Now that the election is over and the candidates have finished pulling tricks out of their sleeves, it’s time for football coaches to steal a page from the political playbook, namely Lawrence High coach Dirk Wedd. I admire the heck out of this year’s LHS football team for fighting week after week and earning their way into the playoffs. With a record of 4-5, there are plenty of people out there who will say the Lions don’t deserve to be in the postseason. They’re wrong. LHS might not have the best team, but the Lions have taken advantage of the system and won the games they had to win. Now, they must win one they surely can’t. When LHS (4-5) travels to Blue Valley (8-1) at 7 tonight, the Lions will face one of the most potent offensive attacks they’ve seen all season. There are two schools of thought when it comes to trying to keep up with a high-powered offense. The first: Do your best to play with them, throw like crazy, run things you’re not used to running and hope like heck that you’ll be there at the end. The second: Do exactly what LHS did against Free State on Oct. 24. Grind it out, keep the clock moving and expect to be there at the end with an outside chance at victory. LHS executed the second strategy to perfection against Free State, but the Firebirds had enough in their arsenal to hold off the upset bid. Blue Valley will, too. And that’s why it’s time for Wedd to open things up. Throughout his time as the head football coach at LHS, Wedd has shown an incredible knack for knowing when to pull out the trick play. He’ll need a few of them tonight, and he might have the personnel to pull them off. In senior QB Clint Pinnick, LHS has a leader with enough sense and savvy to sell the trick play.In fellow seniors Jake Green, Aaron Rea, Murphy Ray Jr. and Clifton Sims, the Lions have the athletes to execute the trickery. Anyone see the trick play pulled off by the Kansas City Chiefs last Sunday? Quarterback Tyler Thigpen handed the ball off to a running back who then pitched it to a receiver on a reverse who then threw it to Thigpen, who had crept downfield behind the defense to haul in a 37-yard touchdown reception. LHS needs that kind of thinking tonight. How about this? Coaches often script the first 10 or 15 offensive plays of the game so their players know what the gameplan will be and can visualize the attack before kickoff. I’m not sure if Wedd scripts plays or not, but he should throw in three or four trick plays in the first 15 tonight. For one, trick plays can work. And, if they do, they can be huge momentum-builders. For two, if a underdog staggers the favorite early, the favorite has a tendency to tense up and make mistakes it might not otherwise make. Obviously, forcing Blue Valley into such a situation would benefit the Lions’ chances. Here’s the deal. I’m not a football coach for a reason. I don’t know the ins and outs of X’s and O’s the way the guys who are paid to coach the game do. But I do know that the Lions’ best shot tonight will be to mix it up and throw in some looks that Blue Valley hasn’t seen. The Tigers are too good for LHS to run Jake Green and Clifton Sims between the tackles all night. Blue Valley will expect that. Sims pitching to Rea who then throws to Pinnick downfield; now that’s something nobody would expect. And quite possibly something Blue Valley would not be prepared to stop.Still searching for Hidden Heroes_Have you seen someone go out of their way to help make the local high school sports scene click recently? Have a story about a super fan, a player or a devoted parent who has helped any of the local high school teams in some extraordinary way? We want to hear about it._Check out The Dividing Line’s Hidden Heroes blog and clue us in about the person you’ve seen who makes Lawrence’s high school sports scene spectacular.