Prep Football: All Or Nothing
Taking on every part of their school's nickname, Harrisburg is like a dog backed into a corner.
Any shot that the Bulldogs have of making the postseason - starts and ends - at home with Herrin Friday night.
Sitting at 3-4 overall Harrisburg must win out, which means, knocking off the already Southern Illinois River-to-River Ohio Division winner Herrin, who sits at 7-1 on the season and 4-0 in league play.
By virtue of the Tigers' 44-15 win over West Frankfort last week and Harrisburg's loss at Murphysboro, Herrin all but wrapped up the conference championship and will look to win their fourth straight over the Bulldogs.
Offensiveley the Tigers have done it through the air and ground this season. In their win over the Redbirds, Herrin quarterback Jack Downen threw for 285 yards and five TD's. Downen set a school record with the performance and has given the Tigers a whole new dimension on offense.
"They really opened up their offense this year," Harrisburg head coach Al Way said. "They have a senior quarterback that throws it really well. They have four good wide receivers that are big kids 6-4, 6-4 that are good athletes and the problem that creates for us is all four of our defensive backs got hurt last week and two of them will likely be out this week."
Harrisburg is expected to be without Austin Hefner and Axavier Doss this week and Hunter Smith is questionable as well.
"Of all the weeks to be playing a team that giving you four wideouts and throwing the ball 25, 30 times a game, that's a really bad time for that to happen," Way said.
As far as the conversation - win or go home - it's not one that Way is having with his team, knowing they have to beat the Tigers and Carbondale this week to be eligible at 5-4.
"The big thing right now is to see who we can replace people with, trying to figure out what we are going to do defensively against (Herrin)," Way said. "The same thing offensively, the two kids that are hurt are kids that are also in our spread set and that's what happened to us Friday night, three of our four wide receivers were on the sidelines and late in the game, really put us in a bad situation. Right now, the focus is trying to figure out who we're going to play where, what we're going to try to do defensively against them and just hope that we quit making so many mistakes on offense.
"I thought we had gotten a lot better (on offense), but then we reverted back last week to not blocking people at the right time. Pass blocking was just terrible. We had at least three times, people wide open for touchdowns and didn't have time to get the ball to them because we didn't give our quarterback any time."
Michael Dann covers prep and college sports for the Harrisburg Daily Register and Eldorado Daily Journal. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.