[Stardust]

After all the trolling that took place in the prediction thread, I sure hope this gets some very good conversation.

I saw CCH a couple of time this year, and this margin did not shock me. CCH is a tremendously better team than what many had predicted and could very well be the toughest match-up for the Birds in 4A. These teams know each other better than they know any other team in the state. In Rivalry games, the scores are usually indicative of that knowledge of tendencies. I expected this would be a game with a 2 score margin and the final score may not show that, I still believe the Birds were a two score better team. Highlands did appear to change their strategy of grounding out yards and went to the air. But as much as that was not expected, I think the Birds over-estimated that they would catch the Colonels off balance by throwing more often.

Though CCH gave up 42, I could have expected their defense to keep the Birds in the 40's. What I did not expect was that the Colonels O could find a way to stick the ball in the end-zone. Their defense at times was their offense. There will be a lot of fans of teams that will look at this score and put a lot of credence into the margin that HHS won by and believe that CCH is in the same category of their teams. But fret not, their team would not play at the same level in the eye's of the Birds. I truly believe that though Highlands wants to beat CCH just as equal as any other team on their schedule, their desire to beat them also drives them to do things they would not usually do. That plays into the hands of the Colonels and usually means these games are always competitive. The difference is that HHS cares to much about beating CCH where the know they will drill other teams with no care at all!