Highland will rely on offensive execution, solid defense — and some special special teams play — this week against Rigby
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POCATELLO — Since the Rigby Trojans and Highland Rams landed in the same conference in 2016, the winner of the Rigby-Highland game has gone on to win what has been the state’s toughest conference each year.
So, you could say this Friday’s EastIdahoNews.com Game of the Week carries significant meaning.
After his team beat Pocatello in the Black and Blue Bowl last week, Highland head coach Nick Sorrell said that the key to making sure his team would be ready to play Rigby was keeping the emotions of a rivalry win in check. At practice Tuesday, he said his team showed up for Monday practice “locked in” and focused on Rigby.
“So far, so good. We’ve been really focused on the task at hand,” Sorrell said. “… Learning from our mistakes from the Poky film is huge for us.”
One of the primary tasks at hand for Highland (6-0 overall, 1-0 in conference) will be dealing with Trojan quarterback Jake Flowers.
Because Flowers has the unique ability to stand in the pocket and pick apart the defense, conventional wisdom would suggest Highland put an emphasis on creating pressure to move him off his spot. But doing so against the Trojans (4-1, 0-0) could create lanes for Rigby’s explosive running backs, Jerzey Duenes and Amani Morel.
Asked how he plans to approach that tough task, Sorrell laughed.
“That’s the thing,” he said, “they can hit you in so many different ways, so you really have to pick your poison a little bit. You try to make them one-dimensional — even when Jake runs the ball, he’s pretty dynamic, he can make some moves in the open field and put your defense at maximum stress.”
Flowers may be the pro-style quarterback, able to work through progressions and find the open man, but his athleticism, Sorrell said, allows him to use the entirety of the 53-1/2 yards from sideline to sideline as he does so.
“And he’s got the cannon of an arm to get it down the field, too,” the coach said. “You’ve got to pick your poison, and take your chances when you can.”
The task of corralling Flowers and a Rigby offense, which enters the matchup averaging 37.2 points per game, will fall to Markell Bowens and his defense.
Bowens applied consistent pressure to Pocatello quarterback Hunter May, whose play style is similar to that of Flowers. But Bowens and the defense will also be going against a large and physical Rigby offensive line.
Pressuring Flowers without sacrificing gap integrity will be the key for a Highland defense that has allowed just 15.2 points per game.
The third prong of any good football team will have to play a part in that defensive effort.
Last week, Rams punter Cedric Mitchell — who is also the team’s leading rusher — boomed three punts which were downed inside the Pocatello 20, two of them inside the 5-yard line. All three of those kicks resulted in Pocatello giving Highland the ball in a short-field situation — with the Rams getting in the endzone all three times.
Not only will a similar effort from Mitchell potential give the Highland offense the same opportunities, it will also force that explosive Rigby offense to go the length of the field against the Rams’ stingy defense.
“(Special teams) is really crucial in this game,” Sorrell said. “… If you can make that team go 80-90 yards down the field, the chances of them scoring are super-low — I like that, I’ll take that.”
Making his point, Sorrell pointed to the role special teams have played in the the last two regular season matchups — each won by Highland, by a combined four points.
The kicking game is one facet Highland can usually count on holding an advantage, but this year the Trojans may have a trick up its sleeve — and it goes by the name Joel Ricks.
According to head coach Armando Gonzalez, who teaches philosophy at Rigby, he recruited the soccer player to try out for football. Since, he has become a “huge weapon, and we’ve never really had that,” Gonzalez said following Rigby’s Rocky Mountain Rumble victory.
Not only does Ricks give Rigby the option of attempting a long field goal, he also takes away potential explosive plays in kick return as he consistently forces teams to go 80 yards following a touchback.
“Usually, Highland is the one with the weapon at kicker, I feel like, ‘Finally, we’ve got a guy that can put it in the endzone,'” Gonzalez said.
Offensively, Sorrell knows his offense may be called on to score more than the 24.8 points per game it has averaged. But as the coach pointed out, the one time it was asked to do that — when the defense allowed 27 to Thunder Ridge — the offense did so, scoring a season-high 37.
“If we can get everybody on the same page without making those big time mistakes, we’re just fine, that offense clicks,” Sorrell said, adding that the key to the offense working is preventing mistakes that put them in third-and-long situations.
Rigby’s defense, he added, is a ball-hawking group which becomes even more dangerous on third and long. Not only are they a threat to take the ball away, they will force the opposition into making compounding mistakes.
“When every possession matters, you just can’t do that,” Sorrell said.
Asked how he has stressed the importance of this game, which could decide the conference title, Sorrell said that the way the Madison Bobcats have played they could be out to upset the tradition of Rigby-Highland deciding the conference.
But there has been no need to explain how important this game is to his team, he said, adding:
“This is a game a lot of people have circled on their calendar.”