I want to make something clear before I even start this article. Much respect to Plum.

They won the game. They earned it. This isn’t me trying to take anything away from those players or coaches nearly 30 years later.

But I’m going to play devil’s advocate. Because I’ve wondered about something since I was a kid.

Did Plum know what Penn Hills was running?

I’m serious.

And anybody who remembers those Penn Hills teams might understand why I’ve always wondered.

 

Penn Hills Wasn’t Just Good

The year before, in 1995, Penn Hills had one of the greatest seasons in WPIAL football history.

They won the WPIAL championship. They won the PIAA state championship. They went 15-0. And they finished ranked No. 3 in the country by USA Today.

That team was loaded.

Then Penn Hills came back in 1996 and was still loaded with talent. They entered the playoffs ranked No. 1 in the WPIAL and looked capable of making another championship run.

And then came Plum.

 

But Go Back to 1995 First

This is where my curiosity really starts.

Even during Penn Hills’ undefeated state championship season, Plum gave them problems. Serious problems.

Penn Hills was running through teams that year, but against Plum? They needed overtime.

Now one close game against a rival doesn’t mean anything unusual. That’s football.  Rivalry games are different. Teams know each other. Emotion changes everything.

And Plum had good football players.

But then it happened again. Only this time, Penn Hills didn’t escape.

 

The 1996 Upset

Penn Hills entered the 1996 WPIAL playoffs as the No. 1 team.

Plum knocked them out.

To me, it remains one of the biggest upsets in WPIAL football history. Maybe the biggest. And what always stuck with me wasn’t simply that Penn Hills lost.

It was how comfortable Plum seemed playing against them.

Penn Hills had talent everywhere. They had two Division I running backs. They had athletes. They had experience. They were coming off a state championship.

But watching those Plum games, it sometimes felt like Plum knew what was coming.

That’s what has stayed in my head for almost 30 years.

 

Did Plum Just Have Penn Hills Figured Out?

Maybe that’s all it was. And that’s completely possible.

Good coaching is about tendencies.

If Penn Hills lined up a certain way, maybe Plum’s coaches knew what usually followed. Maybe they studied personnel. Maybe formations gave something away. Maybe Penn Hills had tendencies that other teams couldn’t exploit because they didn’t have the personnel to stop them.

Plum did. That’s football.

But here’s where I’ve always found the rivalry interesting.

 

These Communities Were Connected

Penn Hills and Plum border each other.

This wasn’t Penn Hills playing some school from the other side of Pennsylvania.

Kids knew each other. Families knew each other. Players had friends on the other team. There were kids who had lived in one community and moved to the other.

That’s what happens when two neighboring school districts play each other.

Information travels.

So I’ve always wondered: Did somebody know Penn Hills’ signals? Did somebody know certain tendencies? Did somebody have information about what Penn Hills wanted to run? Was there somebody connected enough to Penn Hills players that Plum knew a little more than the average opponent? Could somebody have gotten a look at a playbook?

I have absolutely no evidence that happened.

Let me repeat that because it’s important: I have no evidence that anybody from Penn Hills gave Plum anything.

I’m not accusing a player, coach or anybody else of doing it. I’m asking a question I’ve wondered about since 1996.

 

Or Maybe Plum Was Just The Perfect Matchup

There’s another explanation, and it might be the simplest one.

Maybe Plum just wasn’t scared of Penn Hills.

Think about rivalry games. You can dominate everybody else, but the team down the road knows you differently. They’ve played against you growing up. They know your players personally. They’ve heard about you all year. They’re not impressed by the jersey.

Plum had already taken that incredible 1995 Penn Hills team to overtime. So when the 1996 playoff game arrived, why would Plum think it couldn’t win?

Maybe Penn Hills was thinking about another championship run.

Maybe Plum was thinking: We almost got you last year.

That’s dangerous.

 

Sometimes One Team Just Has Your Number

We’ve all seen it in sports.

A great team can destroy almost everybody on its schedule, yet there’s one opponent that gives it problems every single time.

Sometimes it’s scheme. Sometimes it’s personnel. Sometimes it’s familiarity. Sometimes it’s psychological. And sometimes there isn’t a good explanation at all.

Plum might simply have had the right combination to bother Penn Hills. If that’s the answer, give Plum even more credit.

Because giving that 1995 Penn Hills team everything it could handle and then knocking Penn Hills out of the playoffs the following year wasn’t an accident.

They clearly knew how to play them. The question is why?

 

Thirty Years Later, I Still Wonder

Maybe somebody from Plum reads this and laughs. Maybe a former player says, “Drew, you’re crazy. We just kicked their ass.”

Fair enough.

Maybe a former coach can explain exactly what they saw on film and why their game plan worked so well. I’d actually love to hear it.

Because this isn’t about rewriting the result.

Plum won. Period.

This is about one of those mysteries from WPIAL history that has stayed in my head since I was young.

How did one team give one of the greatest Penn Hills teams ever so much trouble in 1995… Then come back the next year and knock the No. 1 team out of the playoffs?

Was it simply a great rivalry? Was Plum the perfect matchup? Did their coaches recognize something nobody else did? Did familiarity between the communities give them an advantage? Or did Plum know something?

I don’t know.

Almost 30 years later, that’s what makes the game so fascinating to me.

Much respect to Plum. They earned one of the biggest upsets in WPIAL history.

But I’d love to hear from the guys who were actually there.

Penn Hills and Plum players and coaches from 1995 and 1996 — what did Plum know that everybody else didn’t?