In the tenth weekly edition of the Intelligencer/Courier Times ‘Let’s Talk Football,’ high school football beat writers Kevin Cooney and Dom Cosentino share their thoughts about some of last week’s SOL action, highlighting Abington’s win over previously undefeated Council Rock South. They also share their thoughts about how the final week of the regular season could impact the upcoming district playoffs.Cooney and Cosentino – who boast a combined 23 years covering high school football – are two of the area’s most respected and knowledgeable football writers. To stay on top of all the latest high school football news in the area, visit the web site http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/sports_now.html
SuburbanOneSports.com: Abington’s 45-35 win over Council Rock South was the talk of the high school football world this week. Comment on Abington’s fake punt from its own 25 on fourth-and-eight late in the game that obviously was the difference in that contest.
Dom Cosentino: I think the momentum had shifted to Rock South at that point, and Tim Sorber knew he needed to take that kind of chance to win the game. The way things were headed in that game you had a feeling that if Rock South was getting the ball back they were going to win.
It was one of the gutsiest calls you’ll ever see, without question. And it would have looked incredibly stupid if it failed. Take nothing away – these kids will remember that play for the rest of their lives, but that throw by Shelinsky was sort of an end-over-end throw. That ball didn’t get there cleanly, but it got there. It was just an amazing thing that happened.
It was a bizarre sequence. I happened to turn just as the ball was kind of flying to Tim Salley over the line of scrimmage, and it was sort of like a kickoff the way it was flying end over end through the air. It was sort of chucked just over the line of scrimmage. Salley catches it, and Rock South had committed everyone to block the punt, so he took off. It was really amazing, really amazing.
It was one of the most entertaining games you’ll ever see, when you get right down to it. It was nice to see a game where it wasn’t a mistake or somebody doing something wrong to decide it. Just to have a gutsy sort of situation and have that kind of payoff is neat to see.
Kevin Cooney: For Tim Sorber to call a fake punt there was…very gutsy. Think if it doesn’t work. Abington probably still makes the tournament, but they’re in a must-win game this week, and there’s no hope of a home game. There’s a ripple effect that Sorber had to figure out.
In fairness, knowing Sorber, he knew what that ripple effect was. There are coaches who are not tuned in to what is going on outside of their program as far as what the ramifications are – if you lose, you fall here, and if you win, you go here and that kind of deal. Tim is very aware of that, and he still decided to put it on the line there.
There’s a gunslinger mentality among really good coaches. Dick Beck has a gunslinger mentality. Mark Schmidt has a gunslinger mentality. Timmy is kind of going down that road. Does that make him a great coach? I don’t know. Tim doesn’t have on his resume what Beck and Schmidt have on theirs, but there’s a willingness to take a chance.
(Defensive coordinator) Kevin Conlin deserves a lot of credit. Obviously, his team gave up 35 points last week, but their defense has played pretty well in a lot of games and kept them in it until Julien Ireland was able to find his way at quarterback. You’re taking your running back and making him a quarterback. He’s not your prototypical quarterback because he doesn’t have that great deep arm, but he does enough.
SuburbanOneSports.com: There are so many interesting aspects of the Rock South/Abington game. Talk about some of your thoughts about that game.
Dom Cosentino: Council Rock South had given up 42 points in its first eight games, and they gave up 45 in this one. This is a team that committed one turnover in eight games to that point – and that came the first week on the second play from scrimmage, when they threw an interception that CB South ran back for a touchdown. They had no turnovers since then, and they ended up committing four on Friday night.
With 1:53 left in the first half, Mark Damirgian gave Rock South its first lead (21-14), and then Julien Ireland completes two passes – the one long play to Darian McFadden and the touchdown pass to Josh Lee. And with 19.1 seconds left in the half, it’s tied, and that was huge. You go into the locker room after you tie the game, and you have a little of that momentum back. Then Abington gave up a touchdown right away to open the second half but came right back. They had an answer every time.
