CONROE -- Former award-winning Port Arthur News scribe Howard Roden was talking with Larry Neumann earlier this week about Magnolia's bulldozing offensive style in a Conroe newspaper interview.

Roden was telling the Nederland head football coach that Magnolia was not real flashy.

"Flashy," Neumann responded, "can be in the eyes of the beholder."

Although this has been a dead-serious week for both sets of Bulldogs, that remark brought a hearty chuckle when it was relayed to Magnolia coach Andy Sexton during Friday's lunchtime.

"Hey, tell Larry to take it easy on us, we're just real simple," the 42-year-old Kingwood native Sexton said.

Neumann would counter that remark by labeling today's opponent as simple all right, simply huge.

To which Magnolia's mentor said, "We're not big... We just look big in those uniforms."

When Neumann shares his portion of the coaching lingo, he claims Magnolia's size exceeds that of Livingston or any other Nederland opponent to date. The NHS boss gets to find out first-hand in Moorhead Stadium today at 1 p.m. Magnolia (7-3) meets Nederland (5-4) in a 4A Division I area playoff round game.

The winner stays busy on Thanksgiving weekend. The loser does whatever it wants to do next week, but does not keep practicing football.

Magnolia is a ground-eating Wishbone machine that comes right at you, eats up yards and tries to shorten the game. That's exactly what Nederland prefers to avoid.

Yet, after last week's amazing 35-34 bidistrict survival of C.E. King, the Nederlanders have dealt with their own new set of physical challenges.

Knee injuries to starting quarterback Kirby Bellow and starting wide receiver Ryan Brady keep NISD trainers Larry Southard and Terry King extremely occupied. As of late Friday afternoon, Neumann could not be more pleased with all four of those individuals and their efforts during the week.

"We're still deciding who our quarterback will be, but Kirby and Ryan were looking great on Thursday," the Nederland head coach said. "We will just have to see what happens."

So the inspection will continue this morning during a walk-through at school and will resume on Moorhead's artificial surface when the teams will loosen up shortly after noon.

To suggest these personnel matters may be game-time decisions might be premature. The Dogs may have to watch 10 or 15 minutes of game conditions to know what Bellow and Brady can or can't do.