[charlie22]

Way to go Bluebirds, a signature win, not bad for some Ky. boy's. Good lwin, hate to hear about the loss of your qb. Bardo, our prayers go out to this young man and family and team.:Thumbs:

Thanks for the congrats but even more importantly, thanks for the prayers and concerns about our qb. You always hate to see a kid get hurt, but you really hate it when it happens to a senior trying hard to earn a D-1 scholly.

It was a signature win. No doubt. The win indicated several things to me:

1. While Ky football is still behind Oh football in quality of play over all, Ky football has improved dramatically and is really closing the gap. Folks from Ohio may not want to admit it, but it's true. I think spring football has a lot to do with that and the expansion from 3 to 4 classes back in the mid 70's has played a role also. Whether the expansion from 4 to 6 in 07 will further that improvement remains to be seen. But the more teams winning state titles, semi final, and regional championships, means more player, administration, coaching and fan enthusiasm for the sport. And it's that enthusiasm that continues to cause the quality of football to improve in Ky. UK going to three straight bowls doesn't hurt either! :biggrin:

2. Small schools when they have quality depth can play with and beat the good bigger schools. Mueller decided this summer, based on what he saw in spring football (there's that spring football factor again), that he'd have the quality depth needed to be able to truly two platoon this year. In years past when Highlands has played the big schools, he's had several players going both ways. They were gassed by the 4th quarter. And if any one knows Highlands, it wasn't because the Highlands players were out of shape. Dales ability to field two platoons of quality players played a decisive role in the outcome of this game.

3. Highlands coaching staff put together game plans on each side of the ball that were spectacular. I can't say they outcoached X's coaches, but they certainly held their own. Considering that X's coaching staff is highly regarded on a national level, that says some good things about Highlands coaches (several of which are volunteers).

4. My belief that big linemen with D-1 scholarship offers are, more often than not, way over rated as high school football players is accurate. They have the size needed to play college, but often have yet to "grow into" their huge bodies, are very uncoordinated and awkward, have poor technique because they are used to just overpowering their opposing assignments, and are usually very slow. Highlands small and quick defenders literally made X's huge and very highly acclaimed offensive line look rather bad. James, X's very highly ranked D-1 recruit, missed more blocks than he made. While X's defensive players weren't huge, they were pretty fast. Had we had an O line like X did, they'd have eaten us up. But we generally go with smaller, quick players on our O line (although this year we have some decent size but didn't have to sacrifice quickness at almost any spot) that did a great job picking up the X stunts and blitzes. Based on the game tapes of three prior X opponents, we were the first O line that was able to do that with any regularity. I think I've got the sportswriter in my neck of the woods to finally quit basing his all state votes on D-1 schollies but instead take the time to watch the O linemen perform, but I'm doubtful that other sports writers watch the O linemen enough to make wise all state votes.

Just my observations taken from a great win not only for Highlands but for Ky high school football. And I truly mean the last part of that sentence. As the quality of Ky high school football improves each year, Highlands has to work even harder and harder and get better and better to accomplish it's goals. Every team in Ky placing an emphasis on getting better at football played a part in this win.