[charlie22]

[quote=birdman44]Highlands Post 1980:

1. 1998 Lorenzen Smith
2. 2009 Collinsworth Roller
3. 2000 Guidugli Hamblen
4. 2011 Towles Sheehan
5. 1982 Kramer or Abner? Ulbricht?

honorable mention
1996 Frisk Lickert

you kind of have to go undefeated/one loss to a GCL and win state to be considered to be on this list.
It kindof breaks down to the hot years of the 96-00 era and the 07-12 era.










I know there are a lot of ole timey squads that were great too... don't knowmuch earlier than 80[/QUOTE


That 82 team was best in the state that year having beat 4A champs (only 4 classes that year) Christian co, and ranked in top25 in nation. Do not forget bankamper, ,maile, whalie, fisher and I am forgetting middle LB name (165pound guy who played like he was 210).

82 team was very, very good.

Birdman, I'd reverse your top 2 and put 2009 at the top. Lorenzen and Smith were obviously studs, but when you look at the complete team and consider all the units (D, O and Specials), the 09 team was better in my opinion. Even after that team lost its starting QB (Bardo, whom has gone on to do really big things on University of Dayton's football team) and lost its starting RB for 5 games during the season (Collinsworth), the Birds O continued to dominate opponents. Defense was stellar throughout the season. Birds had an exceptional kicker (Weinel) and great return game too lead by Collinsworth. The 09 team was the complete package. 98 team had the O, no doubt about that. But the D and Specials weren't as good as they were on the 09 team.

If a tie braker was to be needed, I go with the 09 win over Cincy X as the tie braker. That was a very good X team. They lost to Elder during the playoffs by a point or two (after beating Elder in the regular season) and then Elder went on to lose in the D1 Ohio championship game by a narrow margin. X was one of the top 3 or 4 teams in Ohio that year (which is saying a lot) and if you watched that game, Highlands dominated X everywhere but on the scoreboard (only winning by 5, but even then the only points put on the board by X were in the last minute and a result of Highlands playing prevent defense to stop X from scoring quickly).