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Back for its seventh season, the popular Intelligencer/Courier Times ‘Let’s Talk Football’ features Kevin Cooney, Drew Markol and Jen Wielgus. Cooney, the Phillies beat writer, will handle the Bucks County Courier Times coverage area and also is part of a panel each Friday night on the WNPV/Intelligencer Scoreboard Show. Markol is the football beat writer for the Intelligencer area. Wielgus is a video sports reporter for the Intelligencer and Courier. All three are regular contributors on the weekly Game On show. To view this week’s show, click on the following link: http://www.theintell.com/videos/hsgameon/ To stay on top of the high school football news in the area, visit the Intelligencer (http://www.theintell.com/sports/high-school/) and Courier Times (http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/sports/high-school/) web sites. Check out the picks by our panel of experts: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/football-forecaster
SuburbanOneSports.com: Your thoughts about North Penn’s district title win over Garnet Valley as well as Saturday night’s PIAA Class 6A semifinal game against St. Joe’s Prep.
Kevin Cooney: “The other night on WNPV we all commended Garnet Valley for the way they fought, but in actuality, it never got to that danger point for North Penn. It was always a double-digit game. I think there was one point where it was 21-14 or 21-13, but there was never a point where you thought ‘North Penn is in real danger here.’ That being said, the mistakes that North Penn has made since the Spring-Ford game – we keep waiting for them to play a perfect game, and they haven’t done it yet, which is good because they keep winning by these huge amounts, but it’s bad because if you make any mistakes against St. Joe Prep you’re in trouble. Personally, I think maybe it’s lack of focus, and when you get out to a big lead maybe you lose your focus a little bit, and that’s what has happened a couple of times in the tournament.
“I would expect that Dick Beck will have them pretty focused on Saturday evening. At some point, they’re either going to pay for their mistakes or they’re going to totally straighten them out. This is the week that’s the moment of truth, if you will.
“Talking to people who are more highly educated on this than me, this is not one of those Prep teams that have four or five weapons that could just absolutely bludgeon you. This is a team that’s good and it’s great because of D’Andre Swift. The key is how do you get him to the ground. He gets a lot of yards after contact. When you hit him, you’ve got to wrap him up, and that’s easier said than done. You cannot afford a busted tackle against Swift because he’ll make you pay and take it to the house.
“Reece Udinski had a great game last week except for the interception at the end. He probably had as good a game as you could have at quarterback. I’m really stunned – and I think it’s a sad statement that college coaches only go by x, y, z measurables when they’re recruiting quarterbacks. The kid wins. The kid is just able to find ways to win football games, and there should still be some place in the game for a winner. Maybe this is old school thinking in an analytic world of measurables.
“North Penn is going to go as far as Udinski will take them on Saturday. They have a good running game. Obviously, Ricky Johns is a great wide receiver, but it’s going to be up to the quarterback to protect the football and to make plays. While that’s true every game, I think in this game it’s more important because if you protect the football, you give yourself a really good chance of winning. If you turn it over and give Swift and that Prep offense short fields and, more importantly, momentum, then you’re in trouble. Part of this whole thing with public-private, top seed-bottom seed is that once the snowball gets rolling in these games – it’s pretty difficult to stop. We saw it with Neshaminy-Prep a couple of years ago, we saw it in Pennsbury-Prep two years ago. The public school that survives the punch and doesn’t turn the ball over and doesn’t lose its cool, that’s the team that’s going to win the game.
“I think North Penn has a real chance in this game. Speed-wise they match up. Their speed at the skill positions works well for North Penn. It’s a matter of – can they tackle and can they limit the mistakes? That’s where I think the problem may develop. I’m going to take Prep 28-21. I just have this sense that maybe one mistake is going to turn this game. North Penn has to play flawless football basically.
“In the Western Final, I think you have to go with Pittsburgh Central Catholic, and if North Penn gets by this game, I like their shot against Pittsburgh Central Catholic more than you would think. If North Penn gets over the St. Joe Prep hurdle, the amount of confidence they’re going to have carrying into next week is going to be through the roof.”
Drew Markol: “I talked to Dick Beck the other day, and he said it's hard to defend that triple option offense when you never see it. He gave Garnet Valley a lot of credit for playing as well as they did. He was a little concerned that they gave up two defensive touchdowns. Luckily, they didn't cost them the game, but you can't be doing that, especially now in the Eastern Final against a team like Prep. North Penn couldn't run the ball very much against Garnet Valley. At some point, that could catch up with you. The St. Joe's Prep front four and their seven guys up front are better than Garnet Valley's seven, and they had a heck of a time running against Garnet Valley. If they have similar struggles against St. Joe's Prep, it's going to be tough.
“I think it will be a shootout with Prep. I think I picked something like 35-33 North Penn for Friday's paper, a lot of points. If you look at Prep, their running back D'Andre Swift averaged 17 yards a carry against Parkland, and he's a kid who's had a nagging injury most of the season, but they really haven't had to use him. He has less than 100 carries for the season, so he's fresh, but in those 100 carries, he's averaging over 11 yards a carry and maybe closer to 12. It's an astounding number.
“Dick Beck compared him to Austin Scott, the Parkland running back from 15 years ago that went to Penn State and to Josh Adams who is now at Notre Dame and former CB South running back Eric Reynolds. He said that Swift is as good or better than any of those guys, and their quarterback Marquez McCray, a junior, is a big kid, and he can run. He's from Lansdale. There are kids on the team that grew up playing on the Cannoneers with him. They know him obviously from the neighborhood.
