The West York football team usually focuses on offense during its Tuesday practice, but this week they spent the last half-hour or so working on defense in anticipation of Friday's PIAA Class AAA semifinal against Thomas Jefferson.

Coach Ron Miller wasn't thrilled with what he saw and he informed his players as such.

Briefly stopping the practice and calling his players together, an Miller impassioned Miller expressed his disappointment. He told the Bulldogs they needed to show more intensity. He said they shouldn't be satisfied with winning a district title. He demanded a better effort for the rest of the session and the following few days.

It wasn't anything too far out of the ordinary -- just a high school football coach keeping his team in line. What struck me in particular was that Miller boiled success in high school football down to three basic elements.

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Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for children under age 8. Admission is free for children age 2 and under.

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Meet Brian Baldrige, the leading rusher of West York's PIAA Class AAA semifinal opponent Thomas Jefferson. He scored all of the touchdowns in Thomas Jefferson's win over Strong Vincent in last week's PIAA Class AAA quarterfinals. Two weeks earlier in the postseason, Baldrige ran for 382 yards on 32 carries to help the Jaguars earn their sixth consecutive WPIAL championship.

He also said at Thomas Jefferson, "they expect you to win a state title." The Jaguars have won two since 2004 and are two games away from a third. Baldrige told me that whether or not you're able to earn the crown is "what you're measured on when you graduate from T.J." I told him that sounds like a lot of pressure.

"It is, but our coaches really take it off us because they work us hard in the summer and that's how we keep making it back to the state playoffs," Baldrige said. "We work harder than any other team and it pays off."

West York has never reached the state semifinals in football at the Class AAA level and on Friday will take on a team that won the crown last year and will view this season as a disappointment if they fail to do it again. Although the Bulldogs will undoubtedly fight hard to stay alive and earn a state title of their own, they seemingly have a lot less pressure on them this week. It's sort of like they have nothing to lose.

I asked Baldrige whether he thought the lack of pressure might be an advantage for West York.

One thing that has been notably absent from West York's playoff run to date has been any sort of trickery in the play calling. Not that the Bulldogs (13-1) have needed any gimmicks -- they've been doing just fine with their standard game plan. But considering the team has mixed it up before (running back Brandon Real threw a touchdown pass during one regular season game), one can only wonder if Ron Miller and his staff will draw up something for Friday's PIAA Class AAA semifinal against defending state champion Thomas Jefferson (13-1).

The video above is currently my favorite trick play of all time. Comedian Rob Huebel claims to have hatched up this play while guest-coaching during a recent youth football game but considering the description here, he might just be joking.

Anyway, I realize the play would be less likely to succeed on the high school level, but I think it might be able to create enough confusion to work.

After a decade and a half as an assistant coach at the college level, Ron Miller has shown he has a knack for winning as a high school coach.

He is only in his third season at West York, but the Bulldogs have reached the postseason all three years and just did what no YAIAA team has ever been able to do -- win a District 3 Class AAA title. He also did it against a man he admires and whose success he hopes to replicate.

"Honestly, I look to (Manheim Central coach) Mike Williams as a role model, the way he has run his program," Miller said a few minutes after Friday's 15-7 victory over the Barons to keep Manheim Central from winning it's 16th title since 1989. "He's been a good role model to me. I respect what he's done so much and he did a great job helping me and preparing his team."

Plus, Miller did it without Brandon Real, which might speak to the coaching abilities of him and his staff more than anything.

The West York football team has won 17 consecutive football games at home, including three straight playoff games. But if the Bulldogs want to win a district title, they will have to earn a victory away from its friendly confines.

Since 2006, West York has lost both of the playoff football games it has played away from home, but those games were at opposing team's stadiums. Friday's contest against Manheim Central will be held at the neutral site of Hersheypark Stadium. That means it's up to the students and fans to battle it out to see who can make the atmosphere more suitable for their team.

The Bulldogs have been cultivating student and community support through spirit events when they would attend games for other West York varsity teams as fans once a month or so. They said that support could pay off on Friday.

"When we went to those field hockey games and those soccer games, sometimes you thought: 'Oh my gosh, why am I wasting my time sitting here?,'" junior quarterback Alex George said. "But then you look up and you see everybody from that soccer team is out there now and they're excited to come cheer you on. I know all the girls from the field hockey team really get excited and are really excited to watch us at Hershey because we went up there to watch them."

Before taking on the New York Yankees in the 2001 World Series, Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Curt Schilling was asked if he was worried about the mystique and aura of the most successful team in professional sports history.

Those are dancers in a nightclub," Schilling said. "Those are not things we concern ourselves with on the ball field."

The Diamondbacks, you might remember, beat the Yankees in seven games that year to win the world championship.

I'm not sure if Ron Miller is aware of Schilling's famous quote, but he talked about how West York was going up against "mystique and aura and magic and all that stuff" this week against Manheim Central. I asked a couple of his players how much of a concern that was for them going into the district title contest.

