Statistically, Highlands was, by far, the stingiest defense the CCH offense faced this year. In 4 Quarters of play, Highlands held the Colonels to 281 yards of total offense and 21 points. Against all other opponents, CCH is averaging 409 yards and 43.9 points per game. And those statistics tell only part of the story. Most of those yards were gained on short fields and those point totals were stunted by running clocks.
Highlands' D also affected Jacob and the CCH passing attack. Against all other opponents Jacob has completed 69.5% of his passes for 202 ypg. He's also thrown 23 TD's, to only 4 INT's on the year. Again, most of that came on only 2 Quarters of work per game. Sophomore or not, Jacob's had a really good year. And in 4 Quarters Highlands held him to only 40% passing for 45 yards and no TD's.
IMO the credit has to go to Highlands. While the weather was less than ideal, it was that way 8 of the 12 weeks that CCH played this year. It didn't prevent CCH from outscoring its opponents 504 to 124 on the season. And while the game against Highlands was a rivalry game, CCH has played in other big road games this year, including at DeSales (Columbus) and Chatard (Indianapolis). Chatard is undefeated against Indiana teams this year and they play in the state's Class 3A semi-final game this weekend. CCH had 580 yards of offense and scored 52 points against Chatard. Jacob went 19 of 30 passing for 385 yards, 3 TD's, and 1 INT.
In the October 12 game Highlands showed multiple defensive fronts and they brought extra bodies from every depth and angle. It was a very effective game plan that kept the CCH O-line on their heels all night. The Highlands secondary also blanketed the Colonel receivers, making for very tight windows on short drops for the sophomore quarterback.
If the Colonels are going to win this Friday's game they'll need to play a much better game on offense.