MacArthur vs. Ardmore always presents a tightly-contested battle, but this year's implications aren't quite what many have come to expect.
The winner of this rivalry game has decided the District 5A-1 champion in two of the past three seasons, with those contests being decided by a total of six points. That won't be the case this time around, though.
The No. 2 Tigers (8-1, 6-0) already have the district title wrapped up going into the 7 p.m. kickoff tonight at Cameron Stadium. The Highlanders (5-4, 4-2), on the other hand, are up against history.
Win or lose, Mac is likely to finish fourth in the district for the first time since 2000. Further more, a loss would put the Highlanders at a 5-5 regular season mark for the first time since 1996.
Mac could finish third with a victory, but it would need Southeast to pull off an unlikely upset over Del City for that scenario to come to fruition.
Regardless of the result, Mac coach Brett Manning said his team has bounced back from the Altus loss last week and is ready to play. The Highlanders played the Bulldogs tough for four quarters, and they look to do the same against a similar opponent in Ardmore.
"(Our players) have really been impressive," Manning said. "We've had great practices this week, they're upbeat and they've shown a lot of maturity — this week especially."
Mac introduced a new defense last week to combat Altus' run-heavy flex bone style, holding the Bulldogs to 271 total yards. Although the Tigers run a similar offense, they have deviated from the pure flex bone offense, forcing Manning and the coaching staff to start from scratch again this week.
"We're going to tweak it some," Manning said. "Ardmore is not necessarily flex bone anymore — they run some regular bone and some broken bone. They're more of a power and toss team now. We'll have to adjust it a little bit.
"They still use their fullback for some quick-hitting flex bone-type plays, and they do run the ball. It's 95 percent run, about like Altus was, so their passing game is really similar, also. There are some similarities, but not so much where we can stay with that defense that we had against Altus."