Everyone is afraid of this high school football team

Patrick Laliberte
Staff Writer

      The Archbishop Murphy High School football team in Washington is a team that nobody wants to play. A fifth team has forfeited their game against the Archbishop Murphy Wildcats, refusing to play against the team. After all, the Wildcats are undefeated after the first three games, not including the forfeited games, with a combined score of 170-0. The Archbishop Murphy High School football team is a dominant powerhouse, crushing opponents week after week. They have been quite dominant in past years as well, but they are even better this year. With six players over 250 pounds and three players over 300 pounds, they are simply much bigger and stronger of a team than any of the competition. A big reason why this team has much better players than any other team is because they are a private school, so they are allowed to recruit players from around the area. Public schools cannot do this, so it puts them at a disadvantage. The Archbishop Murphy Wildcats have successfully recruited some of the biggest and most talented players in the region. 

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       The Archbishop Murphy football team has only one game left on their schedule that has not been forfeited, and it appears that the only remaining team will play the Archbishop Murphy Wildcats on Oct. 21. So far the Archbishop Murphy football team is very frustrated with the way this season is turning out, as they have only been able to play three games. They were also not able to play in their homecoming game because of the forfeits. While I understand why the team is upset about the forfeits, I also understand why the opposing teams forfeited their games against the Wildcats. Player safety is the number one priority of any high school sports team, and it really isn’t worth playing a team if there is a high risk of player injuries. After all, this is high school football, not the NFL. If a player were to get badly injured by one of the 300-pound players on the Archbishop Murphy team, the parent of that player would be furious over the decision to play against such a big and strong team, and that is the bottom line. Many players of the teams who forfeited their games against the Wildcats were supportive of the decision to forfeit. The parents of these players were also very much for the idea of forfeiting the games because many parents do not care if their child wins or loses the game; they just want their players to be safe and have fun.