By Dan Weber
NKyTribune reporter
This week is personal.
Covington Catholic at Highlands.
For the 76th time in what will be its 55th year, Northern Kentucky’s most consequential high school football series takes place at historic David Cecil Stadium in Fort Thomas.
We were there for the first one, as a first-year CovCath coach just out of college for a first-year CovCath program and as a longtime Highlands fan who followed and rooted for the Birds on their many state title runs. And we’ll be there again Friday (8 p.m.) at a rivalry that has meant so much to high school football here.
In 28 of the seasons since these teams started going against one another, the winner has gone on to win the state championship – Highlands for 20 of those titles, CovCath for the other eight.
But this season is different. For the first time, both can go on to win a state title as Highlands remains in Class 5A while CovCath moved down to Class 4A in the offseason realignment.
Not that Friday’s game will be any the less for it. Not for two programs that so often measure themselves against the other.
It was a perfect rivalry in many ways. Not like Bellevue-Dayton, Kentucky’s oldest, between two proud neighboring river towns who share an O’Fallon Avenue border and will never let you, or anyone else, forget it.
CovCath Coach Ed Eviston has won nine of his last 10 games against Highlands.
But you had establishment Highlands, a public school in Campbell County with the longest tradition in Kentucky high school football. And challenger CovCath, a Kenton County parochial school basketball/baseball power with no football tradition at all.
What made it even more special was that in those first years, Highlands was the only Northern Kentucky program that would play CovCath, as it was nearing an enrollment of 800 boys with no football at fellow parochial schools like Holy Cross and St. Henry. That was scary for many old-line NKAC teams up here.
But not for Highlands, who gave CovCath games, even though with three state championships in those early playoff years, the Bluebirds had more to lose. As lose we did, that first year in 1968 with Mike Murphy’s Birds shutting us out, 14-0.
But my freshman team, loaded with more non-football athletes than football guys who would go on to distinguish themselves in college basketball and baseball, beat both Cincinnati Moeller and the Highlands freshmen, who hadn’t lost a game in so long, no one could remember when.
And the next fall, with just our second team, we turned the tables on Highlands, 35-6. That CovCath team would lose to Class AAA champ Louisville St. Xavier but had it gone to the playoffs – we couldn’t go because we couldn’t get enough games in Northern Kentucky – it would have easily won a state title.
But did those wins deter the Bluebirds? Not even a little bit. They came back to win nine straight against CovCath, starting with a 54-0 romp the next season that had me questioning my choice of professions.
And Highlands did it with three different coaches – Murphy, Roger Walz and Bill Hermann.
Highlands was not going away. Not even a little bit. Think of that 83-point one-year turnaround. And in five of those games – five straight from 1972 to 1976 — Highlands shut CovCath out. Think of that. You could have been a four-year graduate of CovCath now in your sophomore year of college before your Colonels scored even a single point against the Bluebird dynasty.
And yet it remained a rivalry. Along came Lynn Ray to Park Hills and even though it took the legendary CovCath coach five games, until 1979, before CovCath won a game against Highlands, in his 40 games all-time in this rivalry, Ray would win 14 including three separate three-game win streaks.
The problem for CovCath during those years was that another legend had arrived in Fort Thomas, Dale Mueller, who won 26 of 32 games in this rivalry on the way to winning 11 state titles in his 14 appearances. Ray, meanwhile, would go on to five state championship games – and win all five.
Highlands’ Coach Bob Sphire is coming off his first win against CovCath last fall.
But if state titles and quick turnarounds have happened here, so have streaks unlike what you’re likely to see in other rivalries like this. Highlands ran off a 15-win streak from 2007 through 2015. And others of six, five and four games.
CovCath, meanwhile, brought in current coach Ed Eviston from Newport Central Catholic, and after his first season, Eviston’s Colonels ran off nine straight wins until new Highlands coach Bob Sphire got his Birds back on top, 32-21, last fall.
Here are the numbers. Highlands has won 50 games in this rivalry, CovCath 25. Mueller tops all the Highlands’ coaches with his 26 wins while Murphy’s 5-1 mark (.833) is the best for the Birds with five games or more. For the Colonels, Eviston has the best winning percentage (.750) with Ray’s 14 wins the most.
And while Friday’s game may be No. 76 in the series, it means just as much as those first couple did to us a half-century ago.
For Highlands, which has lost nine out of the last 10 in this rivalry, this could be the turnaround year and you can tell that Sphire and his players think it well might be after a road win against a tough Lexington Catholic team last week led by 6-4, 223-pound senior quarterback/receiver/running back Brody Benke with his backup partner, sophomore Rio Litmer, and a whole host of big-bodied Birds up front.
For CovCath, after three straight Class 5A state championship game appearances – and two titles – from 2017 through 2019, the Colonels have been absent for the entire time of this varsity team’s high school years.
As CovCath players made clear after last week’s 37-22 win in the opener against Class 6A Ryle with quarterback Evan Pitzer, running back Owen Leen and tight end/linebacker Willie Rodriguez leading the way, this year would be different. They have some unmet goals to meet.
Starting with this game. Much as it was for both these programs 55 years ago. And even better, both can go on and win a state title without facing each other in the playoffs.
Should be fun. Hope the heat holds off.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.
