Back for its 14th season, the popular Intelligencer/Bucks County Courier Times ‘Let’s Talk Football’ features football beat writer Drew Markol. 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.
Join Jeff Nolan for the WPHT High School Football Scoreboard Show as they recap the night of high school football on Friday at 10 p.m. on 1210AM/WPHT and the Audacy app.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Central Bucks South defeated Central Bucks East 13-6, and you were there. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “CB South has allowed 23 points in its four games combined this season. They play very good defense, and they have just enough offense to squeak out a touchdown or two, and that’s how they beat you. You look at their offense, and there’s nothing special about it. They’re just very stingy on defense, and they smother other team’s offenses. They’re big enough up front where they don’t get pushed around. I still think East is a pretty good team, but they’re now 2-2. They had a close loss to undefeated Souderton, and they had a close loss to undefeated South, so your two losses are to teams that are 8-0. Neither South nor East has much of a passing game, and when you’re one dimensional, a lot of times you can get away with it during the regular season, and it doesn’t really bite you until the playoffs when you need another option because the better teams will shut down what you do best. They’re both hurt by that.
“On defense, South has a linebacker Adam Oscar, who is very active, and he’s a good player. Anthony Leonardi, the running back, wasn’t used much against East, and their other running back is Corey Moore, and they’re two solid running backs. They move the ball just enough, and they win low-scoring games. That’s what they do, and so far, it’s working.
“Now South has to go down to Pennsbury, and that will be a tough game – the score could be 3-2. You look at the SOL National Conference, and you have West and South, and that’s it for undefeated teams, and the season is only four weeks old. I think there’s parity in the SOL National with CB West being the one that’s just a step above.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Central Bucks West keeps winning. The Bucks traveled to Pennsbury and won 20-3 in the Falcons’ first home game in recently renovated Falcon Field. Your thoughts.
Drew Markol: “I believe this was the third team that West has avenged a regular season loss from last year. Garnet Valley, Upper Dublin and now Pennsbury all beat West last year, and now West bests Pennsbury 20-3. Ryan Clemens, the running back, had a touchdown, and he’s also an underrated kicker. He kicked 
two field goals. Cooper Taylor, the quarterback, has done a tremendous job. He’s a very, very good runner. It’s no secret – Pennsbury likes to shorten games by running the ball. That’s what they do, but West can play good defense. Jack Williams, their defensive end, is one of my favorite defensive players in the area. I don’t know if he’s going to play in college or not, but he’s a heck of a high school football player. To have him lined up on the right side – we’ve talked about this before, but when Taylor had to move from defensive back to quarterback after three-year starter Ganz Cooper got hurt, that weakened West in the secondary because Taylor was a very good safety. They don’t want to risk him playing defense because he’s the quarterback now, but they haven’t missed a beat. They’ve done a good job.
“Pennsbury has Nate Beighley at quarterback this year. He was the second option between G Mulbah at running back last year. Again, what he’s really good at is running the ball. A passing offense in high school – that’s why teams who have really good quarterbacks do well because it’s hard for high school teams to defend the pass.
“West has had those big games with Garnet Valley, Upper Dublin, Quakertown and Pennsbury. That’s four games in a row that have been big games they had to get up for, and they have. Now they have North Penn, and that’s another big game. North Penn still has the reputation as the big boy on the block. A lot of teams measure their success by how good they did against North Penn. North Penn was trailing Neshaminy last week, and they came back and beat them. The injury to their quarterback, sophomore Matt Bucksar – you don’t know how serious that is, but if you lose your starting quarterback even for a short time, it’s never a good thing. I think West looks at that game and says, ‘This is another wall in front of us that we need to knock down.’ North Penn never gets taken lightly by anybody, and they seem to have righted the ship a little bit. That’s a team West played in the district playoffs last year in a wild game. It’s hard – especially with young kids – to get them up for these games, but so far, so good. They’ll be tough to beat.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: William Tennent picked up its second win of the season last week with a convincing 24-6 win over Hatboro-Horsham. Your thoughts.
Drew Markol: “Colin Leach is the first year head coach at a program that has been struggling seemingly forever. I thought Hatboro – which has been a great story too – would beat them, but Tennent beats them handily. Is Tennent aided a little bit by the struggles at Archbishop Wood? Probably. Maybe kids are looking at it and that good kid from Warminster that used to go to Wood almost automatically when Wood was winning its state titles is saying, ‘Maybe I’ll stay at the public school and have a better chance to play.’ Again, I’m speculating, but you see that Wood has turned it down a notch or two and Tennent’s moving up – connect the dots a little bit.
