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EMILY NIPPSSome of tonight's opponents don't always get along, including Hillsborough and Jefferson.
TAMPA - Forget friendly. Jefferson coaches prefer to call it a "healthy rivalry."
That's code for smack-talking, hard-hitting, no-mercy football. So what if Hillsborough and Jefferson already have wrapped up district titles? This game could make or break a team's spirit heading into the playoffs.
Boil down the beauty of Rivalry Week, and this is what you get: two teams that have been going at it since the 1940s, making up one of the oldest sports traditions in Tampa.
Some of tonight's rivalry matchups (Tampa Catholic-Jesuit, for example) have years of stories to tell while others (Newsome-Bloomingdale) are still young. None will match the intensity of Jefferson-Hillsborough this season.
"We look at this kind of like a playoff game," Hillsborough senior defensive back Vernon Daniels said. "We know a lot of their players."
"Like Kevin Richardson," offensive linebacker Antwaun Hall said. "He used to go here."
And look at Richardson now. He has been fine-tuning his running back skills on Jefferson's practice field all week. If he can beat the Terriers tonight single-handedly, he will.
"You want to talk about a Division I player this week at practice ... " Jefferson assistant Mike Fenton said.
The Dragons (8-1), for the most part, are trying to play it cool. The last thing Jefferson coach Mike Simmonds wants is for the players to get carried away and hurt themselves before the playoffs.
The Terriers (7-2), meanwhile, don't want any part of cool. They must win. Or else.
"There's a big difference between ending the season 8-2 and ending 7-3," Hillsborough coach Earl Garcia said.
"In the last 10 years, we've only been 7-3 twice (1997 and 2002), and all of the other years we've been 8-2 or better. The 7-3 years have ended up being our worst seasons. We want to enter the playoffs on a roll."
That's not to say the teams' attitudes make for a mismatch. Win or lose, both teams want to make it to the next level healthy and intact.
Winning this game - this unofficial "Tampa championship" as some call it - is worth more than bragging rights, though. As most rivalries go, the outcome could sink or float the players' faith (depending on what side of the field they are on) for weeks to come.
And the next few weeks matter.