Every time it seemed like they had given momentum back to Rock South, they took it right back. That fake punt was one of the more extraordinary plays I have ever seen. To call that play and then to execute it in that spot is just amazing.
I’m the one who said it in this chat last week it would probably be a 10-6 game, but I also said because I said that it would be 40-30. And, well, it ended up being 45-35. What do I know?
SuburbanOneSports.com: Tim Sorber has done an outstanding job rebuilding an Abington team that lost some key players from last year’s squad. Share your thoughts about that.
Dom Cosentino: Tim seems like a guy that would be fun to play for. But he’s very gradually put together a very good program. He’s very proud of the fact that he played at Abington and had some success there as a player. He mentioned the other night that a league championship is the one thing he hasn’t been able to achieve yet, and now they’re on the cusp of doing that because of Friday night’s game. It’s really a pretty neat thing.
SuburbanOneSports.com: The fake punt aside, what did you like most about Abington?
Dom Cosentino: I’m the one who also said they didn’t have a whole lot of offensive options other than Ireland, and then Ray Schreiner goes out and runs for 130 yards and throws a halfback option pass for a touchdown. They sort of showed me that they do have more than Ireland to be able to do things offensively.
But they also did a great job up front. Council Rock South has done a great job of flowing defenders to the ball, and Abington used the wing back and tight end to sort of block the edges. With Schreiner going to the outside, that allowed them to spring Ireland up the middle inside, and they really kept Council Rock off balance, which nobody has done all year. The kids executed. You can draw it up as much as you want, but those kids went out and executed. Schreiner had one of his better games all year considering he threw the halfback option touchdown pass, too. And that's a play that kind of got lost in the shuffle because of the fake punt, but that was a huge call after South's second fumble – they ran that the first play, and it worked pretty easily.
SuburbanOneSports.com: How does Friday’s loss to Abington impact Council Rock South?
Dom Cosentino: Rock South isn’t going to be the number one seed now. It just depends on how this team is going to react to the loss. A loss can be a wake-up call or it could be something they carry with them. They’re not going to have much trouble getting up for this week because they’re playing Council Rock North, which just won its first game. There’s a rivalry there, and they’re going to want to finish off strong and go into the playoffs 9-1.
Here’s a case where a team is undefeated, and you don’t know how they’ll react to something like this. They fell behind against Neshaminy, but they managed to pull that game out. They couldn’t get it done this time. How do they take this loss and deal with it?
A lot of the swagger and a lot of the emotion this time anyway seemed to be with Abington. Abington was playing with a greater sense of urgency. That’s the first time we haven’t seen that from Council Rock South. They’ve had that edge to them all year. Now Rock South has to share the league title if they win Friday. This team has achieved quite a bit, but I think they have fallen short of what they’d hoped as the season wore on, and you wonder how they’re going to react.
Kevin Cooney: Obviously, Rock South’s loss puts Ridley in the driver’s seat when you’re looking at the number one seed in districts. It also throws the National Conference title back into play heading into this weekend. Really, I think the thing that’s most surprising is when you consider what Rock South has been able to do defensively all season – they have been fairly dominant on defense, the Neshaminy game notwithstanding - but to have a 45-spot hung on them is pretty significant. They gave up 45 points at home. This wasn’t going into Schwartzman Stadium, and you kind of got steamrolled by the emotion. You wonder how South responds. They should beat Rock North this week, although North – with Brandon Cottom and John Raymon playing their final game for the school – maybe that’s a little motivation there. It’s a rivalry game, but you wonder if the air is taken out of the bubble a little bit for Rock South.
There’s a natural thing that when you’re going good, you’re going good, and everything kind of feeds off of that. It’s not just that they lost – it’s that they lost giving up so many points against their bread and butter. That’s the one question I think they’re going to have to answer. You may not get that answer this week. You may have to wait until the postseason.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Comment on the significance of Friday’s win for Abington.
Kevin Cooney: I think this is a sign of what Abington has become.
