In the third weekly edition of the Intelligencer/Courier Times ‘Let’s Talk Football,’ high school football beat writers Kevin Cooney and Dom Cosentino share their insights about some of last week’s SOL games as well as some of this week’s key games. They also take a closer look at some of the SOL teams making news this week. 
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: Kev, you were at the Central Bucks West/William Tennent game – what was your read on that game?
Kevin Cooney: That game almost had a snowball effect. Once West got its offense going and Rashaad Williams got going, things snowballed on Tennent quickly. I think Tennent has improved, but they still have a ways to go.
Meanwhile, with West – we talked about this last weekend on the air on WNPV. You can now piece away with the way the division is set up where they should beat Wissahickon this week, and they will be 3-0. You could see three wins in their division at this point, so they could be 6-4. When you get to 6-4, why couldn’t they make the playoffs? They have to take care of business, and I’m not sure they’re good enough to start smelling themselves, but I think they have to be considered a factor now, and that’s something they haven’t been the last couple of years since they made the playoffs in ’04.
I think it’s good for the area if that program gets better because there is so much tradition, and there’s kind of a mystical quality to it. Baseball is better when the Yankees are good, football is more fun when the Cowboys are good, and I think the Suburban One League is better when Central Bucks West has a good football team.
Dom Cosentino: I think West is better than anyone wanted to admit before the season started. Here is a team that struggled for several years and is coming off a 1-10 season. Even the one game they won – it took a bad snap on a punt out of the end zone for them to get the win. They have Rashaad Williams back, they have Ward Udinski, but there were still all these other questions about whether or not they can block and can they do this and that. At least in the first two weeks, they certainly answered that. They put up a ton of points and won pretty handily in both of their games. Am I ready to crown them district champions? No, but they’re a team that is going to be a factor in the Continental Conference, if not have an opportunity to get back in the playoffs for the first time in six years.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Truman winning its first game of the year over Ben Franklin is one of the feel good stories of the year. Dom, you were at that game, and you’ve been following the story closely. What were your observations?
Dom Cosentino: It was a remarkable win for Truman, especially to have it happen this early in the season so soon after the tumultuous resignation of John Iannucci. They needed something like this to happen just to sort of validate all the work they put in and the transition they went through and the idea that this means something. The payoff came in getting the win in a game where they didn’t play especially well at all times, but they were still able to gut it out and make the plays they needed to win it. The joy in that stadium that night was evident.
Now the players feel that if they continue to do what they’re doing and continue to work hard, they feel they can win more games. Franklin, by the way, only dressed 29 players by my count, so they weren’t an especially big team, but they didn’t go through the upheaval and transition that Truman did the week and a half before. To be able to bounce back from that so quickly and to win a game is extraordinary. It’s arguably the best story of the season so far.
They’re on the right track, even though the deck is stacked against them, and it will be that much more difficult when they get into league games and go up against teams with much bigger rosters.
SuburbanOneSports.com: What have you noticed that is different about the Truman program under new coach Ed Cubbage?Dom Cosentino: I think he knows that maybe he has to be a little bit more flexible about things than Iannucci was, and by that I mean Iannucci was very adamant that players come to the two-a-days. He didn’t really tolerate absences and things like that. He said those were his values, and he won coaching like that before, and he really wasn’t going to compromise on that. The day before the season started I went down there to talk to John Iannucci after practice, and immediately after practice, he has three or four kids coming up to him to tell him they couldn’t be at practice on this day or that day, so any coach at Truman has to deal with that, and more so than in other schools around the SOL.
Cubbage understands he has to be a little more flexible about it and be accommodating. He did make it clear that kids who don’t practice aren’t going to play, but at the same time, I think he has a greater understanding of the need for flexibility. He still has to be demanding, but there’s a greater need for flexibility at Truman in order to get everyone to buy into it.
Again, they’re going with a lot of the same kids who have been through everything with John Iannucci. Cubbage still has the same core of 23-24 players. It’s not like they added a bunch of kids after John left, so I think they have been through all of this, and they know the deal too.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Council Rock South has notched impressive wins over Central Bucks South and Central Bucks East. What is your read on Rock South?
Dom Cosentino: Their defense obviously has played extremely well these first two weeks. Linebacker Hunter Shull has been terrific for them. They had nine sacks Saturday against East. If there’s anything of concern - they were only able to put up three points in the second half. That’s a credit to East’s defensive adjustments perhaps, but Rock South also committed 60 yards worth of penalties, and that could be an issue in a closer game.
Rock South racked up 340 rushing yards against Central Bucks South in its first game. They had a little bit more difficult time in Saturday’s game. They have (running back) Mark Damirgian, and they have (quarterback) Billy Fleming, but they don’t seem to have that big play capability.
Rock South is off to a very good start, and of the three opponents they faced before league play, they probably will face the best one of the three in Pennridge, whose offense has been rolling the first two games against Haverford School and Bensalem.
If you’re Pennridge, I think it’s a bit of a concern that Bensalem had over 240 yards passing. It was the same Bensalem team that did next to nothing offensively the first week against Overbrook, but (quarterback) Anthony Prisco statistically put together a pretty good game against Pennridge.
