It isn’t often that high school football match-ups feature teams from Florida and Kentucky. Few teams take on the kind of schedule the Rocks face, teams from Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania — and Florida.  Trinity played Cocoa High School from Florida Sept. 19, a 35-32 win for the Rocks.  The reason for such long-distance scheduling is not just because it’s cool to play a team from Florida. More than anything, it is out of necessity.

It all goes back to the scheduling process for high school football, which is actually quite complex. The only games that a Kentucky high school team is guaranteed and also required to play are their district games.  For Trinity these games consist of match-ups against St. Xavier, Male and Manual. Thus fare the Rocks have fallen to St. X and knocked off Manual.  They face Male on Oct. 17. After these games, it is up to a team to fill the rest of their schedule.  If a team can’t find teams to play, they could end up playing three games in a season.

“You always try to fill your schedule with competitive games. You want games where we’ll be challenged, and some of these other schools want games where they’ll be challenged,” Trinity Athletic Director Rob Saxton said.  “You’re looking for multi-year arrangements, either two-year- or four-year contracts, so that we can get a home game out of the arrangement, and the other school gets a home game out of the arrangement.”

This makes opponents even harder to find.

“You start local, and then you look within Kentucky, and then you look regionally,” Saxton said, “and then sometimes you end up in a year where you have a date that you don’t have filled by a local or Kentucky or regional school. You begin to talk to other schools, and that’s how Cocoa came into play.”

Trinity head coach Bob Beatty is willing to take on the tough schedule. “My hat is off to Mr. Saxton for finding 10 games for us,” Beatty said. “Having a 10-game schedule is very important to our football team, especially as hard as we work. And if that means it is out-of-state teams, then so be it.”

Cocoa is known for traveling long distances for a few games a year. In the past they have traveled to Texas, New Jersey, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio.

Cocoa head coach John Wilkinson said, “It is an educational experience to go to different places.  Also, we enjoy playing the best teams in the country.  It shows us our weaknesses, so we can try to fix them before time for district and playoff games.”

The fact Cocoa is willing to play one-game arrangements in which teams aren’t expected to travel the following year to play a game in Florida makes them ideal for schools trying to fill a date in their schedule.

“It makes it more fun to go to games when we are playing a team that we don’t normally play,” Trinity junior Nick Zalla said.

It adds even more excitement when these games attract national attention.  Similar games have attracted the attention of ESPN, who aired the Trinity versus Ensworth game last year.   The Cocoa game was also under consideration to be broadcast on ESPN, but they opted instead for two in-state rivalry games.

Saxton said, “We’re always going to try to see if we can get ESPN to come and do one of our home games each year.”