[Beetle01]

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.

Russell will still use their ground game. Go back to the 06 game. Russell only scores because of their ability to pass the ball. They used their ground game well, but they used their pass game to strike at Belfry because they put 8-10 guys in the box.