[sstack]

[quote=Hoot Gibson]If Johnson Central gets down by 14 to 17 points, they are not going to beat Highlands unless the Birds suddenly become turnover prone. If they meet Highlands and do not turn the ball over, JC will likely score on nearly every possession. Most of the time Highlands spends practicing pass defense will be wasted on the Golden Eagles, as will most of the time Johnson Central devotes to its passing offense.

Neither of those phases of their respective games will get much use if JC and Highlands play each other. Highlands cannot afford the practice time that would be necessary to shutdown JC's running game and still manage to dominate most of the other teams on its schedule.

JC's biggest problem is that the new running clock rule and its weak schedule are going to severely limit the number of snaps that the first team O and D
get before the playoffs and they are a young team. I expect more than a few teams will sub strategically to keep the running clock from becoming afactotoo soon. That would be in keeping with the law of unintended consequences[/QUOTE


You mentioned HHS working on shutting down JC's running game. Let me just say that will not happen. I am really surprised so little respect/talk about JC so far this year. I have had them in top 4-5 since preseason. I am starting to think now they might be at 2 spot. They will move the ball on HHS. Highlands will try to make them go 70-80 yards in 3-4 yard chunks and shut them down in red zone. JC will need time consuming drives that end in 7 points but I do not think they will score every possession like you said. Do not think JC has much luck stopping passing game and will not be able to keep up on the score
board. I always look forward to playing JC