By Mike White | Friday, Nov. 6, 12:05 p.m.
Please note: I'll have a live blog tonight from Penn Hills at Upper St. Clair game. If you have any scores or updates from any other games, email them to me at mwhite@post-gazette.com. I'll put them on.
If you're a high school football fan, then maybe you want to watch the Penn Hills at Upper St. Clair game live tonight (Friday) on FSN Pittsburgh in the first round of the WPIAL playoffs. But if you're a high school fan and get ESPNU, you also need to either tape or DVR a high school game from Arkansas.
Heck, if you're a fan of football at any level, you need to see this.
The Pulaski Academy Bruins from Little Rock, Ark., will play against Little Rock Christian at 8 on ESPNU. Pulaski Academy is one of the most interesting teams I have ever heard of in high school football. Why? Because they never punt.
A year ago, Pulaski Academy won a state championship in the third-largest classification in Arkansas - and never punted. Not once!!!! The entire season!!! This year, Pulaski is 7-2 and has punted once. The team already has been featured in a Sports Illustrated article.
Pulaski coach Coach Kevin Kelley has analyzed statistics that he says show that it just doesn't pay to punt. In an Associated Press story, Kelley said, "I’m really a contrarian thinker. When everybody thinks something is going to happen it often times doesn’t. It’s the same in football. When everybody thinks you should do something, maybe there’s a better way."
Kelley said the inspiration for his unorthodox, though he will tell you totally sound, strategy was from a documentary he stumbled across on television a few years back.
Between the data he jotted down from the show and facts from his own team's games over the years, he determined going for it on fourth down every time isn’t risky at all. According to Associated Press, Pulaski converts on about 50 percent of its fourth-down tries.
So check it out tonight.
More TV
Besides the FSN live game, Comcast will televise the Mt. Lebanon-Shaler game on tape tomorrow night.
And don't forget, MSA Sports will have every playoff game on its radio stations or internet site www.msasports.net MSA also has a scoreboard show afterward.
And we'll post the scores as we get them on our web site.
Posted
Nov 05 2009, 11:47 PM
by
Mike White