By Michael V. Hannigan/HCN
Sports and math go together like chili and Fritos — the combo may not sound right until you actually dig in.
So with Malakoff headed to the state championship game against Grandview Thursday night, I’ve been digging into some of the numbers.
And I’ve found two that floored me when I put them side-by-side. They are the numbers four and five.
You see four is how many playoff wins Malakoff had in the 70 years before Jamie Driskell arrived to take over the Tigers.
Five is how many playoff wins Malakoff has this season.
Things have changed a lot since the early days and in 1940 the Tigers won a playoff game but didn’t advance because the playoffs consisted of just one round, but the fact remains that this year’s postseason accounts for 28 percent of all football playoff wins in school history.
So as the Tigers get ready to play in their first state championship game remember this … The 2018 Malakoff Tigers have already won more playoff games than all Tiger teams from 1939 to 2008 combined, and have won more than a quarter of all playoff games in school history.
And those are some impressive numbers.
(Thanks to Malakoff football historian Benny Rogers for keeping and sharing the Tigers playoff records.)