Nobody is giving Lawrence High’s football team a chance Friday night.

The Lions’ chances are slim and none, and you can throw out slim.

No way can LHS win.

“We’ll lose by 50,” a long-time fan of the city’s tradition-rich program told me.

Who are the Lions playing? Nebraska? The Chicago Bears? The Chinese army?

Nope, it’s just crosstown rival Free State, a school the Lions have defeated in six of the previous nine meetings, or since the city’s second high school opened in 1997.

Ah, but this Free State edition isn’t your ordinary run-of-the-mill high school football team. This is a bona fide juggernaut, without question the best unit to put on pads in the school’s relatively short history.

This is a team with a legitimate shot at the Class 6A state championship. This is a Free State football team that has eclipsed the 60-point barrier not once, not twice, but three times. In racing to a 7-0 record, the Firebirds have dropped 60 points on Leavenworth, 61 on Olathe Northwest and 62 on Topeka High.

At the same time, this is a Lawrence High team that gave 51 points to Shawnee Mission West a couple of weeks ago – the most points an LHS team has surrendered. Ever. The previous high was 49 to Olathe South in 2000.

But you know what? The Lions can wipe out the bad taste of that lopsided loss to SM West by shocking the Firebirds on Friday night at Haskell Stadium. And, to tell the truth, their chances are not as infinitesimal as most people think.

The first thing you have to remember about the Lawrence-Free State series is this: The records don’t mean squat. You can shred the paper, take it to the roof of the U.S. Bank building downtown and pretend you’re watching a ticker-tape parade on Massachusetts Street.

The underdog has won this crosstown rivalry too many times. A prime example was the 2002 meeting, when the Firebirds came rolling in with a 6-1 record and the Lions humbled them, 42-26.

Free State has inflicted its share of damage on the Lions, as well.

For example, two of the Firebirds’ victories in the series occurred in 2001 and 2004 when they entered with 1-6 records.

Although the Lions stumbled against SM West, they aren’t exactly a can of Spam.

They’re 4-3, and their other two defeats were by a touchdown each.

Lawrence easily could have a 5-2 record or even 6-1.

It’s just that the SM West shellacking has skewed the overall perception.

Two things have to happen for LHS to spring a surprise. The Lions must eat the clock on offense in order to limit the touches of the Firebirds’ mercurial Murphy twins, and they must force turnovers.

But if the Lions turn it over themselves and allow the Murphys to run wild, the school record will be broken again in only a matter of weeks.