RivalsHigh 100 Week Five Update | Top Ten High School Rivalries | High School Network

Steve Brawner
Special to Rivals High

In order to be in the running for such an honor, Fort Thomas knows it must do two things: Run the table in state - and knock off quality opponents out of state.

Friday night it gets a chance to make its case. Fort Thomas, ranked No. 25 in the RivalsHigh Top 100, hosts No. 24 St. Xavier of Cincinnati in the RivalsHigh Game of the Week.

"This is as good as it gets for us," Highlands coach Dale Mueller said. "If we can win all of our games, and have St. X go and win in Ohio that would give us a resume as good as any in the country."

Fort Thomas has fared well so far, going 5-0 to start the season. Included are victories over three Class 6A teams, a 48-20 win over two-time Class A champion Louisville Beechwood, and a shutout victory over Cincinnati Withrow.

The Bluebirds return seven starters on offense and four on defense and are led by 6-0, 180-pound Austin Collinsworth, a running back/defensive back who was an All-State defensive back as a sophomore and caught 17 passes playing wide receiver last year.

Though Rivals has him listed as a three-star defensive back, coach Mueller, predicts he'll ultimately be an NFL ball carrier.

"We'll look at the films in slow-motion, and I've never seen a guy who can find the hole so quickly," he said. "It looks to me like he's already lived this life once, and now he's just going back and playing it again making the right decision. He just makes the cut so well."

Collinsworth has offers from Cincinnati, Kentucky, Louisville, Stanford and Vanderbilt but is also considering getting an Ivy League education at Harvard. He is the son of Chris Collinsworth, the former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver now broadcasting Sunday night football games for NBC.

The Bluebirds' pro-style offense is led by senior Will Bardo, a 6-4, 190-pound pro-style quarterback with a 3.8 GPA who Mueller said can pass from the pocket but likes to use his legs. He often looks to wide receiver Nick Buten. The offensive line features three returning starters: Tyler Grubbs, a 6-6, 280-pound Miami of Ohio commit; center Tyler Combs; and guard Hunter Schlosser.

The defense is led by middle linebacker Brandon Roller, who started two years ago as a sophomore, suffered an ACL injury at the end of his junior year, and has come back strong his senior season.

St. Xavier of Cincinnati, ranked No. 24, is 4-0 on the season - looking much more like the program that won the Ohio Division I championship in 2005 and 2007 than the one that finished 4-6 a year ago.

Last year's team was decimated by injuries. The team lost its top three quarterbacks, including starter Luke Massa, and ended up with a fourth-stringer behind the center. By week 10, only four of the team's original starters on offense were still healthy. Despite those odds, the team managed four wins against a killer multi-state schedule that included three wins against eventual state title winners and losses to two others. The only thing that kept the Bombers out of the playoffs was a close loss in the final game to Cincinnati Moeller.

"We talked about spitting the bad taste out of our mouth, and the bad taste was the fact that we lost the last game of the year," head coach, Steve Specht said.

Determined to do better this year, the team gained confidence with a 17-0 win in the opening game against highly rated Cincinnati Colerain and has not looked back as it mowed down three other opponents on its way to its 4-0 record.

Fully recovered from last year's broken collarbone, Massa, a three-star recruit and Cincinnati commit, has returned to lead the pro-style offense at quarterback. The stable of running backs is led by sophomore Conor Hundley, who has gained close to 500 yards in four games.

Four of the team's five lineman started at least one game last year, thanks in part to the team's injury epidemic. But left tackle Matt James would have started regardless. A 6-7, 300-pound four-star recruit, he has offers from everywhere but has narrowed his list of colleges to Florida, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Boston College and Cincinnati.

Specht said he is a nice guy off the field but "has a big dose of nasty in him" between the hash marks.

"If there's a better offensive lineman in the country, I'd like to see him because Matt is as good I've ever seen," he said. "He's the best I've ever coached, but he's as good as anybody I've ever seen at this level as well."

The defense features one major college prospect, Steven Daniels, a 6-1, 240-pound free safety/linebacker/defensive end who has received offers from West Virginia and Indiana. "He's one of those kids that when he hits you, your grandchildren feel it," Specht said.

The teams are evenly matched and accustomed to playing in big games against tough opponents, so the winner may be the one that makes the fewest mistakes.

"There's not really any one specific thing," Highlands' Mueller said. "There's going to be 11 guys on the field for 120-130 plays, and each guy has to do his job."

GAME OF THE WEEK: No. 24 St. Xavier (Oh.) vs. No. 25 Ft. Thomas Highlands (Ky.)
KEY TO THE GAME: Ft. Thomas Highlands Bluebirds
Ft. Thomas Highlands	Banged up star running back/defensive back Austin Collinsworth sat out last week's game against Boone County. Coach Dale Mueller says he could have played and will be healthy this week. He'll need a big game to help Highlands control the clock and keep St. Xavier's offense off the field.
KEY TO THE GAME: St. X Bombers
St. X	The Bombers win with solid defense and special teams and by operating a ball-control offense behind all-everything left tackle Matt James. The defense is unheralded and a little inexperienced, but it plays physical football. It will need to play well to stop Collinsworth and the Bluebirds' mobile quarterback, Will Bardo.
Note: Home field advantage?
The game is being played at Highlands, but neither team should care much. Highlands played its first four games on the road, while St. Xavier, this week's visiting team, traveled for its first three games. It didn't matter; both are undefeated.
RivalsHigh Game of the Week Prediction. 2009 record (3-2)
Both teams have high expectations for this season and both are living up to them. For St. X it is a season of redemption and Ft. Thomas Highlands it is sounding board to the nation. Both teams are very similar in skill and style so this game looks to be low scoring with defense oriented teams that rely on ballance and ball-control. The home field is not in play as much here as St. X has played in more hostile environments (The Pit) and the strength of the GCL is on display. St. X 20, Highlands 9