The Class 5A Football Playoffs

We often complain that there's not enough drama in the KHSAA Football playoffs, especially in the upper classes.  And, of course, Western Kentucky doesn't play as much of a role in the upper classes, which also drains our interest.  But this year, the 5A playoffs featured Frederick Douglass High School of Lexington, which was probably the best team in the whole Commonwealth.

Frederick Douglass High School is located in the eastern side of Lexington.  It opened in August 2017 and was constructed to relieve overcrowding at Bryan Station and Henry Clay High Schools.  Now when I was a kid, there were four public high schools in Lexington, and they were always designated in the newspapers as follows:

Lex. Henry Clay

Lex. Bryan Station

Lex. Lafayette

Lex. Tates Creek

In 1990, they added Paul Laurence Dunbar High School.  This was the second Lexington Dunbar.  The first Lexington Dunbar had been one of the schools for African Americans during the era of segregation and it had a legendary basketball program before being closed in 1967.  And in 2017 they added Douglass.  To me, these schools should follow the same naming convention as the others:

Lex. Paul Dunbar

Lex. Frederick Douglass

So that's what I've done below:

Nov. 18, 2022:

Lex. Frederick Douglass 21 - 7 Woodford Co.

Owensboro 36 - 0 Lou. Fairdale

Scott Co. 22 - 23 Southwestern

Bowling Green 38 - 7 S. Oldham

Nov. 25, 2022:

Lex. Frederick Douglass 14 - 2 Owensboro

Southwestern 20 - 47 Bowling Green

Dec. 3, 2022:

Lex. Frederick Douglass 28 - 7 Bowling Green (at Kroger Field, Lexington)

This game started at 7 PM on Saturday night.  It was the last game of the Championship Weekend, and of course the last game of the season.  Lex. Frederick Douglass finished with a perfect record of 15-0, and outscored its opponents by 611-70.  It also finished the season as the Number One Team in Kentucky according to MaxPreps.  The web page for MaxPreps has rankings going back to 2004, and this is the first time a school from Lexington has finished the year with the Number One ranking.  Here's the breakdown since 2004:

Lou. Trinity:  11 (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2020)

Lou. St. Xavier:  2 (2009, 2021)

Lex. Frederick Douglass:  1 (2022)

Cov. Catholic:  1 (2019)

S. Warren:  1 (2018)

Lou. Male:  1 (2015)

Bowling Green:  1 (2013)

Ft. Thomas Highlands:  1 (2004)

So it's an amazing accomplishment, and the folks at Lex. Frederick Douglass should be very pleased.  As I'm sure they are.