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 and Kevin Cooney 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: One of last week’s most talked about games was Quakertown’s 38-17 win over North Penn. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “You look at that game – North Penn loses opening week to La Salle and Quakertown loses opening week to Southern Lehigh, and now Quakertown has to go up against a National Conference team, and you think, ‘All right, this one could be a couple of touchdowns in North Penn’s favor.’ North Penn returns the opening kick for a score, and it’s 7-0 before the game is 15 seconds old, and you’re thinking, ‘Oh man, is the rout on or what?’ But Quakertown just kept slugging away, playing good defense, and senior quarterback Vince Micucci is a very good player. He kind of inspires them and brought them back. They went on a run and took a 25-7 lead in the second quarter, but North Penn came back and scored a touchdown right before halftime, and all the momentum went to North Penn’s side. Quakertown was still up 25-18 at the intermission, but North Penn’s kids were flying high and had every ounce of momentum, and the Quakertown kids were trying to keep their heads up. You kept waiting for the North Penn tidal wave in the second half, but it didn’t happen.
“Micucci kept throwing touchdown passes – he finished with five of them, and he scrambled and picked up some crushing first downs to keep Quakertown 
drives alive and to keep the clock moving. It was just an outstanding game from Micucci. I’m not a big fan of saying a player willed his team to win, but he was close and just did a great job, and Quakertown’s defense was fantastic. They did not allow a point in the second half. The only thing that went the way you expected in that game was North Penn returning the opening kick for a score. After that, everything was just turned on its head, and Quakertown – what a huge win. They hadn’t beaten them since 1979 in the old Bux-Mont League. They haven’t played them that often, but they have these crossover games now, and it’s the luck of the draw who you play. They happened to draw North Penn.
“Now if you’re North Penn, you’re 0-2 – all right, you have to get on the stick. Granted, North Penn was 6-6 last year, went to the district playoffs as the 14th seed and beat third-seeded Pennsbury in the first round. We’re not going to throw dirt on North Penn just yet, but as far as regular season wins go for Quakertown – I asked George Banas, Quakertown’s head coach, where he would rank it, and he said, ‘It’s right up there.’ I’m sure it was. That was a team that just started to believe in itself because you figured it would win big over Southern Lehigh because they had beaten Southern Lehigh last year. They lose to Southern Lehigh and then they’re coming up against a North Penn team that beat them 49-7 last year, and they go and beat them. It wasn’t like Quakertown was running halfback options, drop kicks and trick plays. A lot of it – they ran up the middle and got first downs and just did a nice job all around.
“North Penn, let’s face it, has a psychological advantage over a lot of teams, and deservedly so. They get that advantage by beating these teams consistently, and that’s what they’ve done for 20-plus years. That reputation and psychological edge is well-earned, but to Quakertown’s credit, they turned everything upside down.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Central Bucks West avenged last year’s loss to Upper Dublin with a convincing 37-7 win over the Cardinals. West travels to Quakertown this week, and Upper Dublin hosts North Penn. Your thoughts.
Drew Markol: “We’re waiting to see which Upper Dublin is the real one. They had a shutout win in their first week over Kennett, but last week they played CB West who they beat last year 35-7 on the way to the 5A District 1 title game, and West puts 37 points on them, and it’s a 37-7 final score, and it was 30-0 in the first half. You don’t know about Upper Dublin. Are they Upper Dublin of week one that shut out a Kennett team that was pretty good last year, or did they just run into a freaking buzzsaw at CB West where everything is just falling in place for them? I don’t know.
“It’s interesting this week. You have North Penn at Upper Dublin, two teams with big question marks facing each other. That will be a good barometer for both teams. I don’t think we know enough yet about either team to make a blatant statement. Then you have CB West, which beats Garnet Valley in its opener, and Garnet Valley turned around this week and beat Ridley, so Garnet Valley is probably for real again, and West beat them. West just puts it to Upper Dublin, and now West plays Quakertown, which is coming off a win over North Penn. West handled Quakertown pretty easily last year, but who knows? I just think West is separated from the rest of the SOL.
“You worry about letdowns and stuff because Quakertown’s kids said after the game, ‘Yeah, North Penn embarrassed us last year.’ They’re going to say the same things to themselves – ‘Well, CB West embarrassed us last year.’ That will be a good one, but again, West just seems to be district title team or district finalist.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Council Rock South earned an impressive 28-7 road win at Neshaminy. Your thoughts?
Drew Markol: “Rock South’s Chase Ennis is a baseball player who is already committed to Penn State, and he’s the quarterback. (By the way, I love kids who play more than one sport.) There’s a kid who’s already going to Penn State. He could have said, ‘You know what – I don’t want to risk playing football for fear of injury,’ but that’s not what he said. He went out for football, and he’s playing. They’re 2-0 – he threw two touchdowns, ran for two more, and they beat Neshaminy, which had shut out Kensington in week one, but I saw Kensington play last week against Conwell-Egan, and it’s a shame – they’re one of the worst teams I’ve ever seen.