Russ Stoner (second from left above) spends his time these days as an assistant football coach at Central York, but was a remarkable athlete during his high school days at West York 20 years ago. He was recently named the third-best athlete in the school's history and was a two-way standout on the 1988 football team that won the school's first ever district title in football, playing running back and safety for the District 3 Class AA champs.

It's a time of his life of which Stoner has been reminded often now that he is back on the sidelines as a coach.

"Every time we've ever gotten a chance to go to the playoffs or we have a good football team, it always brings back the memories of playing at West York and playing in that run that we had my senior year," Stoner said.

"It was really cool, I was over at the West York game on Friday and I remember being interviewed the week after we played and we won the district championship and they asked: 'What was the feeling in the locker room?' I said: 'Well, we're all pretty excited and we're all singing Christmas carols.' And last Friday, the band was playing 'Winter Wonderland' and it made me think back about how we were one of the only teams left playing."

The West York football team has heard plenty of people dismissing its chances Friday against Manheim Central in the District 3 Class AAA championship game/PIAA Class AAA quarterfinal now that Brandon Real is injured and out for the season.

The Bulldogs insist that they remain optimistic. So why exactly are their spirits so high? What would they tell these detractors if they had the chance?

The first thing that comes to senior wideout Nate Jacobs' mind is West York's defensive accomplishments.

"Brandon didn't play defense," Jacobs said. "We've had two shutouts in districts and our defense is doing well. Our whole starting defense is going to be there Friday and nothing is going to change over the past few games we've played."

The family game of touch football in the backyard notwithstanding, most Pennsylvania high school students aren't thinking too much about playing football. It's late November and Thanksgiving is approaching -- a time to stuff your face with food, try not to argue too much with visiting relatives and plant yourself on the couch. That's the way we do it in America.

But with a berth in the District 3 championship game on Friday against Manheim Central, the West York football team will have a slightly untraditional Thanksgiving this year, which includes a 10 a.m. practice on Thursday morning. Coach Ron Miller said he wanted to make sure the elements of giving thanks and family togetherness are part of that gathering.

"Thursday morning we're going to do something I think is going to be pretty cool," Miller said. "We're going to practice at 10 in the morning. I'm inviting anyone's family, anyone of my player's family, brothers and sisters, anyone that is going to be a part of their family will hopefully come in and spend an hour and a half with us. Our booster club is going to have some coffee and hot chocolate and donuts. We're going to try and make it a Bulldog Football Family Day and we're excited about that."

West York football coach Ron Miller confirmed Saturday afternoon that senior running back Brandon Real suffered a broken collarbone in Friday's victory and will be out for the rest of the playoffs.

As you can see in the highlight video above, Real is a remarkable talent that can do incredible things on the football field. For the season -- which may be the best ever for a YAIAA running back -- Real finishes with 2,513 yards on 252 carries, rushing for 41 touchdowns and scoring 10 more on kickoff and punt returns.

For his career, Real picked up 3,974 rushing yards on 413 carries and scored 74 touchdowns.

Look for more information and an early look at the matchup against Manheim Central in Sunday's print edition (or read it here). And seriously, check out the highlight video above to gain a full appreciation for what this guy can do if you haven't witnessed it firsthand.

I must confess, the above headline is purposely provocative. I wouldn't dare make such a claim for Brandon Real, or anybody, for that matter. I'm not going to pretend I know enough about this league and the thousands of running backs that have competed in its games over the past few decades.

Nonetheless, considering Real's numbers this season, it's something worth thinking about.

The stat the sticks out the most is touchdowns. Real has run for 39 on the ground and scored another 10 on special teams with punt and kick returns to give him 49 total. Going into the season, Parkland's Austin Scott held the state single-season record with 53 touchdowns during the 2002 season, but Schuykill Haven's Zach Barket has already scored 55 this season and his team is still alive in the PIAA Class A playoffs.

After Real, the most prolific scorers among YAIAA football players that I could find in our records are Central York's Brad Senft (33 TDs in 1975), Susquehannock's Adam Cook (33 TDs in 2001) and Delone Catholic's Mark Lookenbill (32 TDs in 1988).

You've already seen a couple screwballs explain why they think West York (11-1) will win Friday in its District 3 Class AAA semifinal at home against Garden Spot (8-4). If you don't believe them, maybe you'll trust the mathematical formula that calls West York a 12.6-point favorite.

It's called the Born Power Index and it calls itself "an ever changing mathematical evaluation of a team's relative strength against similar competition i.e. a team indexed at 60.0 has been consistently 10 points per game stronger than a team indexed at 50.0 leaning more heavily toward most recent encounters."

There is also a "blowout factor" that apparently "rewards teams for doing well against stronger opponents and discourages running up the score against weaker teams." The website boasts that the index has "tabbed the victor in 79.6 of the nearly 22,000 games" in multiple states during the 2002-03 school year. It would be more encouraging if they had updated numbers, and 79.6 percent isn't exactly a mind-blowingly accurate win percentage, but it's still impressive.