Felt’s Facts – Week 6 2015

Undefeated and Winless

Jordan and Provo fell for the first time this season while Layton Christian and Timpanogos won for the first time.

Halfway through the regular season, 10 teams savor perfect records while 11 others remain winless. Half of the unblemished teams reside in Class 5A: Mountain Crest and Sky View in Region 1, Davis in Region 2, Brighton in Region 3 and Lone Peak in Region 4.

There are just two possible meetings between undefeated teams during the rest of the regular season, both involving home games for Sky View: The Bobcats host Brighton in a non-region contest on Oct. 2 and entertain Mountain Crest in a Region 1 season finale on Oct. 23.

In matchups pairing winless teams this week, Cottonwood visits Copper Hills in Region 3 and Ogden plays at Judge Memorial in a non-region battle.

5-0 Starts

Seven schools have raced to 5-0 starts this year. Here’s a look at the last time each of them matched, or bettered, that start.

Kearns’ resurgence continues: a home victory over Olympus gives the Cougars a 6-0 record for the first time in their 50-year history. They’ve been 5-0 twice before, in 1988 and 1993.

Springville prevailed in its first 10 games in 2004.

Sky View won its first six contests in 2008. That came just two years after the Bobcats marched to the state semifinals with an 11-0 record, their best-ever start.

Lone Peak last saw a 5-0 start in 2011 when the Knights celebrated an undefeated season by winning 14 games and capturing the Class 5A state title.

Brighton, Davis and South Summit all started at least 6-0 as recently as 2013.

Turnarounds

Midway through the regular season, Lehi leads the state as the most-improved team (which the NCAA calculates by taking the year-to-year difference in victories and the difference in losses, adding the two numbers and dividing by 2). The Pioneers have moved from 0-10 last year to 3-2 so far, an improvement of 5.5 games. Three teams are 4.5 games better than last season: Altamont (0-10 to 2-3), Ben Lomond (1-9 to 3-2) and Kearns (3-7 to 5-0).

Shutouts

Last week, Bingham blanked its third opponent in five contests. Going back to last season, the Miner defense has shut out seven of its last 17 foes.

Duchense has also silenced three opponents this year. Those two schools combine for nearly 20-percent of the shutouts this season.

This Week’s Most-played Rivalries (min. 50 games)

Cyprus and Murray duke it out for the 75th time, but first since 2012. Murray leads the series 39-31-4.

American Fork and Lehi square off in their 71st meeting with AF dominating the series 47-19-4.

Grand and San Juan butt heads for the 70th time; SJ rules this series 41-28.

Bear River battles Ben Lomond for the 52nd time and controls the series 35-16.

First-time Matchup

Kanab at Wayne.

Long-time No See

This week, 28 of the 51 games reprise contests held last year. Nine more are repeats of games held in 2012. But realignment – and independence – sometimes makes strange bedfellows. Whitehorse last played Many Farms (Ariz.) in 1996, Bonneville and East last clashed in 1997, Granger and Layton last met in 1998 and Alta hasn’t battled Mountain View since 2000. Bountiful and Pleasant Grove have faced off just once, in 2001, Logan and Tooele last met in 2006, Kearns and Olympus last paired off in 2007 and Monticello hasn’t played Parowan since 2008.

Milestone Games

Box Elder (at Woods Cross) aims for its 550th win. Kanab (at Wayne) seeks its 400th school victory. Bonneville (hosting East) goes for its 350th win.

Clearfield (hosting Fremont) plays its 550th contest.

In landmark games for coaches, Lee Hamilton hopes to get his 100th career victory in stops at Grantsville, Alta, Hunter and, now, Pleasant Grove. John Colosimo guns for his 150th win at Juan Diego (he has 46 more at Judge Memorial). Jerry Cowan shoots for his 75th victory, all at Duchesne.

This Week’s Top-5 …

Scoring teams (min. 4 games): Canyon View, 47.2; Dixie, 44.8; Jordan, 42.6; Mountain Crest, 42.5; Kearns 41.6.

Defensive teams: Kanab, 8.0; Sky View, 9.0; South Summit, 9.4; Duchense 9.8; Lone Peak, 10.0.

By winning margin: Lone Peak, 29.4; Sky View, 26.8; Bingham, 26.6; Kearns and Davis, 25.4.

Notable Performances

Alta’s Joshua Davis rushed for a monster 372 yards, including two scoring dashes of 75 yards and one for 55 yards, in the Hawks’ 61-33 victory over Orem. Those 372 yards mark the seventh best performance, all-time. He also caught two passes for 67 more yards (one of which was a 56-yard scoring reception). That gave him a total of 439 all-purpose yards, also the seventh-most in Utah prep history.

Milford’s Jordan Hardy ran for an impressive seven touchdowns in the Tigers’ 56-28 thrashing of Parowan. He’s only the eighth player to accomplish that and only the second since 1945. Just one gridder has more rushing touchdowns in a game: East’s Gene Livingston with 10 in 1919.

