Football extras ...

Murray coach Steve Duncan laughed at the joke comment that he considers "pass" to be a four-letter word.

"People laugh at us for it," said Duncan, whose club has thrown six passes in 85 offensive snaps in wins over Madisonville and Calloway County. "We want to throw the ball more, and we work on it in practice. But we just want to win, we have big tackles and we can block for a good stable of running backs."

The Tigers lack of an air show is even a running gag on the sidelines. After running back Matt Deese connected with Jarvae Langford on a 50-yard touchdown pass against Calloway County that resembled a can of corn hit to shallow center field, part-time quarterback Christian Duncan — the coach's son — arrived on the sideline and told an assistant coach "It's bad when you have to have your running back throw a touchdown pass."

Steve Duncan insists that the passing game has been a focal point of practice this week. "It sounds crazy," he said, "but we really had too much passing stuff in the offense. Our receivers didn't always know where they were supposed to be. We have quite a bit of the Franklin system in with our play-action package, but we felt like we had to narrow it down a little bit."

• More passing fancies: Massac County is employing a three-quarterback rotation in its spread offense, with coach Kelly Glass unable to determine a regular just yet.

"Someone told me I'm supposed to know that by now," Glass said. "I told them they need to see what I see in practice. One day one guy looks good. The next day it's another guy. Who it is depends on which day you talk to me. It's a dilemma that isn't going to go away."

The Patriots, who host Fulton County tonight, used Caleb Crim, Logan Wheeler and Daniel Duncan at quarterback against Crittenden County. Jarelle Johnson has been expected to be part of the rotation, but he's been battling a sore arm.

"We would like to keep Jarelle in the slot we had Byron Bailey in last year," Glass said, "where he lines up all over the field and the defense has to look for him. He's pretty good at whatever he does, but if we have him at quarterback we end up moving two people out of position."

Johnson also starts at free safety, and we was in on plenty of action on that side last week. "I bet he had 20 tackles," Glass said. "When your free safety has that many, you know you're having trouble stopping people."

• In the Cards?: Here are two more reasons to like Mayfield's chances of advancing to the Class A state finals, assuming the Cardinals stay healthy and they can get by a fine Crittenden County club that beat them twice last season.

Neither Beechwood or Frankfort, the two teams that would be likely semifinal opponents, are as formidable as expected. Word is that Beechwood, which thumped Crittenden 34-0 in the semifinals last year en route to its second consecutive state title, is beatable this year, and a 47-7 loss to Dixie Heights last week seems like confirmation of that.

Plus, Frankfort tailback and two-way star Quan Weaver, a Louisville commitment, is out for the season with a torn ACL. Frankfort's leading returning receiver is also out indefinitely with an injury.