“North Penn has been able to throw the ball all season, and they're probably going to need to do that again and do it effectively on Saturday. The weather is supposed to be cooperating. We haven't had the 25-degree freezing rain kind of day, and we're not going to get it Saturday. Ricky Johns, the North Penn senior - I've seen him play for four years, and this is the best I've ever seen him play, and he's doing it at the biggest time. You just wonder - every game North Penn has played this year they've had the best player on the field in Johns, who is going to West Virginia. Now, with Swift the running back who's going to Georgia, the other team has a player of equal ability. Johns is a very good two-way player, a good wide receiver and they'll run him sometimes when they need to try and kill the clock. He’s an outside linebacker and a very good tackler, so North Penn is going to need their speed on the outside because they just can't let Swift run wild.
“They're going to need their offensive line to play better because they have to give Reece Udinski time to throw because I think they're going to struggle running. All that being said, it's hard to ask for better stuff.
“You have the number 15 team in the country by USA Today in Prep and the number 23 team in the country by USA Today playing for a spot in the state final. It's great stuff. It's what everyone expected back in August - 14-0 North Penn and 12-0 St. Joe's Prep playing on turf at Northeast High. North Penn does have a turf practice field, which they'll be using, but Prep is used to the turf field. Again, I think there will be a lot of points scored. I think North Penn will score one more or two more, but it should be pretty close.”
Jen Wielgus: “It’s really a lot of fun to watch North Penn play when they are clicking like they were against Garnet Valley because you really get to see all the weapons they have. Nick Vasger caught two touchdown passes. Nick Dillon had a touchdown catch. Just thinking about all the kids that caught touchdown passes – they aired it out so much, and it’s just fun to see that. Honestly, they would have put on such a great show if they had not turned the ball over. Not to take anything away from Garnet Valley, they very much deserved to be there, they very much acquitted themselves in the game, but North Penn let them hang around a lot more than they should have. Garnet Valley had an interception for a touchdown and a fumble return for a touchdown.
“Obviously, they’re not going to be able to do that against St. Joe’s Prep. We all know that public schools are up against it when it comes to this level of state tournament play. The private schools that can get kids from anywhere clearly are going to have the advantage any day, anywhere, but if any public school has a chance to do it, to beat St. Joe’s Prep and win a state title, it’s North Penn. They’ve got a coach who’s as good as anybody, but they can’t make stupid mistakes. You can’t get in skirmishes on the field, you can’t give stupid flags, you can’t fumble, you can’t throw interceptions, although when you air it out as much as they do, you run that risk.
“I think North Penn’s defense is going to be the key in this game because we know their offense is going to show up. Their offense is going to score points – there’s no doubt about that. They have way too many weapons not to, but their defense really has to show up because Prep can beat you in so many different ways. They’re a super team. “We were talking on the show yesterday that D’Andre Swift has battled injuries throughout the season, so they’ve kept his carries down. He’s going to be fresh, and he’s a huge weapon, but he’s not the only one. You would expect to see a team like this when you get to the state semifinal. North Penn should be glad for the challenge, and I think they welcome it. I talked to kids after the game on Friday – even though they didn’t know who they were going to play, they wanted to play Prep. They want this.
“North Penn is going to need to watch every motivational sports movies there is, they’re going to need every ounce of heart that they have to get past this Prep team, but who knows – maybe Prep will turn the ball over, maybe they will come in cocky. You never know.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Your thoughts about the two Thanksgiving games featuring two SOL teams – Pennridge at Quakertown and Upper Moreland at Hatboro-Horsham.
Drew Markol: “What hurts the Upper Moreland-Hatboro game is the fact that they played earlier in the season and that hurts the buildup because always before you never knew. Now Hatboro scored 35 points in the first game and wins pretty handily, and you kind of know. I just wish there was a different way. Will that game go away? Most of them seem to be going away, but I hope not. I don't think Pennridge/Quakertown will go away anytime soon, but stranger things have happened.
“Pennridge got Quakertown's best shot, and they were able to stop them when they needed to and it was exciting for a while. Pennridge, which has had trouble with second halves this year, did just the opposite and put the clamps on them and won going away. It was a good job by them to be able to do that. Quakertown had beaten them three times in a row, twice the last two Thanksgivings. You lose a third time on Thanksgiving – that means you never beat them on Thanksgiving unless you played as a freshman, which is rare. Those Pennridge seniors were well aware of that, and you don’t want to be the team that lost three straight to Quakertown. It was a good game, a big crowd. I hope they keep playing it.”
Kevin Cooney: “I think it goes for all schools that play each other during the regular season – it’s tough to sell a second product. I think it’s tough to sell to your kids, I think it’s tough to sell to your students and your alumni.
“Pennridge and Quakertown will continue to play until the PIAA comes outright and tells them you can’t play anymore, which they’ll never do, but for schools like Hatboro-Upper Moreland and even Cheltenham-Abington, I’m sure at this point Thanksgiving is the last thing on their minds.
“I think Pennridge’s size advantage played a big factor in their win over Quakertown. I thought they were able to kind of impose their will over Quakertown. It was a little bit of a surprise. Pennridge has been beat up by a lot of people, including myself, and, in some cases, rightfully so. They seemed a little bit more hell bent on leaving a good last impression, but that being said, they should win a game like that, they just should.”