Badin travels to McNicholas on Friday night for a Greater Catholic League Coed showdown that will crown the conference champion.
“You’ve got that, and we’re both sitting here 4-0 in the league,” Yordy said. “The playoff implications. It is a playoff type of game. It will have that vibe. I’m sure it will be a good crowd going to McNick for the second year in a row.
“On top of that, there is a lot of playoff shuffling that could occur for whoever does win the game. But we don’t talk about that a whole lot — the implications and the standings and who you’re going to play.”
The situation, though, is similar to 2021 when Badin and McNicholas took an unbeaten league record into the regular season finale. The Rams won 48-21.
Rockets coach Mike Orlando was quick to point that out.
“Timing is everything,” he recalled. “We had a really good team in 2021. It just so happened that Badin had a really, really good team. It depends on what you run into and that sort of thing.
“Things on the surface are pretty good. I think coming in this year we thought we had a chance to be a pretty good team. Looking at our schedule, there was a path to get here.”
The Rams beat the Rockets 38-35 at McNicholas in 2023 on Zach Yordy’s fourth-down, 4-yard touchdown plunge with 13 seconds left — which secured Badin’s unbeaten regular season.
Badin (7-2, 4-0 GCL Coed) is riding a seven-game winning streak this year, while McNicholas (8-1, 4-0 GCL Coed) currently has an eight-game winning streak. Both teams have held their opponents to under 10 points a game.
“A lot of guys that were out there last year gave us some issues,” Yordy said of McNicholas. “They are back. I don’t foresee a high-scoring game. If somebody would have told me 38-35, and we score the winning touchdown? I’d say, ‘No way.’
“But it’s high school football. Anything can really happen. Defensively, these are two of the better ones in the league. I think in the league, we’ve played common opponents that have both really good offenses and really good defenses. It’s just another GCL type of game that has some implications to it.”
The Rams have a five-game winning streak in the series after the Rockets won the previous six.
“I laugh because a lot of people outside of our program keep on telling me, ‘They’re not the same Badin. They’re not like they were in the past,’” Orlando said. “Well when I flip on the tape, they look a whole lot like Badin teams we’ve played over the last four or five years.”
Quarterback Braden Bobo leads the McNicholas offense. The senior has thrown for 1,054 yards and 10 touchdowns this season, while rushing for 401 yards and four scores. Junior running back Caleb Naumann has rushed for 1,093 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Defensively, senior linebacker Blaize Volker has 67 tackles, while senior defensive lineman Bo Tobin has eight sacks and three fumble recoveries. Senior linebacker Jack Mayer is second on the team with 53 tackles. Senior defensive back Nate Colyer has six interceptions and is tied for the program lead with 15 career interceptions.
“The kids have been working really hard,” Orlando said. “We have a lot of guys on the field that have been playing for a long time. So, we have the experience there. We finally have some depth to do some things. We’re proud of where we’ve come and how far we have come and how we got here. Hopefully, this is the beginning and not the end.”
Badin junior quarterback Colt Emerson has thrown for 735 yards and nine touchdowns, while junior running back Lem Grayson has rushed for 742 yards and 10 touchdowns. Junior wide receiver James Brink has 32 receptions for 387 yards and six touchdowns.
Junior linebacker Trent Owens has 72 tackles, senior defensive lineman Royce Rachel has 52 tackles with seven sacks, and senior Xander Arnold has three interceptions.
“It really has been a growing process — especially on the offensive side of the ball,” said Yordy, whose program brought less than a handful of starters back from last season. “We had some guys that are back, defensively. Offensively, we just didn’t.
“This has been a growing process, and there had to be a week-to-week type thing for us. Maybe we had to learn how to coach a little bit differently with the guys we have that didn’t have the experience of being out there on a Friday. It really did just become a week-to-week, and it was what we had to do to win games. Let’s do whatever we have to do to win football games. We kind of got hot and got into the good part of our schedule — started rolling a couple off and kept it going when we got into GCL play.”
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