The Pennridge-Bensalem game is a game that in recent years has been close. One year Pennridge was bound for the playoffs and got beaten by Bensalem. That’s a game in which Bensalem frequently has been able to match up well against Pennridge in the past, so that could play into it as well.
Pennridge’s game against Haverford School, which is not a big school, was not a very good barometer of how good Pennridge might be.
Kevin Cooney: I think the Council Rock South/Pennridge game is honestly one of the bigger games of the week when we find out what teams are made of. To me, it’s not a good sign that Bensalem’s passing attack throws for 247 yards against them.
Pennridge has Brandon Cope and Jesse Knepp, and they’re going to run the ball a ton, but at a certain point, they’re going to need to develop some kind of passing game. You can’t just attempt it four times and be satisfied with it. Granted, that was part of jumping out to such a large lead, but they don’t pass the ball a lot. In this division – look at the main team they’re going to be going up against. It’s North Penn, and what is North Penn’s weakness right now? It’s in the secondary.
If you’re a team that’s going to line up and cram it down teams’ throats, at a certain point, you’re going to run into a brick wall. In two games, Pennridge has thrown 18 passes, and that’s not enough. Maybe it’s the level of competition, and it worked well against Bensalem and Haverford. (Randy) Cuthbert teams have always had a little trouble against Bensalem. I’ve never understood why.
With the way that Rock South is playing right now – Bill Fleming is going to be a nice mix quarterback in that he’s going to be able to run, and he’s going to be able to pass. I wonder how Pennridge is going to handle that. CR South is on a roll right now. I think Fleming could pass for more than he has – he’s thrown for 48 yards total, but he’s tried 21 attempts. They haven’t really needed it either because they’ve had the two blowout wins.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Pennsbury beat a very good Harrisburg team on Friday night, and Neshaminy and Council Rock South earned big wins. With several National Conference teams playing well, which squad is the early favorite to win the conference crown?Dom Cosentino: I still think Neshaminy is the best team just based on what they’ve shown. They handled Hatboro pretty easily last week. They have a varied offense - they have Sean Ulmer and Anthony Woodroffe splitting time at halfback, they have Corey Majors, who is a very good fullback, and they have Charlie Marterella, who has looked terrific at quarterback the first two weeks. Their defense has been stout, and their line is solid.
Pennsbury was on the ropes on Friday against Harrisburg, but again, you look at the two opponents that they played, and they’re better than any two opponents that any team in the area has played to start the season. Even when they were kind of on the brink of getting beat the other night, they found a way to win on a really heads-up play by Adam Lewis, who turned a missed field goal attempt into a 95-yard touchdown run that changed the game. They also got a big game from Brandon Pepper. It was a gutsy win. At this point, they might be just a notch below Neshaminy, and you have Council Rock South there as well. Then it’s sort of everybody else.
Kevin Cooney: That was a great win for Pennsbury because Harrisburg played well the week before when they went to Parkland and won. My belief all along has been that Pennsbury would be a better team at the end of the year than they would be at the beginning once they got more settled in their offense. They had two really tough games to open the calendar – going to Easton and then playing Harrisburg. They should take care of Frankford this weekend.
The division behind Neshaminy and Council Rock South looks extremely gettable. Pennsbury is going to be fine. Everybody looks at week one and says, ‘What’s going on here?’ People panicked about North Penn, people panicked about Pennsbury. They have to take a deep breath. Starting the season 0-2 is a death sentence if you look at the history within the District One playoffs, but if you’re 1-1, you’re fine.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Souderton will be facing Abington this week. What are your feelings about that game?
Kevin Cooney: Struggling to beat PW is not a good sign for Abington going in against Souderton this week. Souderton has been pretty good. They really blitzed Perkiomen Valley. You look at the way Souderton started – blowing out Perkiomen Valley and getting real close against Neshaminy, who I think right now most of us would agree is the best team in the National Conference – that’s a pretty strong start for them. If you go 2-1 before you go into your league schedule – they could start making case for being a top eight seed.
Souderton’s offense is tricky for teams. They run the wing-t, and the wing-t offense doesn’t rely on the quarterback necessarily being the strongest arm, so all the stuff about the quarter back, whether it be Anthony Sergio or Tanner Allem – that doesn’t play in as much because of the fact that, quite frankly, their offense isn’t quarterback driven. It’s driven by the running back, and it’s driven by execution as far as the offensive line and the running back finding the holes.
Tanner Allem threw five times last week. They’re not going to break double figures in passing, but you look at Tyler Scholl, who had four touchdowns last week – they’re a good team, and they’re setting up for a pretty good run.
SuburbanOneSports.com: North Penn and St. Joe’s Prep both go into Saturday night’s game with a loss. How important is that game for both teams?Kevin Cooney: It’s strange because this game almost feels anticlimactic because you had the big LaSalle buildup already (in Week 1), and it’s not the same Prep without (former coach) Gil Brooks. They got whipped 35-7 last week by St. Peter’s Prep, so you’re looking at a St. Joe’s Prep team that beat Washington – which is one of the better teams in the Public League – and just played a tough team in New Jersey. This is a stretch right now for both teams to kind of learn what they have, probably more so than they will in their league season if you’re North Penn because they’ll play a lot of blowouts in the Continental Conference. There are two teams everyone will agree that could challenge them or push them a bit, but the other five probably won’t. This is a good barometer test on where they are going into the league.
