3A high school football preview: Tigers hope defense will slow Miners' powerful offense

There are several nuanced differences between Park City and Hurricane, which will evidence themselves at various points during those teams' 3A semifinal clash against one another Friday morning at 11 at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

But when you break them down, they're both very similar.

On offense, both schools base their ground-oriented offensives out of Wing-T formations and keep things quite simple, relatively speaking. On defense, both schools will attack you with star players whose stellar work on that side of the ball often goes unnoticed.

"We," said Park City coach Brandon Matich, "match up very well."

Finding out who will ultimately be better than who is what should make Friday morning awfully fun.

Hurricane coach Chris Homer has been acutely aware of the insane stats that Park City has been compiling throughout the 2009 season. Behind stars Erik Walker, Dylan Chynoweth, Mat Christensen and Andy Proctor, the Miners broke the state's single-season rushing record during their quarterfinal win over Delta last weekend. (Park City has rushed for 4,572 yards in just 12 games.)

But in breaking down Park City on film, Homer was surprised by the manner in which the Miners have racked up many of those yards.

"After seeing their scores and reading their stats and just knowing how good they were, it's surprising in watching film how simple they keep things with their option," said Homer. "But I know that coach Matich teaches things simple, and so they do it well ... the numbers they're putting up with it are pretty amazing."

Going the other way, Hurricane also keeps things fairly simple. The Tigers will throw the ball a little more than Park City and they'll occasionally get into shotgun, but according to Matich, they've been so successful by mastering a handful of plays.

"They run five plays very well," said Matich. "We're different in the sense that we run triple and midline, and we base our success off those two plays. They base their success off buck sweep and trap, and then they run rocket sweep, they run a waggle and they run a counter.

"They run all those plays very, very well, and their kids believe in those plays. You can tell their kids believe in those plays, and they're a challenge to stop."

Hurricane pounded the ball and pounded the ball last fall with all-everything running back Gordie Dotson, but the Tigers have been much more balanced this fall, with Robert Reeve, Jacob Pugh, Jarom Healey and Zach Sorenson, among others, all a threat to change the momentum of a game with just a single play.

"They're more of a big-play team this year," said Matich.

Of course, the star players for both teams aren't just lining up on offense. Homer pointed out that at the prep level, star defensive players usually don't receive any hype beyond coaching circles.