“Council Rock South is taking strides, but they’ll get a test this week when they play Pennsbury There’s another good game. We have a lot of games this week where we’re going to learn a lot – Quakertown/West, Upper Dublin/North Penn, Rock South/Pennsbury. Week three should be a good one.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Souderton needed a second half comeback to defeat Pennridge 19-14. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “Pennridge travelled to Downingtown East for its first game of the season, and that’s a very good team, and they got handled 43-0, and you wondered – is Pennridge headed to a 2-8 season? Who knows? With Kyle Beller the new coach over there, they turn around last week - they have a 7-0 lead at the half over Souderton, and Souderton needed to score late to pull out the win. Maybe Souderton saw the first week results where Pennridge got blasted and said, ‘We’ll just show up. We’re a district quarterfinalist from last year, and we’ll walk over one of our rivals,’ but rivalry games are a whole lot different. Pennridge plays Bensalem this week, and Bensalem hasn’t scored a point yet. I don’t know how much of a barometer that’s going to be for Pennridge if they go and beat them big or whatever.
“Yet another interesting game is CB East going to Souderton because now you have two 2-0 teams, but East has played Truman and Bensalem, and those teams are a combined 0-4. These teams that are superior to another team – they’ll punch that team in the nose, and now when you have a team that punches you back, that’s when it really tests you. I think you’re going to have two teams in East and Souderton that are going to say – ‘You punched me, I’m going to punch you.’ Yet another good game this week. We don’t know enough about East because they’ve only played Truman and Bensalem. Now you’re going to play a Souderton team that returned 15 or 16 starters, and they’re 2-0. I know they struggled with Pennridge, but I think that might have been a wake-up call.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Springfield Township is facing Hatboro-Horsham, which lost to Wissahickon by one point and has turned some heads the first two weeks of the season. Your thoughts.
Drew Markol: “Hatboro-Horsham lost to Wissahickon 41-40 in a crazy game. They’re scoring points – they beat Upper Moreland in week one. Springfield Township beat Harriton. Now you have two teams that have been playing each other for a long time, and that’s another good test where each one stands. It’s a shame all these teams play Friday at seven o’clock, and you can only be at one place. With what Hatboro is doing, it’s very impressive. A lot of people gave them up for dead two years ago. Now Tom Butts has taken over. Dave Sanderson was there when Hatboro was really good, and then he left. Now he’s back as the offensive coordinator. That’s another good one. For Springfiield – a year ago, you’d look at it and maybe you say, ‘It’s Hatboro, they’re down. We’ll grab a win here against a bigger school.’ Now we’re going to find out who’s a little bit more real than the other guy.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: After seeing its opening game against Cheltenham suspended, Abington came back to notch a big win over Council Rock North for Terence Tolbert’s first win as head coach at his alma mater. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “Terence Tolbert is an Abington grad, he’s come back to coach the team he played for, and that in itself is a great story. They had the issue with Cheltenham where a student brought a gun to the game, so they had to suspend that game. If you’re Abington, you were hanging with Cheltenham – it was 14-7 when they suspended it, and that’s hard. Did we win, did we lose? Who knows? Then you play Council Rock North, and you lay it on them pretty good, so that’s a nice way to come back. Abington has a pretty rich football history. They’ve had talented players forever. Maybe Tolbert can turn them around. Again, we learned a little bit in week one, but we didn’t learn enough because the game was suspended. Then they played Council Rock North, which is struggling – we need more material before we can make a decision. We have to see them play a couple more games. Tolbert coached successfully in Florida for a long time. When guys go back to their alma mater, I think there’s a little extra incentive too, and he wants to get them back to where they used to be.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Upper Moreland fell to Boys Latin on the heels of a loss to Hatboro-Horsham in opening week. Your thoughts.
Drew Markol: “Adam Beach is a very good coach at Upper Moreland. They lost a lot of players to graduation. I’ve been doing this forever, and Upper Moreland has been cyclical forever. That’s just the way it is when you have a small school. Then you have years – well, maybe you have a small senior class or maybe you lost all your skill players. They don’t have the numbers to fill in all the blanks when they have a crushing graduation loss. That’s a big part of it.
“Football across the board – there are spots where the numbers are really good, but not as many kids are playing football. Maybe it doesn’t affect the big 6A schools, but the smaller enrollment places that don’t have all the numbers – when you have even fewer numbers to draw from, you’re going to fill fewer holes. I think that opening week loss to Hatboro-Horsham – I’m sure they looked at that and thought, ‘Well, Hatboro’s playing an independent schedule, they almost dropped football a couple years ago, they’re our archrivals, but we’re going to walk all over them.’ That didn’t happen, and that could have done something to the psyche too. Again, I’m not going to write anybody off after two weeks.”
Drew’s Picks (Last week 10-5)
(Winners in bold)
Central Bucks South @ Council Rock North
Abington @ Harry S Truman
Pennridge @ Bensalem
Central Bucks East @ Souderton
Central Bucks West @ Quakertown
Lincoln HS @ Cheltenham
Pennsbury @ Council Rock South
Springfield Twp @ Hatboro-Horsham
Jenkintown @ Lower Moreland
Downingtown West @ Neshaminy
North Penn @ Upper Dublin
Interboro @ Upper Moreland
Upper Merion @ William Tennent
Lower Merion @ Wissahickon
New Hope-Solebury @ Academy of the New Church
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