2024 Prep Football Previews: Highlands coach expects first-year starters to play significant roles this season

By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter

Name your sport, any sport, it’s almost certainly a numbers game in one way or another.

Here’s the problem with that: Numbers don’t always tell the whole story. Or the most accurate one. For example, how about this year’s Highlands Bluebirds.

The key stat for a high school football team is often the number of returning starters. For the Birds, who finished 12-2 a year ago and came up just short the second time they faced state finalist Cooper in the playoffs, those numbers don’t look all that impressive.

Four starters return on offense, just three on defense. Might be one of the lowest in Northern Kentucky after losing a 24-man senior class.

But that’s not how Highlands coach Bob Sphire looks at it. “While on paper we do not have many ‘returning starters,’ we have a plethora of returners who played meaningful snaps.”

Not only is Sphire’s use of the word “plethora” impressive, so is his explanation of the real numbers as he adds names beginning with “seven offensive linemen who will play significantly.”

Senior Torin Bryant (6-1, 250) is also earning college recruiting attention now that he’s back from knee surgery and healthy. “Having Bryant back is significant,” Sphire says.

Add 6-2 290-pound Teagan Haretuku , 6-5, 320-pound Mason Howard along with Diego Race , Peter Murriner and Brody Cook and you have a big, young group with impressive numbers.

“We’re still going to be a wide-open spread team,” Sphire says, just with really big bodies up front.

The numbers game doesn’t end there. “Our running back room is as deep as we have had over the past three years,” Sphire says, naming “at least six players who will play a significant role” in Jack White (144 yards on 21 carries), Ethan Grimm , Deven James (the leading returnee with 207 yards on 46 carries), Isaac Niemann , Aiden Duncan and Gabe Williams .

At tight end? Three names there: Tommy Ferring , Brady Carnohan and Tayden Lorenzen .

The top returning skill players on offense are clear from last year.

Quarterback Rio Litmer (77 for 106 passing for 1,110 yards, 20 TDs and two INT as a sophomore) will be pulling the trigger after sharing quarterback duties with the graduated, multi-position Brody Benke .

Sphire said Litmer will be aided by returning wide receivers Adam Surrey (39 catches for 584 yards, five TD) and Jackson Arnold (25 catches for 402 yards, eight TD).

Here’s the way the Highlands defense will go, Sphire says, noting the numbers again and how they “will rotate many players in the secondary and defensive line.”

The eight secondary candidates start with two-way players Surrey, Arnold and Williams with help from Hayden Hass, Tyus McCarter , Dominic Gregory , Peyton Klosterman and Connor Carnohan . To the eight offensive linemen who will rotate through on defense, add Ferring, Griffin, Howard and Cooper Benke.

Linebackers number five with two-way players Grimm (38 solo tackles, 32 assisted, nine tackles for loss and two sacks) and Niemann, James, TJ Hicks , and Ryan Dunn . Logan Nickelman , with 49 extra points and three field goals last season, returns to handle placekicking duties.

Add those up and that’s 43 names for 23 positions and a sign of just where things have gone in this fourth year of Sphire’s tenure in Fort Thomas. He explains: “We feel confident in our offseason process and the development of our players over the last three years. This will be the first class we have had for four full off-seasons and we expect to compete every Friday night.”

Which is exactly how you do it, with a new crop of upperclassmen ready to play every season. It’s how a Highlands program that has won 23 state championships — second-most in Kentucky history — and is the nation’s fifth-winningest program all-time with 932 wins has done it. The number that matters is the number of players a deep program can call on this season even if they weren’t all starters last season.

Schedule-wise, the Birds get right into it hosting Lexington Catholic in the opener followed by the traditional rivalry with Covington Catholic. They’ll finishing up the pre-district play with Ryle in Week 4 and Raceland in Week 5 before the home district headliner against high-flying Cooper in Week 6.

“That’ll be a big game,” Sphire says in the understatement of the preseason after Highlands’ 58-51 shootout regular season win before Cooper prevailed 17-15 in the playoffs in 2023.

HIGHLANDS BLUEBIRDS
2023 SEASON: 12-2 record, lost in semifinals of Class 5A playoffs.
STARTERS RETURNING: 4 offense, 3 defense.
DISTRICT: Class 5A, District 6 with Boone County, Conner, Cooper, Dixie Heights, Scott.
HEAD COACH: Bob Spire (26-11 in three seasons at Highlands, 305-114 in 35 seasons overall).

2024 SCHEDULE
Aug. 23 – LEXINGTON CATHOLIC, 7:30 p.m.
Aug. 30 – at Covington Catholic, 7 p.m.
Sept. 6 – at Campbell County, 7 p.m.
Sept. 13 – at Ryle, 7 p.m.
Sept. 20 – RACELAND, 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 27 – COOPER, 7 p.m.
Oct. 4 – DIXIE HEIGHTS, 7 p.m.
Oct. 11 – at Boone County, 7 p.m.
Oct. 18 – at Conner, 7 p.m.
Oct. 25 – SCOTT, 7 p.m.

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