In the National Conference, it’s been so easy since the realignment began to just assume that Neshaminy and Pennsbury are one and two every year. Maybe this is a sign that we have to include Abington in that group too.
I think Tim Sorber has done a remarkable job considering that I don’t think he has had this year what he had in the past. Julien Ireland is a very good player, and he has some very good defensive players, but it’s not Kevin Morton and everybody they’ve had over the years. Abington is at a point right now where they’re the team that you really don’t want to face heading into the tournament.
If Abington finishes sixth, which is likely if they win this week – if you’re the three seed, which could be Downingtown East, it could be North Penn, it could be Neshaminy, do you really want to see Abington in the second round?
Last week, we mentioned the one, four, five, eight scenario, and it was Rock South, North Penn, Neshaminy and Abington, and it was going to be a real tough run. Now it seems as though everything is a little bit staggered. It might not be that way.
I think for Rock South – they have to get their feet back on the ground, and Abington has established it’s a team that has to be reckoned with.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Where does the Abington/CR South game rank on your list of all-timers?
Dom Cosentino: I can recall one other game that I have seen that I would say was better, and that was the 2003 CB West-Pennridge game. It was kind of back and forth, and then Pennridge took the lead with about three or four minutes left. West got the ball back, and their quarterback – Joe McMonagle – was knocked out of the game with a concussion. Someone even hid his helmet on the sidelines, so he couldn’t put himself back in the game. Kevin Dunn replaced him as a backup and converted a fourth-and-long where a kid made a diving catch. Then at the very end, it was fourth-and-long from around the 30, and Dunn threw a long touchdown pass to his tight end. There was a dispute about whether he had crossed the line of scrimmage when he threw it. There was actually photographic evidence that he did, but it wasn’t called, and West won the game. Pennridge actually filed a protest with the league, and it went nowhere. They were upset about it. To have all of that happen in the last five minutes affecting the outcome of the game was pretty amazing. That is one game I’ll never forget, and I still actually have the photograph of Dunn looking like he was across the line when he threw the game-winning TD. The Pennridge people leaked it to me in the days after the game, when they were going forward with their protest. We published it in the paper, and it was a story that kind of carried on for a few weeks. Just a lot of fun.
SuburbanOneSports.com: What impact does Abington’s win over Council Rock South have on Friday’s Pennsbury/Neshaminy game? Can Pennsbury beat Neshaminy?
Dom Cosentino: What Abington showed us is that anything can still happen. Pennsbury has been playing well since they went through that losing streak. They shook up their offensive system a little bit, and this is a rivalry game. Neshaminy is very good, but they’re beatable. Council Rock South showed us that. Putting all those things together – Pennsbury, I think, goes into this game with less to lose because there’s less pressure on them at this point. They have an outside chance at the playoffs, but a lot has to happen. Neshaminy is still going to be playing next week, so we’ll see.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Council Rock North returned two of its star players and notched its first win. Do you think Rock North will be able to play with Rock South?
Dom Cosentino: If Rock North gets its confidence going, but I just think with Rock South having lost on Friday they will have a ton to play for. I would expect Council Rock South to be very focused and ready for this game. Simply because of what happened to Rock South, it’s just not set up well for Council Rock North even though they do have everybody back and could make it interesting. But with South losing and North winning last week, that game just got a lot more interesting than we thought it would be.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Kevin, you were at the Upper Moreland-Cheltenham game. Talk about the Panthers’ big win over the Golden Bears.
Kevin Cooney: I think you have to give Cheltenham a lot of credit because when Cheltenham needed to make plays, they made plays. Again, they’re another team – that first-round match – whoever pulls that card, it’s not going to be easy. They have a lot of different weapons on offense. It’s one of those things – I mentioned on WNPV last week that I thought Cheltenham’s defense did a really good job, but then you look at the numbers – they allowed 350 yards. It’s almost like one of those testaments to a defense that you never got the sense that they were giving up excessive numbers of yards. There are teams that have a bend but don’t break philosophy, and it’s painful to watch. You never got that kind of sense from Cheltenham. It was almost like there was a little bit of controlled mayhem. They forced a turnover and turned it into a touchdown. They actually forced three turnovers, and one of them they turned into a pick six. They’re a good team.
