Inside the Numbers: Male at Trinity…

The big match-up which has everyone buzzing around Kentucky high school football is Louisville Male, the top ranked team in the 6A classification in this week’s AP poll, traveling cross-town to contest Louisville Trinity, ranked 3rd in this week’s AP poll among Class 6A football teams notwithstanding its 0-3 present record. In a new segment we intend to call Inside the Numbers, lets look at some key statistics and see if we can’t predict the winner of this match-up.

Present records…This one should be easy as Louisville Male is 3-0 and Trinity is 0-3. Advantage…

Strength of schedule…This one will take a little discussion as it directly bears on the teams’ respective won-lost records and why Trinity continues to be winless and so highly regarded in both computer and selector-based polls.

Male, according to the MaxPreps.com data is the 3rd best team in Kentucky and the 363rd best football team in the United States. Male has played and beaten Floyd Central, the 71st highest regarded team in Indiana and number 2,973 nationally; Louisville Ballard, the 22nd highest regarded team in Kentucky and number 1,723 nationally; and Lousiville Doss, the 142nd highest regarded team in Kentucky and number 9,803 nationally.

Trinity has lost to Carmel, the 3rd most highly regarded team in Indiana and number 191 in the Country by a single point; has lost to Warren Central (Indianapolis), the highest ranked team in all of Indiana and number 42 nationally by a field goal; and has lost to Archbishop Moeller, the 19th highest ranked team in Ohio and number 292 nationally by seven points. Advantage…

Computer rankings: Oh, those nasty, impervious to bias, algorithms which seem to tell us everything nowadays. For this particular analysis we use two; one being the MaxPreps’ computer algorithm which ranks teams both in its state or commonwealth and nationally and the other we rely on is the widely publicized, Kentucky-based, Calpreps.com computer poll.

Louisville Male: Ranked 3rd in Kentucky according to MaxPreps and Calpreps.com with MaxPreps ranking Male the 363rd best high school football team in America.

Louisville Trinity: Trinity is ranked 4th in Kentucky, according to both MaxPreps and Calpreps.com, and 410th in the nation. Advantage…

Game statistics: Louisville Male is throwing for approximately 172.3 yards per game and rushing for another 177.3 for what most offensive coordinators would tell you is almost perfect symmetrical balance between the two. Trinity is running the ball for approximately 124 yards a game and throwing for over 200. On the year, Male has allowed 89 rushing yards a contest and 68 yards, per game, throwing. Trinity’s defense is allowing 139 yards on the ground and 177 yards through the air. These statistics seem to favor Male but, then again, one has to consider the teams against which the statistics were tallied. With the offenses and defenses Trinity has, thus far, faced, it would appear its offensive production has been really good and its defense has performed rather well. Yeah, Trinity is 0-3, but just a couple scores, over three games, from being 3-0, with wins over some of the highest regarded football teams in all of the Midwest region. Advantage…

Intangibles: At KPGFootball, we read somewhere Trinity has won 24 straight football games against Kentucky high school football teams. Its last loss however was suffered to Louisville Male in September of 2015 by the score of 42-13 in a game played at Male. Trinity beat Male by a field goal, at home, in 2016 and 22-0, at Male, in 2017. Trinity has won more State Football Championships than any team in the commonwealth’s history (25), including last years’ and Louisville Male has won the ninth most state football titles (7), most recently in 2015. Trinity is also coming off three, close losses to three, excellent football teams. If Trinity is to maintain its air of invincibility, it badly needs to win this game. Should Trinity slip to 0-4, and break the Kentucky win-streak by losing to Male, buzzards may start circling 4011 Shelbyville Road in St. Matthews, KY.  In addition to the effort most commonly attenuate with desperation, this game is being played at Trinity. Most odds-makers believe home-field advantage to be worth 3 points in establishing a betting line. We will add another point for needing this win the most. Advantage:

Crunching all of the above, we weighted strength of schedule, home-field advantage, the Shamrocks desperate need to notch a mark in the win column prior to Naperville Central’s (IL) coming to town slightly above the other discussed criteria. We basically believed this match-up to be even but see the home field and the have to basically comprising the four point margin we think will, ultimately, separate the two teams…

Trinity 21     Male 17

Well guys, this is what the tea leaves tell us. This should really be a great game and it may come down to how much three straight losses have impacted Trinity’s psyche versus how high are the Bulldogs flying after a 3-0 start, and a number one ranking, in most of the published polls? Either way, we can’t wait to see how this conflict resolves and it will be interesting to see whether the statistical analysis, employed here, foretells anything, at all, about the outcome. The great thing about football is; it still has to be played on the field. Thanks for joining us for Inside the Numbers.

Reporting for KPGFootball, this is Fletcher Long reminding all of you ballers out there that #WeGotUCovered and to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE.