[birdman44]

[quote=sstack]

82 team was very, very good.

Birdman, I'd reverse your top 2 and put 2009 at the top. Lorenzen and Smith were obviously studs, but when you look at the complete team and consider all the units (D, O and Specials), the 09 team was better in my opinion. Even after that team lost its starting QB (Bardo, whom has gone on to do really big things on University of Dayton's football team) and lost its starting RB for 5 games during the season (Collinsworth), the Birds O continued to dominate opponents. Defense was stellar throughout the season. Birds had an exceptional kicker (Weinel) and great return game too lead by Collinsworth. The 09 team was the complete package. 98 team had the O, no doubt about that. But the D and Specials weren't as good as they were on the 09 team.

If a tie braker was to be needed, I go with the 09 win over Cincy X as the tie braker. That was a very good X team. They lost to Elder during the playoffs by a point or two (after beating Elder in the regular season) and then Elder went on to lose in the D1 Ohio championship game by a narrow margin. X was one of the top 3 or 4 teams in Ohio that year (which is saying a lot) and if you watched that game, Highlands dominated X everywhere but on the scoreboard (only winning by 5, but even then the only points put on the board by X were in the last minute and a result of Highlands playing prevent defense to stop X from scoring quickly).

The '98 Defense wasn't good?

D Smith - Kentucky
B Grover - Perdue
B Scott - Kentucky
B Hamblen - Kentucky
J Meloche - Kentucky *second best player on D
R Smith - Tennessee
B Ulbricht - Cornell *best player on D
N Gibson - Kentucky / Gtown - 11 ints

B Jones, Kicker broke a national record that year.
N Gibson / B Ulbricht probably returned a kick or punt for a TD per game

common misconception is the scoring allowed due to putting up 70 points in the first half and putting in the JV/fresh.
In the Male game, 51-41 win (they won 4A) Male returned 2 ko for TDs (we had no starters on kickoff) this was changed mid game.

2009 did beat St X. 98 didn't get a shot at a GCL team. '98 was the undisputed best team in KY (won 3A beat the 4A champ)...09 cant claim that....