DeMatha set for national spotlight

‘‘We’re really excited and have been working hard,” said Stags’ senior wide receiver⁄defensive back Rodney McLeod. ‘‘If we win this, we’ll go down in DeMatha history.”

‘‘If you play well, every college coach in the country is going to see it, fans are going to see it, alumni of the school,” said DeMatha coach Bill McGregor. ‘‘You have a chance to market yourself in a pretty prestigious way. It’s a win-win type of game.”

McGregor said Herbstreit Classic officials contacted him two years ago about participating in last year’s event, but the Stags had already finalized their schedule. DeMatha was originally slated to play Northmont High from Dayton, Ohio in the second game of a triple-header at the University of Cincinnati. But McGregor said officials switched the schedule so the Stags would face St. Xavier in the opening game because a contest between Alabama’s Hoover and Ohio’s Colerain had to be moved to Saturday. Hoover couldn’t play Sunday because of Alabama state high school rules.

‘‘For a lot of the kids, this will be the first time ever on an airplane,” said McGregor, who was the Stags defensive coordinator in the 1980s when the team traveled to Cincinnati’s Moeller, then a national power under Gerry Faust who went on to coach at Notre Dame. ‘‘Two nights in a hotel, team dinners, it’s great for team unity and also for exposure.”

The game is one of several high school football matchups that will be televised on ESPN’s family of channels this fall as the ‘‘Worldwide Leader” has added prep athletics to its menu. McGregor isn’t worried his team will be adversely affected by the attention.

‘‘You might be thinking about it before the game, then you start playing and forget where you are,” said McGregor, whose team is ranked No. 5 nationally by USA Today and No. 7 by ESPN.com. ‘‘There’s no difference playing there or any other stadium, you have an opponent that you’ve got to try to stop.”

The Stags’ coaching staff has been spending the last couple of months devising a game plan for facing the Cincinnati private school that won the Ohio Division I championship last fall and is ranked No. 1 by PrepNation.com and No. 4 by both USA Today and ESPN.com. McGregor said St. Xavier runs an unusual 3-3-5 defensive scheme.

‘‘You see 4-3, 3-4, 5-2. We’ve spent umpteen hours talking to different college coaches about how to attack it,” said McGregor. ‘‘Hopefully, we’ve got some good answers and ideas.”

St. Xavier opened its season with a 35-7 victory against Cincinnati’s Winton Woods on Saturday. Senior tailback Darius Ashley leads the offense while linebacker Fred Craig, who has verbally committed to Stanford, captains the defense.

McGregor has been pleased with his team’s progression heading into Saturday. The Stags scrimmaged northern Virginia power Westfield a couple of weeks ago, but an exhibition against defending state Class 3A champ Friendly High Saturday evening was stopped after four plays because of lightning. The scrimmage had been delayed nearly two hours as rain and lightning blanketed the area.

Wide receiver⁄defensive back Kenny Tate, a three-time Gazette-Star first-team selection, heads up a senior-laden squad that hasn’t lost a game since 2005 (22 consecutive wins). McGregor said this DeMatha squad is the most experienced in his 26 seasons.

‘‘I hope we have these kind of rankings at the end of the year. It’s all preseason, it’s based on our reputation and teams in the past,” McGregor said. ‘‘This team hasn’t done a thing yet.”

E-mail Derek Toney at dtoney@gazette.net.