Game of the Century Report: Wednesday Edition

It's the calm before the Friday storm up in DFW, apparently, some minor stories of interest to the Trinity-Southlake Carrol game ...

• "Coming UTEP QB battle should be intense"
  Recall that one of the QBs over in El Paso is former Trinity QB Trevor Vittatoe. UTEP is a great situation for any quarterback, but Trevor's got a fight on his hands for the top job. Best of luck, man. Here's Trev speaking on the situation ...

  But the most impressive of the young guns, physically at least, has been Vittatoe, the highly-touted native of Bedford, Texas.

  The 6-2, 200-pounder has shown a monster arm. Now he has to show whether he can handle a Division 1 offense.

  "We all have our eyes set on the same goal," Vittatoe said. "Kyle is getting a lot of reps. Lorne is getting a lot of reps. J.T. is getting more reps. And I'm on the scout team. But it's making me better, throwing against a starting defense for a D1 team, and that's what we're going to be going up against. We know we have a couple more practices before the end of this season. And then it comes to spring ball, and it's wide open. Whoever works the hardest and improves the most, and picks everything up, is going to get the job."

  From the sound of things, it always struck me as odd that Lineweaver never threw more with Vittatoe behind center. But there's also something to be said for the importance of systems being played consistently in high school if you want long-term success. Hard to complain given the track record on that score.

• The FW Star-Telegram gives us the pep rally update from Euless. The photos in the report are hilarious.

  A high point of the rally was the announcement of "visitors all the way from Southlake," when about 15 Trinity administrators and school workers, wearing Carroll green T-shirts and white-blond wigs, took the floor, poking fun at the tradition of Carroll players bleaching their hair during the playoffs. The staff members, including Principal Andy Cargile, performed about 10 seconds of a disorganized Macarena.

  At that point, the football team scooted them off the gym floor and, as the crowd shrieked, performed the haka, a Tongan tribal dance that the team uses to rally school spirit.

  "That team that's over there is a beast," Turner said, pointing to the football players. "But it's got to have a heart. That's the school spirit. That's why we win."

  Tickets are all of $10 at the gate. Simply stated, you will not get any better value for your football dollar in this state. Period. The more I think about it, I don't think I could last one second in Texas Stadium for a game like this. I'd get too many flashbacks to the big games we used to have against Bell and Odessa Permian there. The Haka might just be too much.

• This report notes one similarity to those days I refer to:

  The Dragons have won 43 consecutive games. Carroll has won three state titles and has posted record of 74-1 since joining Class 5A in 2002. Trinity is on a 26-game winning streak and is ranked-second in the state

  When we beat Odessa Permian 8-7 back in 1982, we had just ended a similar streak of theirs. Recall that this was during the height of Mojo, just prior to the big Friday Night Lights game to come a few years later. We've been in this situation before, so Coach Lineweaver knows how to deal with situations like these. Still, they don't call em big games for nothing. This one will be tough, too. That's for sure.

And just since it's my last pre-Thanksgiving excuse to flash the hawgs ...