As far as Upper Moreland, I thought Adam Beech made an incredibly gutsy call to go for it on fourth-and-three from midfield with five minutes to go. This was the domino effect we always talk about. They didn’t get it. Cheltenham takes over, but they can’t move it, so they punt and pin Upper Moreland down within their five. Upper Moreland can’t move, so they have to punt the ball back to Cheltenham at the 40. That sets up the final touchdown to Chris Stephens.
I give Adam credit – he said, ‘I have faith in my guys’ and all that. There’s that gunslinger mentality, that riverboat gambler thing, but there are ramifications if you don’t make it, which Adam was fully aware of. He feels it was the right move. Hindsight being 20-20, if you punt the ball there, you might flip the field position completely. That’s a little bit of a second guess, but it was a huge turning point in the game. It kind of got mixed in because Cheltenham didn’t score right after that play.
If Upper Moreland is stopped at midfield and they punt from midfield with a minute to play, odds are Cheltenham is taking a knee and going into overtime as opposed to putting it up and risking an interception or whatever. The field position allowed Joe Gro to be a little more daring, and it worked out.
Both of those teams are fun to watch.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Souderton travels to Quakertown for a must-win game. Do you have any thoughts on that game?
Kevin Cooney: This is a dangerous game for Souderton because they played so many of these must-win games since week three. They’re facing (quarterback) Zac Gravelle, and it’s not an easy matchup. They’ve lost this game each of the past two years. It’s on the road, and it’s a rivalry game. Obviously, they’re going to have to see what happens to Tyler Scholl. If Scholl doesn’t play, they will need to get another big game out of Javon White and Joe McNamara.
Souderton has not been blown out in any game, but you also get the sense that they walking on a very thin line here. If they fall off the high wire, there’s no net to catch them.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Talk about the district playoff picture entering the final week of the regular season.
Dom Cosentino: North Penn and Neshaminy look like they’re going to be in the four and five spot and will actually be matched up against each other in the second round, which is significant. Abington is also on that side of the bracket, so you have Ridley, Neshaminy, North Penn and Abington all on the same side of the bracket. That’s quite a slog there.
Kevin Cooney: As we enter districts, I think everybody would admit that a chalk would be a Ridley-North Penn final or Ridley and North Penn meeting somewhere depending on the brackets. If that’s not the likely title game and the seeding doesn’t allow it, you could have a Downingtown East, you could have a Council Rock South, you could have a Neshaminy or you could have an Abington – you could have someone from the back of the pack make some noise in this tournament because there’s not a dominant team in this field. Taking it another step further, I don’t think there’s a sense that there’s a state champion in this field.
Could there become one? Yes, but entering the tournament - you would take LaSalle over any of these teams at this point. You would probably take a couple of teams from Pittsburgh, including Pittsburgh Central Catholic. There are a number of teams that you feel are ahead of everyone from District One.
Upper Dublin has a bye, so they’re locked in.
CB West playing Hatboro-Horsham this week for a playoff home game is going to be interesting. They hit a stretch where they didn’t score a lot of points for a couple of weeks, but last week they looked like they got some of that back. They’re proving they’re not one dimensional. Early in the year, everybody looked at Rashaad Williams and his rushing numbers, and they were floored. They’re obviously proving that they’re more than that. Ward Udinski is good, and they have a couple of other guys who can catch the football.
I think what you’re going to see this month is a series of teams – and even Ridley, to a point, from what I hear from my Delco people - that are good but they’re flawed, and whoever puts the makeup on their flaws is the one that’s going to win this thing. The Class AAAA teams are just down, and even LaSalle is not necessarily what they were at the beginning of the year. It’s a mess right now.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Take away a few of the headliner games, and there seemed to be an absence of competitive games with high stakes. What are your thoughts?
Dom Cosentino: You have certain teams that are clearly a lot more dominant than others. Enough teams have been falling by the wayside in terms of their playoff position, and that takes a little bit of the edge off of it.
Again, I was one who was in favor - and I still am - of having the league align itself differently for football than it does for all the other sports. I think North Penn, Pennsbury and Neshaminy should all be in the same league. You can rotate every two years based on competitive balance to determine who else should be in the conference with them. It’s better for everyone involved if those three at least are in the same league.
Did it benefit North Penn to win by 20 points every week heading into the playoffs? Dick Beck – to his credit, as he has done every year - went out and set up non-league games with La Salle and the Prep. He always schedules outside the league very well, but for the last three seasons, he has eight games in the conference that have just not been that competitive. Souderton had a 16-0 lead, but even that ended up being kind of lopsided. This was something I foresaw when they aligned the league this way. I like the geographic setup of the league, but football's a different animal. North Penn and Neshaminy, at a mininum, given where they are as programs, should be in the same conference.
Kevin Cooney: You normally would come into rivalry weekend, which is what this weekend is, and you figure CR North and South are close. That’s not happening this year. You figure the Pennsbury/Neshaminy dynamic in there, but it’s not that way this year. Even if you look at the Continental, it’s Pennridge and North Penn this weekend. Would Pennridge have beaten North Penn in the past? Probably not, but it was a decent enough rivalry game. We’ve gotten used to Pennridge being a district contender and North Penn the power where that game had a little bit of a sizzle or maybe a neighborhood backyard brawl kind of thing, but there’s nothing to that this year. These teams have kind of lost their zip.
I don’t know how it can be salvaged. It’s probably just one of those years. There’s no doubt in my mind that the caliber and level of play this year is not as good as it’s been in some other years.
Even North Penn – who I believe we all feel could make a deep run in November – is susceptible. I don’t think anybody is looking at North Penn now and saying they’re the absolute state champion in waiting. Could they get hot and win it? Sure, but I don’t think anybody right now would say that they’re a lock like they were back in ’03.
Examine North Penn’s schedule – after that week one loss to LaSalle, in week two they get a Class AA Lansdale Catholic team that didn’t make the league playoffs. Week three they get St. Joe’s Prep which is obviously not as good as it’s been in the past. Then they went into the league schedule, and has anybody in the league really challenged them? No. Have they blown anybody away? They didn’t mercy rule Hatboro, they didn’t mercy rule CB East, they didn’t mercy rule Quakertown, and they didn’t mercy rule Souderton, although eventually did blow them out.
The point is they haven’t shown this super team look, that unmistakable force that they’re going to blow everybody out and you’ve got to go see this team because it’s this monster juggernaut - they haven’t shown that.
Is it because they’re a veteran team and they have done this before and are a little bored? That’s a possibility. There was no way they were not going to make the district playoffs, and everything about their season is built for the next five to six weeks, depending on what they do. Could they turn it on? Sure, but I think that’s part of the problem. There have been good games, but there hasn’t been this drum beat of – there’s this really great team there.
Rock South has not generated that. I don’t think anyone has a massive feeling about South. South was one of the curiosities this season. South was a team people were interested in because, wow, nobody had this team on their radar map coming into the year, and they kind of came out of nowhere. Last week obviously changes that too.
It’s felt like the regular season has been forever. All those years at the Courier, I would always look forward to Neshaminy-Pennsbury because it was almost like the final act of a play. There’s no final act this year. There are no division titles on the line. There’s no, ‘Wow, this is something I’m really looking forward to’ kind of moment. And I think the sport suffers without that.
*The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of SuburbanOneSports.com. Check back every week for more football talk with Kevin Cooney and Dom Cosentino. To offer comments or ask questions, write to Cooney at KCooney@phillyburbs.com and Cosentino at DCosentino@phillyburbs.com.
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