Highland-Century football discontinue annual series for the time being

Two Pocatello-based high school football teams will no longer be playing one another.

Highland and Century, which had gone head-to-head for 15 consecutive seasons, won’t be continuing their annual game on the gridiron for the time being. The two programs with a combined 15 state championships to their names, had faced each other every year but once since playing for the first time in 2004.

It was called off due to safety concerns and competitive unbalance.

“It’s not really doing anybody any good,” Century head coach Ryan Fleischmann said. “The new boundary situation at Century and Pocatello has really dropped Century down so we’re now a very small school.

“It’s not fun to watch.”

Especially last year when Century, which has approximately 500 less students than Highland, had to endure a 58-3 drubbing. The 55-point margin of defeat was the worst for the Diamondbacks in at least 19 years.

They also had multiple players suffer season-ending injuries. Incoming junior quarterback Adrian Gonzalez broke his collarbone and soon-to-be senior defensive back Ella Whitworth her leg in the very one-sided affair.

Century also had another player break a hand and several others suffer concussions.

“We’re waiting for an ambulance to come pick up one of my players at halftime and get them off the field and Nick (Sorrell) and I are just standing there next to each other like, ‘Oh, man.’ I don’t know who felt worse,” Fleischmann said. “It was the worst evening of my career. It was miserable and it wasn’t just the points on the board. It was the talent, size and strength. The number disparity was on full display. It was a case study in why there’s size divisions in football.

“It was an epic shitshow.”

This isn’t anything new.

The Diamondbacks are 0-19 against the Rams all-time. They’ve lost all but one of those games by double digits, too. That was a 27-23 defeat back in 2013. But since then, Highland has outscored Century 413-89.

The Rams, who compete in 6A − Idaho’s highest classification − have also won a pair of state championships and played for three more during that same timespan. The 5A Diamondbacks, meanwhile, haven’t reached a state final since winning the last of their three titles in 2003. They’re also in the midst of three consecutive losing seasons, including going winless (0-8) for the second time in program history a year ago.

“It felt like a Big Sky school going to a Pac-12 game,” Fleischmann said. “But at least those guys get some money out of the deal.”

So Century chose not to renew the annual game following the completion of its two-year schedule cycle at the end of last season. Fleischmann, who has been with the program since nearly its inception in 2000 and is in his second stint as head coach, had been an advocate of it for years.

“For a long time, I’ve been kind of pushing the question of, ‘Why are we being required to play schools that are not on our path to what we’re trying to achieve?,’” Fleischmann said. “Highland doesn’t prevent us from going to the playoffs and Highland doesn’t prevent us from putting a trophy in the case. Those other teams do. The whole goal of a high school football program is to get out of the regular season and come home with a green, red or blue trophy. And Highland really doesn’t advance or hinder that situation one way or another.”

The answer was always the contracts that the three area schools had with the ICCU Dome and the fact that it wanted them to all play each other. But unlike the Black and Blue Bowl, which has been going on for 60 years now, Fleischmann, a Pocatello alum and a former coach at Highland, said Highland-Century has never really developed into any sort of rivalry even after a quarter century.

“This town loves the Pocatello-Highland rivalry. It’s like Montana-Montana State. It’s a thing that this town has always loved and damn near three decades later, people still resent the fact that Century exists for watering down that rivalry,” Fleischmann said. “So it’s laughable to use the word ‘rivalry’ when talking about Century and Highland.

“There’s never been any real strong sense of a rivalry. Just around here, people don’t talk about it. Nobody gets all excited about it. You don’t see a bunch of little kids running around saying, ‘Oh, it’s Century-Highland.’ Nobody cares.”

Highland head coach Nick Sorrell was seemingly not all that bothered by the series ending for now either.

He just had to go out and quickly find a replacement opponent.

“We didn’t want to only play eight games,” Sorrell said. “We didn’t think it was fair for our kids to miss out on playing a full 9-game schedule.”

That was originally filled by Farmington out of Utah. But it had to pull out due to its own scheduling conflicts. So now the Rams will open up its state title defense at Legacy (Las Vegas) on Aug. 23.

Century opens up its season that same day on the road against Nampa.

“As for being odd, I’m not sure,” said Sorrell about not playing Century for the first time since 2008. “I’m excited for the opportunity to play new teams and for our players to gain those experiences.”