Last year, East Grand Rapids won the state title in a thrilling five overtime contest against Orchard Lake St. Mary's. In just a few short weeks, the teams will square off again in a rematch of that state title game.
One of EGR's main weapons, tight end Christopher Blair, will have nothing to concentrate on but that game as he ended his recruitment last week, giving his verbal commitment to the Western Michigan Broncos.
"Well first of all, their offense fits in great," he said of WMU, "they throw it to the tight ends a lot. They send their tight ends up the field and that's the way I like to do it, I like to catch passes. It's a tight end's dream school. It's also close to home, that makes it easy on my parents, they can come watch games and the facilities down there are great."
Blair says he was also receiving serious interest from Eastern Michigan, Central Michigan and Miami-Ohio.
He also says the timing of his commitment was not made with the looming season in mind, but it is a major plus for him to be able to fully concentrate on that big first game.
"We know we have a target on our back from last year," he explained, "they want to get us back, but we know exactly what to expect from them. We've been watching last year's film and we're getting pretty jacked."
Of course, another strong season followed by another long playoff run could mean other schools start jumping into Blair's recruitment.
"If I get invited to games, I'll probably take those visits, but right now, it's WMU for me."