Olathe North has captured six of the last seven Class 6A high school football championships.

Hutchinson has never played a Class 6A championship game.

“It kind of seems like we’re hunting a polar bear with a pocket knife,” said Randy Dreiling, now in his seventh year as head coach of the Salt Hawks.

Can the new kids on the block knock off the state’s current football dynasty? Or will the Eagles have a last hurrah before their slide into Class 5A next year because of an enrollment decline caused by the opening of Olathe Northwest?

Kickoff will be 11 a.m. today at Memorial Stadium.

Despite three regular-season defeats, including a 21-16 home loss to Lawrence High, Olathe North (9-3) has peaked during the playoffs. Hutchinson, meanwhile, is the state’s only unbeaten Class 6A team at 12-0.

“They remind me of Lawrence High,” O-North coach John McCall said of the Salt Hawks. “There are a lot of similarities from an offensive standpoint. But Hutch runs more pure option. They’re play-action oriented.”

Hutchinson features an LHS-like triple-option offense guided by senior quarterback John Sellers. Also a standout pitcher in baseball, Sellers gives the Salt Hawks a passing game — a dimension the Lions lacked.

Olathe North avenged its regular-season loss to the Lions by posting an impressive 41-21 victory at Haskell Stadium in the 6A playoffs. The Lions simply could not stop the 1-2 running punch of tailback Jason Gore and quarterback Mike McCall.

Nobody else has, either, during the playoffs.

In the win over the Lions, Gore and McCall carried the ball a combined 45 times for 331 yards. In last week’s 13-6 win over Blue Valley North, the Gore-McCall tandem had 58 carries for 273 yards.

Meanwhile, Hutch doesn’t really have any go-to players. Dreiling has a stable of backs and a bevy of wide receivers who share the load. Sellers, for example, has completed passes to 10 different receivers.

“It’s going to be a contrast in styles,” Dreiling said. “We’ve got some skilled people who are little guys who catch play-action passes.”

Yet with its sizable offensive lines and large backs, O-North will play the old-fashioned way.

“They’re making no bones about it,” Dreiling said. “They’re going to run the ball, run the ball, run the ball.”

Olathe North has an apparent added advantage. The Eagles have already played a game on the AstroPlay surface at Memorial Stadium. They clipped Free State, 28-14, in October at the Kansas University facility.

“Hopefully, that’s an advantage for us,” McCall said.

Hutchinson has played mostly on grass this season, but the Salt Hawks practiced this week on an AstroPlay surface at nearby McPherson College.

“We’ve been on the McPherson field, and we’ve had no problems,” Dreiling said.

On paper, the geography factor would appear to favor Olathe North as well. Nevertheless, a large number of Hutchinson fans are expected to make the three-hour drive to Lawrence.

“You’ll be amazed how many there are (at the game) from here,” Dreiling said. “When we went to Manhattan last week, we had more people there than they did.”

If Olathe North wins a seventh state title today, the school still would trail Lawrence High by three games on the all-time chart. The Lions own 10 state championships. The playoff system begin in 1969.