To date, Hereford (12-0) has charged through the 3A North state football playoffs like, well, the proverbial bull through a china shop. However, Friday's state semifinal against Lackey of Charles County, may be tougher than it appears on paper, if only because the Chargers are not your prototypical 7-5 team that just struggled to get into the playoffs and is on a tear.

Lackey, which had won eight straight games at one point in the season, had to forfeit three games because of the use of ineligible players, but still had enough points under the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association's complicated system to make the playoffs at 5-5.

To their credit, the Chargers, who were seeded at the bottom of the 3A South region, had to win two road games to earn their way through the region and into Friday's game, but with defending 3A champion Friendly and Gwynn Park getting knocked out of the playoffs this year because of forfeits, it might not be a bad idea for the MPSSAA to tweak the system to disqualify any team from the postseason that has to forfeit more than two games, so as not to punish schools that play by the rules.