I think this game is one of the most important of the season for both teams. This is where you find out what your team is made of at playoff time. It is your last chance to discover any weaknesses and get them fixed before it ends your season. It is not the time to play halfway, not run all your plays and create bad habits and thoughts as you enter the playoffs. If a coach thinks this last game is not worth testing his team and going all out for a win, he should schedule an easy opponent so he can get a win at half speed and rest players. Some teams do that and if you had a brutal schedule during the season, I can see the logic in it. But here we have two good teams with playoff hopes alive. Play to win!

 

As to the game, I think Dixie wins at the line of scrimmage and uses their running game to control the clock. For this year's Dixie team there is one thing that has been proven true over the course of the season - the more they throw the ball, the less their chance of winning. Dixie is an old time power running football team and they need to keep that in mind every time they call a play.

 

At this point in the season, everyone knows what their glaring weaknesses are unless they've played an extremely weak schedule up until this point. Dixie knows their weakness is their passing game (at least we all hope they realize this). It's the biggest reason for their 3 losses. Cooper's defensive backs are very solid. In a game that means absolutely nothing, would you not want to work on your weakness against a quality opponent before heading into the playoffs? I'm not saying this is the best way to go into this game, just saying it's a possibility. IMO, there really isn't a wrong way to approach this game as each way has it's positives, except playing vanilla. All your games are on tape, so there's no reason not to run your regular offense.

I'm just hoping for both teams to play a good game and come out of it healthy for their playoff runs.

I am definitely hoping for Cooper to get the W this week....Being Senior Night and all, it would be great to have the boys leave with a home win rather than go 0-4 on their own field their final season.

Cooper needs to win this game if they have any hope in advancing in the playoffs. Good luck to Ludwig and crew Friday night. Ludwig has improved every week as the the season has progressed. Go Coop Squad

Should be a nice sloppy track at RA Cooper. Good luck to both teams.

At this point in the season, everyone knows what their glaring weaknesses are unless they've played an extremely weak schedule up until this point. Dixie knows their weakness is their passing game (at least we all hope they realize this). It's the biggest reason for their 3 losses. Cooper's defensive backs are very solid. In a game that means absolutely nothing, would you not want to work on your weakness against a quality opponent before heading into the playoffs? I'm not saying this is the best way to go into this game, just saying it's a possibility. IMO, there really isn't a wrong way to approach this game as each way has it's positives, except playing vanilla. All your games are on tape, so there's no reason not to run your regular offense.

 

Good point about the weaknesses and schedule quality. That is probably true for these two teams because they have played very tough district games. For a team like Beechwood who just finished 1A district play, their end of the season game versus New Cath is a chance to play a quality opponent and find any areas that need improvement. Last year after the New Cath game, the Tigers made several changes including inserting the freshman QB as the varsity starter, moving a guard to center and starting a new guard and putting another freshman at DE. Those moves all improved the team a lot and it was because the NCC game showed those moves were necessary.

 

I still think this game can help both teams fine tune their teams for the playoffs. It could be that the teams feel some moves need to be made based on how district play went and a quality game like this is a chance to try those moves out.