De La Salle-Concord's coaching staff made a strong emphasis this season to get off to a good start. The perennial national power did just that with a resounding 45-7 victory at Serra on Saturday afternoon.

TURTLE CREEK, Pa. — Distractions were staring Manatee in the face all week. There was the afterglow of last week's convincing win over Tampa Plant on national television that shot the Hurricanes up a bevy of national polls. Then they had to deal with the first major road trip in program history — a 1,064-mile trip to western Pennsylvania to play in a cavernous stadium.

ARLINGTON, Texas - One team has basked in the national spotlight for almost a decade. One team is one victory away from diving there helmet first. One team flexes and powers and muscles up. One team spreads and diverts and throws abound. One team is from football-renowned Texas. One team is from neighboring Arkansas, known for its hogs, apple blossoms and fiddles.

High school football fans can look forward to a holiday weekend filled with nationally televised matchups between national and regional powers. The annual Kirk Herbstreit National Football Classic includes a pair of games both Sunday and Monday in Columbus, Ohio, and a quadruple-header Monday at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The Ohio offering includes MaxPreps No. 12 Glenville (Cleveland, Ohio) taking on No. 8 Dwyer (Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.) while the nation's top-ranked team Trinity (Euless, Texas) should have its hands full with No. 22 Shiloh Christian (Springdale, Ark.) down in Texas.

SOUTHLAKE -- The obligation Southlake Carroll football coach Hal Wasson is required to fulfill is spelled out on T-shirts, bumper stickers and posters all over this suburb. It is also found over a nondescript entrance at Carroll High School, where in white, Old English letters, a solemn message greets students. "Protect the tradition." Ambiguous as they may be, the words reverberate in a town that adores its richly successful football program. Wasson knows as much, and that's why last Monday he recited them while addressing the Carroll Athletic Booster Club at a meeting where the enthusiasm was muted.