Football Friday ... Week 9

For Trigg County, it's a sign of respect. It's also a burden to bear.

As the Wildcats' program steadily improved on previous coach Curtis Higgins' watch, some of their traditional opponents dropped longstanding series. Russellville and Todd Central, once fixtures on the schedule, haven't played Trigg in several years, although the schools still meet in several other sports.

Even now, Trigg has a devil of a time getting smaller schools (Class A, 2A and 3A) to agree to a game. That makes for a rugged non-district schedule that puts the Wildcats in some tough spots.

For example, if Trigg loses to Caldwell County tonight in a critical district game, the Wildcats are virtually certain to finish third in a three-way tiebreaker for first place with two brands of Tigers, Caldwell and Murray. Their non-district slate includes losses to Hopkinsville, Calloway County, Hopkins Central and Christian County — all teams that have been ranked in Class 4A and 5A at various times this season.

And the Wildcats also meet defending state champion Fort Campbell next week, then close out with Fulton County,

How does the non-district schedule affect things? A win tonight means the difference between a district championship and a No. 3 seed, which sets up a long, hard and tough road throughout the playoffs. Emphasis on "road" since that would mean the Wildcats would be very unlikely to host a playoff game.

"We'll be in the same situation next year — we can't get A and 2A teams to play us," Trigg coach Shannon Burcham said. "We've talked to Fort Campbell, but the dates probably won't line up for us. We'd love to play Russellville, but we can't fit it in. Madisonville, Graves County and Marshall County have called us, and I don't blame them, and we will probably play Franklin-Simpson. We may end up with Mayfield in a bowl game, but that would be the only smaller school on there.

"Our kids have kept the right frame of mind about it. We've lost those games, but they made us better and it started to show when we got to playing the 2A teams (in district games). The other downside is that you can end up with a bunch of injuries."

• Projected playoff matchups: These are my best guesses on first-round playoff games (in bracket order) for all six classes in western Kentucky. Some seedings will be determined tonight and some potential tiebreakers might not be decided for two weeks.

Class A
Ballard Memorial at Caverna
Kentucky Country Day at Crittenden County
Bardstown Bethlehem at Mayfield
Fulton City at Louisville Holy Cross

Class 2A
Caldwell County at Owensboro Catholic
Todd Central at Trigg County
Hancock County at Murray
Heath at Fort Campbell

Class 3A
McLean County at Butler County
Hart County at Union County
Edmonson County at Paducah Tilghman
Muhlenberg South at Russellville

Class 4A
Hopkins Central at Franklin-Simpson
Russell County at Calloway County
Warren East at Lone Oak
Muhlenberg North at Allen County

Class 5A
Hopkinsville at Warren Central
Barren County at Owensboro
Grayson County at Christian County
Ohio County at Bowling Green

Class 6A
Apollo at Louisville Ballard
Louisville Seneca at Daviess County
Louisville Eastern at Henderson County
Madisonville at Louisville Trinity