Jordan’s Drew Lisk threw for 482 yards in the Beetdiggers’ loss 38-35 to Cherry Creek (Colo.). That ties him for the 19th best passing performance, all-time.

Future opponents might want to throw away from Cedar’s Jaden Tullis, who, in a rare feat, has intercepted a pass in each of Cedar’s five games this year.

Wasatch’s Skyler Southam has already booted 10 field goals this year, quietly upping his career total to 26. That ranks second all-time and just two behind Justin Sorensen (Bingham, 2005-07).

Brighton’s Simi Fehoko snared six passes for 248 yards and three TDs against Taylorsville last week. He has 2,848 career receiving yards, and he jumped two spots to fourth place on the all-time list. He needs 251 more yards to reach third – 3,096 yards – now held by Inoke Lotulelei (Cottonwood, 2011-12). Austin Raught (3,445 yards, Fremont, 2003-05) is the state record holder.

Fehoko is tied for fifth in all-time TD receptions with 32. Raught and Jordan’s Cody Raymond (2005-07) hold the record with 41.

Jordan’s Spencer Curtis climbed to 11th in career receptions (132) and 15th in all-time career reception yards (2,180).

Sky View’s Bryce Mortenson is also in 15th place, but for career TD receptions, with 27.

Midpoint Stats – Single-game Records

The Deseret News and MaxPreps websites list many of the top season performances in a number of categories, but here are some that aren’t conveniently listed elsewhere or aren’t in one place.

Total Offense (400 yards min.)
618 – Drew Lisk, Jordan, 8/21
535 – Jrue Perkins, Northridge, 8/28
482 – Drew Lisk, Jordan, 9/19
441 – Zac Lee, North Sanpete, 9/18
431 – Hunter Horsley, Logan, 8/21
422 – Hunter Van Buren, Orem, 9/4
410 – Mason Fakahua, Cedar 9/4
400 – Drew Lisk, Jordan 8/28

All-purpose Yardage (300)
439 – Joshua Davis, Alta, 9/18
326 – Spencer Applegarth, North Sanpete, 8/21
314 – Jordan Hardy, Milford 9/18
312 – Dane Leituala, Taylorsville, 8/21
311 – Spencer Applegarth, North Sanpete, 9/18
311 – Quinn Meier, Olympus, 9/11

Net Rushing (250)
372 – Joshua Davis, Alta, 9/18
314 – Jordan Hardy, Milford 9/18
312 – Dane Leituala, Taylorsville, 8/21
251 – Quinn Meier, Olympus, 9/11
251 – Kyler White, Gunnison Valley, 8/21

Passing Yards (350)
482 – Drew Lisk, Jordan, 9/19
444 – Spencer Zur, Park City, 9/11
437 – Drew Lisk, Jordan, 8/21
427 – Jrue Perkins, Northridge, 8/28
416 – Kenyon Harris, Ben Lomond, 9/21
388 – Hunter Van Buren, Orem, 9/4
363 – Kahi Neves, Timpview, 9/11

Receiving Yards (180)
271 – Spencer Curtis, Jordan, 8/21
248 – Simi Fehoko, Brighton, 9/18
224 – Simi Fehoko, Brighton, 9/18
192 – Dallas Neimann, Mountain Crest, 9/4
184 – Deontay Nish, Ben Lomond, 8/21
180 – Chase Herrmann, Orem, 9/4

Touchdowns Responsible For (6)
7 – Jordan Hardy, Milford, 8/28
7 – Jordan Hardy, Milford, 9/18
7 – Zac Lee, North Sanpete, 9/18
6 – Zac Harrah, Dixie, 9/11
6 – Drew Lisk, Jordan, 8/21
6 – Nick Warmsley, Desert Hills, 8/28

Football and the Statistical Bell Curve

Over the 23 years Felt’s Facts has tracked high school football, this interesting statistic has been noticed. On any given week during the regular season, the number of undefeated teams very nearly equals the number of winless teams.

If you know there are 10 unbeaten teams, you can assume there will be about the same number of winless squads.

The principles used in statistical analysis imply that the famous bell-curve should apply to Utah high school football. Indeed, it does apply. It neatly fits the win-loss records of Utah’s prep teams from week to week throughout each regular season. The curve of winning percentage isn’t skewed toward a few strong teams.

Midway through this regular season, there are 10 undefeated teams and 11 winless squads. There are 18 one-loss teams and 18 one-win teams. The other 47 teams are roughly split between two-loss teams and two-win teams.

Of course, that near one-to-one ratio changes during the playoffs when most winless teams have ended their season and the number of undefeated teams drop as they fall during the playoffs or face each other in playoff games.

See you on the sidelines!

Felt’s Facts is a sports column written by George Felt. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of St. George News.

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Twitter: @oldschoolag

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