[EKUAlum05]

Offensively, Dave should be ready to go, he experienced pretty much no pain last week while playing a little. With another week of therapy he should be good to go Friday. I think that will give this team a little boost in the passing game. Russell is going to HAVE to pass some this game. They threw almost 40 times against Mason and Raceland. They will need to throw 15+ times Friday to win. Gotta keep Belfry honest so that Drew can do what he does.

Passing against Belfry is a double edged sword. If Russell passes on 1st or 2nd Down and throws an incompletion then it will put their offense in a hard spot against a very stingy defense.The last thing Russell can afford against Belfry is to constantly be stuck in 3rd and Long situations.

I was joking earlier with my response to jgrubby's post about "run, run, run", but the truth is he is actually dead on. Russell has to play "Russell Football" to win this game. If they lose their identity and resort to throwing the ball all over the place it will cause the game to move more slowly and give Belfry even more time to grind down Russell's D-linemen, leaving Russell in a similar position as the Mason County and Raceland games where they just don't have nearly as much gs in the tank down the stretch as their opponent. Don't get me wrong, what has won Russell the past two meetings with Belfry was their ability to complete critical passes. But, in both those games the Devils had success moving the chains with their ground game and only used their passing game as a weapon, not as a crutch.