, McLean Co., Muhlenberg Co., Union Co., Webster Co.

    Southern Kentucky Conference (8 schools): Butler Co., Christian Co., Franklin-Simpson, Fort Campbell, Hopkinsville, Logan Co., Russellville, Trigg Co.

    Now you don't have to play every team in your conference -- you only play six conference games, so you could still play lots of non-conference games. And at the end of the year we give out conference trophies, pick all-conference teams, etc. And every team ends with a rival -- Tilghman finishes with Mayfield, Hoptown finishes with Christian, etc. If you still want to give out six state championships, slot the teams into the playoffs however you want -- everyone basically makes the playoffs anyway.

    Wouldn't this be more fun?

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  5. I was looking at the 1969 conference alignments. Sometimes individual teams were in multiple geographic conferences, and these seemed to exist in parallel with the three-class system. I think the conferences might actually still exist on pieces of paper somewhere--seems like I saw something about "All-Western Kentucky Conference" teams somewhere just a couple of seasons ago. Anyway, the key improvement to me would be shifting the rivalry games to the back end of the season--that would fix a lot of what ails #khsfb.

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  6. Yes. This should be the last week of the regular season in the Purchase:

    Tilghman v. Mayfield
    McCracken v. Graves
    Murray v. Calloway
    Ballard v. Marshall
    Fulton v. Fulton

    That would be fun.

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