If you’re North Penn, it’s one of those standout games that you can look at down the road and figure it will help you. This season for North Penn is not about getting into the district playoffs. It’s about winning the district and getting to Hershey, and right now, this is a type of statement game.
Dom Cosentino: The Prep isn’t the Prep we have known the last several years. They have a new coach, and they had a tough game last week against St. Peter’s when they didn’t play especially well. It lacks some of the hype, and La Salle has taken some of that hype by winning the state title and starting the season by beating North Penn.
It doesn’t have the juice it used to have, but it’s still an important game for North Penn, which still has a lot to prove after what happened in week one. Beating Lansdale Catholic as big as they did (42-0) is nice, but LC is LC. The Prep is still a Quad A team that will contend in the Catholic League.
North Penn is still the favorite in the Continental Conference, but it’s now open to question whether they will roll through the league as easily as they did the last two years.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Comment about the fact that Upper Moreland has jumped out of the gate to a 2-0 start.
Dom Cosentino: They have played two 3A schools (Strath Haven and Pottstown), and they got wins, which for them is very good. There was a lot of talk about Chris Smallwood last year – he battled injuries, but they hung around and got into the playoffs and still almost knocked off Pottsgrove. That’s a pretty good program down there that flies under the radar. I think they will make some noise in the American Conference. It looks like Norristown is the favorite, but I think Upper Moreland with two wins against solid 3A district teams could be a factor this year.
I think Adam Beach is one of the more underrated coaches in this area. He took over a program and lost his first five games back in 2005 and since then has really had them competing. He got them into a district final the one year, and if it weren’t for bad turnovers, they probably win that district championship in 2006. They compete for – in just about every season he’s been there – the American Conference title, and they’re one of only two 3A schools in that league. They don’t have the numbers, and the resources down there are a lot older than a lot of the teams in the league – yet here they are.
SOS.com: Talk about the situation at Council Rock North where the team has lost its three top players - Brandon Cottom, John Raymon and Joe Coates – to injuries.
Dom Cosentino: It is devastating to have those three out because they’re your three best options. I don’t think there’s any team in this area that could survive having three of their best players knocked out and not playing. It’s very, very difficult to overcome, and you saw that the other day with what happened against CB South, who had some players returning from injuries that were out week one.
From what I’ve heard, Coates Is gone for the year, Raymon is five weeks and Cottom is two. That could mean he’s back this week or he’ll be back next week.
It’s an impossible situation in some sense because, on one hand, you have to plug the holes with whatever you have, and you’re talking about the team’s leaders who aren’t there, so that takes away some of that leadership role.
It’s difficult for any team to overcome something like that. It puts a coach in a difficult situation, and he (coach Adam Collachi) just has to encourage them to stay the course. That’s a tough thing to do when you’re unable to produce results.
Kevin Cooney: Obviously, Rock North is hamstrung without three of its big players – Coates, Cottom and Raymon. They have been decimated, which really hurts, really hurts. For North, it’s a question now – does the season go completely into the tank, or do they find some fight and battle back? Sometimes teams will rally around other guys and gut it up to win one for the Gipper, but that’s tough to maintain over the whole season. It’s not a real good sign that they were completely throttled by a team that spent the last couple of years struggling.
I don’t know where North goes from here.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Central Bucks East played without star running back Justyn White in Saturday’s loss to Council Rock South. What are your thoughts on that situation?
Kevin Cooney: Central Bucks East had a lot of good momentum and a lot of good vibes going into Saturday’s game after winning week one over Abington (in overtime) the way they did, and they finished the season fairly strong last year after the disaster it was earlier in the year. You have all that happen, and then this happens.
The bigger question for East right now is how do you refocus everybody, and how do you protect them from the distractions. It’s getting pretty clear that they’re not real willing –or able- to talk about White’s situation right now. But the questions are going to linger about what’s going on until some answers come out or he returns to the lineup?
Dom Cosentino: This makes life for CB East harder – a kid who had 1400 yards last year, and now he’s out of the lineup. He’s a big part of that offense, and without him – you saw what happened Saturday against CR South. It stifled their offense, and White takes some of the pressure off of QB Josh Bernard, who was sacked nine times.
SOS.com: Quakertown traveled to Pocono Mountain East and picked up a win for first-year coach George Banas. How important was that win?
Dom Cosentino: Quarterback Zac Gravelle had a pretty good game offensively. Just with the coaching transition – they had a tough time in week one against Archbishop Wood. To take the long trip up there and get a win is important from that standpoint. Now they get an unbeaten Cheltenham team this week, and that win last Friday starts to get things established. It’s a nice win for George.
The opinions expressed in 'Let's Talk Football' are not necessarily those of www.SuburbanOneSports.com. Check back next week for more SOL high school football talk with Kevin Cooney and Dom Cosentino.
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