By The Numbers: Will Your School Win a Super Bowl This Year?

By Bob Holmes, Patch Correspondent

It's a yearly question, as old as the sport itself. From Abington to Xaverian, players, parents, students, and football fans are wondering, "Is this our year?"

But while you're pondering your school's depth on the line or whether your young quarterback is good enough, you should know what you're up against. The 12 teams that played in the six Super Bowls at Gillette Stadium last December all had certain things in common. Take a look at the numbers and ask yourself, can our team do this?

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A HOME RUN: The Super Bowl participants went a combined 75-8 at home last fall. You don't have to be perfect -- Division 3 champion Dartmouth and Division 6 winner Mashpee each lost two games at home -- but you can't count on road wins to get you to a league title. Xaverian (7-0), Nashoba (7-0), Melrose (9-0), Northbridge (8-0), and St. Bernard's (6-0) all ran the table on the way to Foxborough.

GO FOUR IT: Offensively, each of the 12 Super Bowl participants averaged four touchdowns a game. Northbridge did even better, averaging more than five TDs a game, but the other 11 teams averaged between 27 and 33 points per game, roughly four scores per game. Nashoba was the lowest-scoring team at a little over 27 ppg, with Reading second behind Northbridge at 33 ppg. Bottom line ... you don't go to Gillette unless you can score a touchdown-per-quarter. Can your team do that?

DEFENSE DOESN'T MATTER: OK, the first correction of the season. Of course, defense matters, but just not as much as you think. Central Catholic went to the Division 1 Super Bowl while giving up more than 14 points per game. That total was third best in the Merrimack Valley Conference, behind Tewksbury and Billerica. Throw out Xaverian, which gave up a little more than 4 ppg, along with Chicopee Comp, which allowed 24 ppg, and you have 10 Super Bowl teams that gave up an average of 12.6 ppg, basically two touchdowns a game. Bottom line: As long as you put points on the board, you don't have to have a great defense to get to Foxborough.

Bob Holmes has spent three decades covering high school football in Massachusetts for The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald. Contact him at masspatchfootball@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @robertholmes630