Are you ready for some football?
Welcome to the official blog on high school football for the 2013 season.
During the off-season let’s talk about players, recruiting news, teams and everything about high school football.
During the season each week let’s talk about match-ups and how teams did. Let us know what player(s) stood out each week.
2,248 Responses
@RRMark
that would be neat to see those a/aa and aaa/aaaa matchup, would mor ethan likely be the first state to do so. I think recently clairton would have given the AA champ a run and also the AW team from two years ago would have def beat the aaaa team.
so all games have been re-scheduled to tomorrow?
Good stuff Jive.
Oops, mgguy
Thanks for setting me straight mmguy. You are correct. But a population almost twice as large certainly raises the potential talent level and evens the matchups a bit vs. an Imhotep.
Interesting info Jive
Many public school will take tuition students but most people won’t pay tuition on top of their RE/school tax to send their kid to Neshaminy or whatever. Catholic school parents pay both!
Who is going to the berks catholic imhotep game tomorrow thats where i will be go saints
@d6,
Always up for a few beers! Prep/Neshaminy tomorrow, as long as there’s no rain, sounds like the place to be.
I’m starting to understand peoples stance on the open enrollment thing. I guess if I didn’t live in Philly, I might have an issue with it too. That does not include D1. A kid that lives a half mile from me, right in the middle of Philly, plays for Neshaminy, so they have no right to complain about it. I want to let you guys know how and why open enrollment started. During the baby-boomer years the city built a couple huge schools in the Northeast, which was about 99% white at that time. They all offered different specialty subjects. At the time when the civil rights movement was rolling strong, there were questions as to why certain kids were afforded the opportunity to take advantage of these programs, and others were not, rightfully so. Examples would be Lincoln’s horticulture program or Northeast’s aeronautics program. It was cheaper for the city to bus kids out of their neighborhoods to these programs, rather than building enormous schools in every neighborhood. This was something that was started for all of the right reasons. Of course with good intentions comes the loophole. That is why our publics are open enrollment. The Catholic schools are another story. Everybody went to their local Catholic school, LaSalle, or Prep. I think it was in the 80’s when Roman (the country’s oldest Catholic high school) looked like they may close because of declining enrollment. That school is in the heart of center city and there was no draw. So in order to save that school, Catholic schools opened enrollment too. Don’t know why I felt compelled to write about this, just kinda hit me while watching TV.
@rrmark,
Berks Catholic students come from all over Berks County, not just Wyomissing. They pull players from Mifflin, Boone, Wilson, Reading, etc, etc. If they didn’t exist the impact on Wyomissing would be minimal. Wyomissing district isn’t
really a whole lot bigger geographically than Catty is. Berks was formed about 2 years ago when the Diocese closed Reading Central Catholic and merged them. One thing it did was create a basketball powerhouse, probably see Berks and Imhotep play there too!
@D6, transfers in district 12 do have to be signed off on between schools and if a school doesn’t sign off it has to go to a hearing. I believe this is the same across all districts.
@Buddy. The game is at 5
What time the Wood/Berwick game Sat. ?
As for the argument that you no longer would have a true champion if privates and charters were separate… We could certainly say the same thing about the 4 classes. Every year people wonder if the A could beat the AA or AAA beat the AAAA champ and so on. But tough beans. They don’t compete for a reason so we don’t worry about it. Maybe they should at least take the 4 champs and have a true “small school” champion and a true “big school” champion. Then it would end all the conjecture. We’d know just how good those mighty past Southern Columbia or Berwick teams were. This year people might…will… wonder if Imhotep could have competed with the best of AAAA in the state. But the “mythical” champ remains a figment of our imagination.
I’m glad we all can agree there might be a bit of a problem with the current rules in regards to D12 vs. the rest of the state. And just know I was glad when they decided to include them in the PIAA. I will agree, as I always have, that Imhotep is going by the rules and their kids shouldn’t have to apologize for anything. I just think it would serve them better to have things more equitable in terms of access to talent. I know I would certainly get bored knowing my team was gonna blow everyone out by 50 points. And I think we can agree, if they left the starters in all game, scores like 83-6 would be the norm. Maybe Berks can hang with them. But just know that Wyomissing serves a population double that of Catty and also has Berks Catholic just 5 minutes away. So the population in that area is more inclined to support a team that can match up a little better with Imhotep. There are going to be years Wyo has the best players, and years where BC does. But if BC didn’t exist, Wyomissing wouldn’t be in AA and vice versa.
@ jive
I think Erie is the only place outside of Philly with open enrollment. And by that i mean kids can transfer from school to school without having a PIAA ruling on it.
I hope the berwick game is pushed to saturday so i can listen to it since i have plans for tonight.
