Unfamiliarity OK

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POCATELLO -- Taysom Hill was nervous enough making his varsity football debut in the first game of his sophomore campaign two years ago.

To make things worse, Hill and his Highland teammates had travelled five-and-a-half hours by bus to face the Bison of Great Falls (Mont.), and representing his home state weighed on Hill's mind as well.

"It was crazy," Hill said. "I was going into it like a deer in headlights. I didn't really know what to expect."

As soon as Hill made his first play at the wide receiver spot, though, he realized the Bison were just a bunch of football players, not unlike the Rams. They ran, threw and tackled like the Rams did, and Hill was playing the same game he had since he was a little tyke.

Since that day in September 2006, the Rams have taken the field against so many other out-of-state opponents that they consider their season opener against Salt Lake City's Judge Memorial at 7 p.m. today to be business as usual.

Including today's game, Highland's nonconference schedule consists of matchups against three Utah squads and one from California, but the Rams won't treat those games any differently from a conference contest.

"Everything's the same," senior linebacker Payton Nash said. "It's no different at all -- 11 men on 11 men."

The variety in Highland's schedule arose not out of a sense of adventure, but of necessity. The reconfiguration of the Boise-area football conferences three seasons ago meant Treasure Valley schools no longer would travel out of the area for games, robbing the Rams of their traditional out-of-conference rivalries.

To fill the void, Highland scheduled games against two Great Falls schools in 2006, and it played three Utah schools last season. Highland coach Gino Mariani said his travel budget hasn't suffered much -- in fact, the Utah schools the Rams play usually are closer to get to than Boise-area ones.

The one thing Mariani had to get used to was the different style of play the out-of-state schools presented. Last year, the Utah squads attacked the Rams with a spread offense they don't normally see from their in-state rivals, who traditionally employ a more clustered, run-heavy offense.

"It's different," Mariani said. "But it's still pretty good to see it all and make adjustments on the run."

Still, don't expect Judge Memorial (2-0) to take the Rams (0-0) by surprise today simply because the two squads have never faced each other.

Like with any other opponent, Highland trades game film from two recent contests with each of its nonconference foes. The Rams have studied Judge Memorial enough to know its tendencies on each side of the ball.

The Bulldogs primarily play man-to-man defense, and Hill said he will attempt to exploit it by passing over the top to deep threat Buck Buchanan. On offense, Judge Memorial runs the ball out of an option offense not unlike Skyline's and Madison's, and Nash said Rams practices this week have been geared toward stuffing pitch plays.

If the Bulldogs surprise them today with a different scheme, well, the Rams have encountered enough different styles to adapt during the game, Nash said.

"Being unfamiliar is just part of the game," Nash said. "You're always going to have different opponents. You don't always know what they're going to do, even though you watch film on them."

So far, the Rams have had mixed success against their out-of-state opponents. Last season, Highland outlasted eventual 3A Utah champion Logan 43-28 at Holt Arena, but the Rams then suffered a 43-8 drubbing at the hands of 4A Sky View from Smithfield, Utah.

Highland can expect to face a Judge Memorial team closer in caliber to Logan, who captured their state title by topping the Bulldogs 28-12.

"You want to get that win to represent Idaho football," Hill said. "We're representing the state of Idaho. They're representing the state of Utah. It's fun. It's good competition, and I look forward to it."

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