Overland Park ? Facing the No. 1 Class 6A football team in the state, a squad averaging more than 50.6 points going into the game, Lawrence High had to figure out a way to keep the clock moving, shorten the game. Mission accomplished in that regard.

Still, Shawnee Mission East ran away with the victory, ending the Lions’ season, 35-7.

LHS let the play clock dwindle and kept the ball on the ground and could have trailed by only a touchdown if it had not been stopped on a fourth-and-one at the goal line, enabling the Lancers (10-0) to take a 21-7 lead at the half. The Lions (5-5) became the first team to keep Shawnee Mission East below 40 points in a contest that called attention to the Lancers’ unconventional approach in a couple of areas.

First, they run a hurry-up, flex-bone offense that features three running backs and a running quarterback. I started covering high school football in 1981, and the speed with which the Lancers got their plays off was something I never had seen. Had never seen anything even close.

The second unconventional approach employed by SME coach Dustin Delaney involves platooning players. Nobody starts both ways. Delaney, a former assistant to Randy Dreiling at Hutchinson High, saw it work for Dreiling, and it’s working for him.

The hurry-up offense works well in concert with the platooning of players because, week after week, the Lancers face players going both ways, players who never get a chance to catch their breaths.

“We try to wear people out. I think tonight our guys were a little fresher in the second half, and I think that made all the difference,” Delaney said. “Lawrence has just incredible athletes, incredible size. J.D. Woods is the fastest back I’ve ever played against. My guys on the line aren’t very big, but they’re able to play full speed on all the snaps, and that really made a difference in the game tonight.”

Delaney, 34, said with more starting jobs available, more players come out for football.

“We two-platoon on our varsity. We two-platoon on our JV,” Delaney said. “So there’s 44 kids who are either varsity or JV starters right there. We play regularly probably 40 kids a night, between offense, defense and special teams, and I think that’s a big key to keeping our numbers up and training our kids to play well.”

LHS coach Dirk Wedd, whose young team returns most of its key players next season, said he didn’t remember facing a team that got its plays off as fast as the Lancers did.

“They’re well-coached, and they’re so explosive,” Wedd said of a team that had averaged 67 points in its three previous games. “You try to load up the box and stop that dive stuff, and they kill you with option and toss. It’s impossible for your scout team to duplicate that stuff.”

Asked about platooning, Wedd said, “They’re really the only team in the Sunflower League to platoon. There are a lot of philosophies on that. We’ve talked about not platooning across the board, but maybe platoon your offensive line and your defensive line because they’re usually the ones who get tired. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t have (heavily recruited junior) Amani Bledsoe on the sideline.”

The Lions had 63 players listed on the roster, plus 37 freshmen in uniform, so it appears that forecasts of football vanishing because of concussion concerns were off target. The Lancers had 86 players listed on their roster.

“It’s always there,” Wedd said of concussions. “We have three kids in street clothes that got concussions in the last two weeks. It’s one of those things you have to constantly be concerned with. The great thing is we have a full-time trainer ,and then we have a doctor on the sidelines. It’s taken completely out of the coaches’ hands, and we do whatever they say.”

It looks as if LHS will have strong numbers again next season, which might make it a good time to move closer to a platoon system. Either way, 2015 projects as a winning season for the Lions.