Tonight the Calloway County Lakers take the field against crosstown rival Murray High. And for the first time in recent memory the Lakers will be the underdog according to most self-styled experts. However the Massey Ratings disagree with the newspaper writers and pick Calloway by 12 points.
The Lakers come into tonight's game off of an opening week 34-7 loss at Caldwell County while Murray High is coming off a 21-6 victory over Madisonville.
Last week the Lakers' offense sputtered due to a multitude of bad snaps and over 100 yards in penalties. But when they weren't shooting themselves in the foot Calloway was able to move the ball as Austin Hargrove averaged over six yards per carry and Jordan Burkeen completed over 60 percent of his passes.
One thing was crystal clear though. The Lakers will not feature the wide open passing attack we saw last year. Expect them to keep the ball on the ground most of the time.
By contrast you can expect Murray to keep the ball on the ground all of the time. They only threw one pass last week as they featured a powerful running attack. It's not a big play attack though. The Tigers managed just 151 yards of total offense against Madisonville and less than four yards per carry. Brandon Wicks led the way for Murray with 57 yards on 17 carries.
The Tigers alternate Kendall Deese and Christian Duncan at quarterback. But last week Deese threw just a single pass which fell incomplete and Duncan didn't attempt a pass.
The Lakers have won the last three games in the series 21-17, 36-30 and 44-0. And to be honest this year's game shapes up a lot like the boys' basketball game in the first round of the district tournament two years ago. Everyone expected Murray to win. But Calloway got the lead and the Tigers seemed to be affected by the weight of expectations as they took a lot of bad shots in a mad scramble to catch up. In the end the Lakers came away with the victory. If Calloway can get a lead tonight the same kind of thing might happen.