We will have to meet up at a game sometime and talk and have a few beers.
@d6,
I really don’t have a problem with the way things are now either. This has been a hot topic over the season and folks are throwing out ideas. Truth be told, there is nothing you or I could do to change the system anyways. PIAA will change it, or they won’t.
I have know clue what boundary rules are throughout the rest of the state. In D12 the same boundary rules apply to everybody. Granted a kid or 2 will come from Jersey or the Philadelphia burbs to go to a Catholic school, it’s the exception, not the rule or a common occurrence. Some folks will say Prep has a 4th string D-back from Cherry Hill, NJ and that’s why they’re so good. However, they won’t complain about Roman having a starting WR from NJ, because Roman is terrible. Just looking for an excuse, and maybe that’s why I get defensive when it comes to D12. Sometimes I feel as though comments are directed that way, where I am indeed wrong, and perhaps a bit paranoid. I think this whole private vs public vs charter thing gets in my crawl. Down here there is no P vs C vs C, they’re all the same when it comes to athletics.
On a side note. Rumor is the Wood/Berwick game has been pushed back to Saturday. Congratulations to Berwick for staying in the playoffs for an extra day!
@jive
I am all for just keeping it the way it is, but as for the complaining about private schools, just put them all in the same classificaiton seperate from “public schools”. This would include all private schools throughout the state, not just the philly schools which you seem to think I am taking aim at.
Teams cutting kids to keep roster sizes down would absolutely be an issue as well. Im not saying it would be majority issue throughout the state, but if this was in place that would be the next big thing everyone would be accusing coaches and teams of isntead of talking about public vs private vs charter.
I am all for keeping it the way it is. Their is no real debate then whot he best team is, which unlike say Texas where they have two classifications for 5a and those teams who win each playoff dont play.
Im not against your stance for the D12 league even though you may think i am. Just explaining my reasoning why the roster size thing would be worse than what we have now.
@fwgriity,
Thanks man, I’ll be there! I will dvr the Wood vs Erie/McD game and watch it when I get home.
@d6,
I don’t think anybody said regulate rosters, I said go by roster size. Teams wouldn’t be able to submit these rosters on notebook paper, there would be an official form. Kids would print their name, student number, and then sign it. The roster form would have a full line for each kids info, and we could have a number next to each line too. First kid #1, second #2, third #3, and so forth. PIAA wouldn’t have to count the kids, if there are 70 names, guess what roster # the last name would be? That is how in the world you would do that!
What would keep teams from cutting kids, to stay at a certain classification size? Lawsuits! Teams don’t, at least in Philly teams don’t, cut kids from the football team. It would be odd if they started all of the sudden.
How many kids quit? Five at the most? Wouldn’t make a difference.
In the Philly area, the private schools do have their own league, their own champion, and do not compete in PIAA. I believe they are district 13 on this site. Thanks for trying to knock my idea, and suggesting an idea that has been in place since the 1800’s. Good hustle!
How in the world would the PIAA be able to regulate roster size? That would be worse than they way it is now. WHat would prevent a AAAA team from saying they are only selecting the bare minimum kids and cutting everyone else to play in the lowest classification? And how would the PIAA classify schools who had kids quit the first couple weeks of the season and it bumps the roster size down a class, would they re-classify them mid season?
The only solution would be to put all private schools into their own league and keep the other classes.
I had heard that Catty is the smallest AA school in the state. Not sure if that’s true.
@rrmark
I feel what and understand what you are saying because in the 80’s before there was a state champ it was all public. THere was schools like frankford, washington, central,and dobbins thats would always win the all public chip, which was our state champs here in philly for football. But washington and frankford was in the mix every year . No when basketball season hits powerhouse teams like gratz, dobbins, southern and west high was the cream of the crop. Now some kids that wanted to be on a winning team, would catch two to three buses and leave out at 6am just to get to those school on time. I played for gratz and we had sub-par football team but i wasnt going to catch two or three buses just to be on a winning team. Here in philly or in any other place kids want to play for a winner not a loser. lol they even do it in pop warner football. Just a little sport history for you, and my pain playing in philly. ps i only had one season as a player above 500. lmao
Pittsburgh Central Catholic walks to a state title this year. Pretty surprised at STJP lack of a running game last week. Neither AAAA representative has a good shot at beating the PCC team. Too much balance and speed. I like them 27-7 in state final.
@Jive
Correction Imhotep plays Roman at Holy Family College 12/13/13 @ 7:30pm.
@RRmark
A, AA, AAA, AAAA are only designations based on enrollment in a specific sport. IC football competes in AA, and the boys basketball team competes in AAA. That’s because the boys enrollment numbers are different in those sports. AA football is 131-243 boys enrolled. Boys AA basketball is 186-298 enrolled.