[Hoot Gibson]

I look for Johnson to play a 3 man front with press coverage and deny the deep ball with 2 deep safety. Johnson's D will just beg Highlands to run the ball and shorten the game. Highlands will keep sending Jude to cover post and deep corner patterns play after play. Jude will be raising his hand to come out, but he won't. Highlands will send players on those routes even when running the ball. Jude will be running for 400 plus yards in the first half alone. The only difference is this week it will be in an attempt to wear him down on defense. At least that would be my game plan.

The problem with your analysis is that Jim Matney is no idiot. Jude will not be running wind sprints on every play because at the behest of Highland's coaching staff. The Johnson Central secondary will probably get beaten a few times but Matney is not going to allow Highlands to take Jude away on both offense and defense by letting him be run to exhaustion by a simple minded strategy that any armchair quarterback can devise from the comfort of their Mom's basement.

Highlands will try to make fatigue a factor by running fresh people at Jude all night long but he is used to being hit on every play by teams that cannot defend him by employing their normal defensive schemes. It takes a platoon system to have any chance of wearing him down because no high school player is in better physical condition that J. J. Jude. Without big, experienced blockers like Ousley and Bratton, Highlands may have more success this season than they did last year - but last year Jude was still running strong at the end of the game.