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The Butler Bulldogs have no doubt this season will be different.
This time they will prevail in their heated football rivalry with Independence. This time - Friday night in a clash between the No.1 and No.2 teams in the Observer's Sweet 16 - they will not falter.
"This is the first year our kids have truly not only felt confident enough but really, truly have the confidence," said Butler coach Mike Newsome, whose 9-0 team is ranked No.1 by the Observer.
Sure sounds like it. When I talked to Butler's standout linebacker Alex Polofsky about whether his team would win this game, he said: "We know that we can and we know that we will."
Said Anthony Short, who is Butler's version of Steve Smith and leads the team with 18 touchdowns: "If we play our game, we've got the win in the bag. I'm not worried about that."
Are they just talking a good game - which Newsome has said has happened several times to his players in this rivalry - or will they actually play one?
That's what we will find out Friday night at 7 at Independence in what might turn into the toughest ticket ever to a high school sporting event in Charlotte.
Independence's stadium seats 4,250. The game would normally have been moved to 24,000-seat Memorial Stadium, but Memorial is under renovation and closed.
Instead, all 4,250 tickets have already been sold at the two schools, which sit just six miles apart on Charlotte's southeastern edge.
I wouldn't be surprised at all to see some ticket scalpers working the crowds of people who undoubtedly won't have gotten the news about the pre-sale and will still show up expecting to buy a ticket as usual.
Newsome is perturbed that the Carolina Panthers wouldn't allow the game to be played in Bank of America Stadium on a one-time basis. With both high school teams nationally ranked and unbeaten, he figures this game played there could have drawn 25,000.
The Panthers nixed the idea, with team spokesman Charlie Dayton citing concerns about fairness to other area schools who might also want to play there and the possibility of damaging the field.
"With the season they're having right now," Newsome said of the Panthers, "I think it would have been a big community gesture for them to allow this to happen. ... What if Clemson would have said years ago, 'No Panthers, we don't really want you tearing up our field?' What if every other college had said that, too?"
The Panthers played their home games in 1995 at Clemson while their privately owned stadium was being built.
But the game is where it is (although in a few weeks if these two meet again, somebody better step to the plate and offer a larger venue).
Butler's players believe they can win it - on the road - despite their lack of success against Independence in big games.
Independence has dominated the state of North Carolina during this decade.
The Patriots have knocked Butler out of the playoffs the past four seasons and generally beat them in the regular season, too. Butler did edge Independence 21-20 in the 2007 regular season.
"A lot of teams around here measure their success on their win-loss record," said Newsome, Butler's head coach since 2003. "Unfortunately for us, we have to measure our success by what we've done against Independence. That's a tough deal to handle. You're dealing with 15-, 16- and 17-year-old kids.
"You're 9-0, you're playing one of the best teams in the Southeast and everything you've done rides on that game."
Both teams have all sorts of weapons. For Butler, Short has averaged 20 yards every time he has touched the ball this season. Quarterback Christian LeMay has 25 touchdown passes - and one interception.
Polofsky, Butler's linebacker, is being heavily recruited by Princeton. He knows how important believing in yourself is in a game like this.
"We set a goal at the beginning of the season to win a state championship," he said. "We truly believe this is the best Butler team we've ever had."
The best way to prove that?
Beat Independence.
