One thing I've noticed, over the course of the season, is the premium Birmingham coach Ed Croson places on routine and consistency. Every Friday, after the game Croson and his staff head over to defensive coordinator Jim Rose's house in Northridge to watch the game and break down the tape before they show it to the players Saturday morning at 10.

If ever there was a week you could take it easy and sleep in on a Saturday morning, this was it. Birmingham beat Cleveland 82-0 on Friday night. Really, honestly, what can you learn from watching that tape, I asked some of the assistant coaches?

``It's not about that,'' offensive line coach Matt Pentecost said.

After being around this team for most of a season, I already knew why. It's about routine and being consistent so everyone knows what to expect, all the time. That's important when you're dealing with a bunch of teenage kids, from all sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of socioeconomic statuses and all sorts of issues on their minds.

For a lot of the kids on the team, football is the only part of their lives that's predictable. And so, even after an 82-0 win where the back-ups played more than half the game, you show up on Saturday morning.

In the football world, City Section teams have a reputation for being undisciplined in an Oakland Raiders kind of way. A lot of that is due to a lack of resources. Each program has six paid coaching positions. That's six paid coaches for varsity and JV so most programs just split it up or rely on unpaid assistants. Those aren't easy to find though. Some programs get more than others. Birmingham has a lot, they're all committed, and it makes a huge difference.

Think of it in terms of class size. No matter how good a teacher you are, if you've got 45 kids in every class, it's tough to maintain control. But if you've got 20, things are totally different.