“Changing the culture of a program is very hard to do. A lot of coaches have come and gone, a lot of coaches have said, ‘We’re going to change the culture,’ and you know what – they didn’t. It’s really hard to do. What changes a culture? Winning. You win a few games, you get the student body excited and more students come out for football.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Quakertown defeated Plymouth Whitemarsh 21-0 in a non-league game last week. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “Quakertown has a very good quarterback in senior Vince Micucci, a two-year starter. He can run, he can throw, and he’s as gritty a player as you’ll see. You look at PW with a decent running game – Quakertown stood toe to toe with North Penn when they beat them a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t like North Penn was running over them like you would normally think. Anthony Ferrugio is an excellent defensive player. He puts pressure on the quarterback on every play. Quakertown bounces back from a loss to West for a huge win. Beating PW – that was a huge hurdle for Quakertown to clear.
“This week Quakertown plays Council Rock South. Chase Myers, the senior running back, had a couple of running touchdowns in the win over Truman last week, and their quarterback, Chase Ennis – there’s a kid who can throw the ball around. One of his touchdown passes last week went to Myers. Council Rock South is a good story too. We talk about Tennent, we talk about Hatboro-Horsham, but Council Rock South played Pennsbury tough. Can they be a player in the Continental? You think of Upper Dublin, Souderton and Quakertown as the big three in the Continental, and rightfully so. There hasn’t been a fourth team in that conference, so now with Council Rock South – they look like they’re now a player in the Continental, which is good. CJ Szydlik, the head coach there, has slowly but surely, you build the program, you build the team, and now you’re in the mix. That’s something you haven’t been in.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Souderton upped its record to 4-0 with a win over Council Rock North. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “Souderton didn’t have sophomore quarterback Ben Walsh, who is injured, but they still win 42-0 over Council Rock North, which is winless. I don’t think Souderton is losing the rest of the way in the regular season. I don’t know who’s beating them. That’s a pretty good team. They do a lot of things well.
“You look at Danny Dyches – he has tremendous hands as a receiver. Souderton is not known for throwing the ball, but in their win over Council Rock North, Dyches had two rushing touchdowns. He also returned an interception. He might be a better defensive back than receiver. Ed Gallagher said a couple of weeks ago – ‘We need to get him the ball any way we can. If we throw it to him on slants, if we do a backward pass to him that he can just pick a spot and run in some open space.’ He can run the ball. He’s got very good speed. He just does a lot. Shaun Purvy, who is now at Lafayette, overshadowed him at Souderton last year, but he’s a terrific player. He’s a touchdown waiting to happen when he gets the ball. The fact that he’s a wide receiver but he has two rushing touchdowns – what does that tell you? They’re putting him in the backfield and just pitching the ball to him because he makes things happen.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Central Bucks East is at Pennridge this week in a game pitting teams that are both 2-2. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “Pennridge has gotten better. They shut out Abington last week. They played Souderton, and they had a lead on them in the fourth quarter. East starts out 2-0, then they lose two, and now they have another National Conference game. You don’t want to go from a 2-0 start to 2-3 obviously. I think it’s almost a must-win for East.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Wissahickon, which upped its record to 4-0 last week, travels to Upper Dublin for a non-league rivalry game. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “We look at the SOL as a whole with its feel-good stories with William Tennent, Hatboro-Horsham and CB South – well, there’s 4-0 Wissahickon. When’s the last time we could say 4-0 Wissahickon. It’s been forever since they had a winning record, and now they’re 4-0. Quasir Sampson, the freshman running back, has been outstanding. Who’s the last freshman that’s had the impact he’s had. Wissahickon plays Upper Dublin this week. Upper Dublin is 2-2 – the teams they’ve lost to were CB West and North Penn, but I still think it’s a rebuilding year for Upper Dublin. If you’re Wissahickon, you look at that game and say, ‘Maybe Upper Dublin’s ripe for the picking.’ Who knows? A lot of it depends on who you played. They can look at that game and say, ‘Wait a second, we wouldn’t have had a chance against them before, but maybe we do now.’ This is a good week for games. A lot of intriguing games.”
Drew’s picks (9-6 last week)
(Winners in bold)
Neshaminy @ Abington
Council Rock North @ Bensalem
Central Bucks East @ Pennridge
Central Bucks South @ Pennsbury
North Penn @ Central Bucks West
Roman Catholic @ Cheltenham
Council Rock South @ Quakertown
Souderton @ Harry S Truman
Hatboro-Horsham @ Lower Moreland
Upper Moreland @ New Hope-Solebury
McCaskey HS @ Plymouth Whitemarsh
Wissahickon @ Upper Dublin
Father Judge @ William Tennent
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