High School Football: v2.006

It may be better than you think. Trinity had seven starters that sat the game out for various reasons, including the starting running back. The Star-Telegram has them rated #2 in area behind Southlake Carroll [but I still don't believe Carroll is better].

I'm heartened to hear that help may well be on the way for the good guys. In the old days (80s & 90s), Trinity would typically start out somewhere in the bottom half of the area Top 10s just because there were other programs that had more "benefit of a doubt" among area writers. We'd seemingly had a "great, but not great enough" evaluation that equated with our ability to go deep into the playoffs, but eventually lose to one of the elite teams. I hope I'm just being needlessly pessimistic about this year's team, but I think we now benefit from that "benefit of a doubt" syndrome having finally won a Championship.

Similarly, last year would have been ideal to match up us against Southlake. I think we could have whooped em. This year? I'm less certain. But that's because Southlake has a great program year-in, year-out and warrants that "benefit of a doubt" for a very good reason. Do the Trojans? I dunno. Maybe this is the year we find out whether our success is more a function of the skill we had on last year's team ... or whether Coach Lineweaver deserves being ranked among the state's best.

But put us on the field in the playoffs and I'd love to find out for once and for all whether we could be the Dragons. If ever there was a game I would be willing to literally crawl up I-45 for, that would be one. I've written elsehwere about being at the famous Trinity-Bell State Quarterfinal game back in the day. A Trinity-Southlake game may very well outdo that one.