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n the seventh 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 games and also discuss at length this week’s big game between Council Rock South and Neshaminy. They also offer their predictions about the upcoming Phillies-Giants series.
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: Games don’t get much bigger than Friday night’s Neshaminy/Council Rock South game. What are your thoughts about that game?
Dom Cosentino: This is for possibly the top spot in the district, and it likely is for the top spot in the National Conference. A lot of things are riding on this game. I do think the winner of this game has a chance to win out and be the number one seed heading into the district playoffs. We’re going to see a great matchup where you have a lot of skill players on the offensive side of the ball. Neshaminy has different weapons – they can throw it, they can run it. Council Rock South has its own weapons – Bill Fleming’s ability to ball fake with that offense just gives them a whole different dimension that will be very difficult to stop.
Rock South’s line overwhelmed Pennsbury to the surprise of a lot of people two weeks ago. Neshaminy’s line looks like it will be without Nick DiDonato (concussion), but there are a lot of good things to look forward to. It’s going to be real interesting to see how these teams match up, especially up front. It’s a game I’ve been looking forward to for several weeks now. It could come down to – as cliché as it sounds – which team makes a mistake. A big mistake could be the difference in this game.
Kevin Cooney: That is the one big game this week, and it’s really a big game. You look at this game, and it’s CR South’s chance to join the elite. Their defense has been tremendous to this point, but until they beat one of the big boys - we always talk about this. We talked about Abington the past couple of years trying to take that step and beat one of the big boys, and they finally did that last year. You need to do it, and teams that say they don’t are fooling themselves.
We’ve gotten to the point where CR South has built a program that is very respectable and very good for a number of years now, but they have to take this last step. They have to take this step to move up and make the leap to contender. They beat Pennsbury, but Pennsbury right now is not on the same level as Neshaminy. That may not make me popular in Fairless Hills, but I think it’s the reality.
The winner of this game is going to be undefeated. This game is for the number one seed, I think, in District One. If South wins, they’re pretty much in the clear. Neshaminy still has the Pennsbury game, but I don’t think Pennsbury has shown us anything to this point that would tell you they can stop Neshaminy.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Can Council Rock South beat Neshaminy in its own house?
Kevin Cooney: Sure, South could win it. Their defense has played as well as anybody’s. If you’re asking me who will win it, I’ll probably go with Neshaminy. It’s not necessarily fair because you’re talking about a Rock South team that hasn’t given up more than seven points since Labor Day, but unfortunately, until proven otherwise, you have to go with the blue bloods, and that’s what Neshaminy is. It’s like picking against Duke in the NCAA Tournament. You better have a damn good reason why you’re doing it. South has given us the opportunity for a damn good reason, but I’m just not going there yet. I could be proven wrong, I could look like an idiot, but I’m going to stick with Neshaminy.
Neshaminy has proven they have multiple weapons on offense. Can South’s defense continue to play at as high a level as they have and stop those weapons? If they do, they have a good chance. If they don’t, they could lose by a sizable margin. They could lose 14-21 – it wouldn’t stun me.
Dom Cosentino: Rock South, by appearances sake, seemed to be smaller than Pennsbury, but they put together those two long drives in the second half and really took it to them. Neshaminy has that big bruising line, and I think if Rock South can hold their own up front, they absolutely have a chance to win this game. This seems like a focused Rock South team. They play with a sense of purpose. They’re workmanlike – okay, who’s next?
SuburbanOneSports.com: How difficult is it for visiting teams to win at legendary Heartbreak Ridge?
Kevin Cooney: The mystique is worth something because Neshaminy has a good team.
As popular as the sport of football is now, and it’s still the most popular of the scholastic sports - the days of those 9,000-seat stands packed every Friday night, people living and dying it, and visiting teams coming in with their tails tucked between their legs are over. Will there be a good crowd at the Ridge on Friday night? Yes. Will it be obscenely crowded? I don’t know, and I don’t think players necessarily look around at that stuff.
One thing I think that always made the Ridge difficult is that you had to make that long walk from the locker room.
Dom Cosentino: Heartbreak Ridge is interesting. There is a kind of home field advantage Neshaminy has. There is a feel to it – they get a nice crowd, they’re into the game, and it’s sort of a festive thing. And they have that Kettle Korn, which I love. It’s certainly been like a house of horrors for North Penn. Some very good North Penn teams have gone in there and gotten blown out in big games in recent years.
That said, I don’t know how much that comes into play when kids get out there and start playing. Neshaminy may play with an extra edge being there, and it’s certainly something the Neshaminy people like to talk about, the history and the people, guys like John Petercuskie and some of the other guys and the winning teams they had many, many years ago.
It’s not like an NFL stadium where you’ll have a lot of crowd noise and things like that. I think for a lot of these kids – when they get on that field, it’s easy for them to block everything out and just play the game, so I don’t know how much the venue will play into this. We’ll see how they match up and which team doesn’t make mistakes.
SuburbanOneSports.com: You alluded to the declining fan support of high school sports –do you think realigning the SOL to bring back the rivalries between neighboring schools has helped?
Kevin Cooney: When the league realigned a couple of years ago, they made a big thing that this would bring the rivalries back, but it really hasn’t. In the Continental Conference, the big rivalry game is probably Pennridge and Quakertown, and that’s played on Thanksgiving after everything has been decided. Souderton/Pennridge is a decent game, and the East/West game – yes, okay, but it’s not the old days. Quite frankly, a lot of people don’t believe these teams are on the same level.
I understand the league had some financial constraints at the time they did this realignment, and it may work in other sports fairly well, but I’m not sure it fits for football. There are too many distractions for kids’ time. More kids work now. On Saturdays, you have college football, and it makes Saturday games a tough draw.
You look at this week, and you have the Phillies playing on Saturday night, so you can forget about that. This is why attendance is down. There are so many other interests that draw kids’ attention away. I don’t think it’s that the sport is worse. It’s getting through all the chatter.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Central Bucks East defeated Pennridge 7-0 in a must-win game for both teams. Comment about the implications of that outcome for both squads.
Kevin Cooney: It’s one thing to lose, but to lose that way – Pennridge right now just looks like it doesn’t quite have the horses that we thought. They have a good running game, but at a certain point, you run out of steam, and they have run out of steam. That’s pretty obvious right now. You can’t just do it with a running game anymore, and I think some people tend to forget about that.
Nothing is ever set in stone, but Pennridge doesn’t have the caliber of wins right now – they need to run the table, and that would mean beating North Penn, and at this point, anybody that thinks they have a shot is probably rallying all the troops in Perkasie. It’s not really feasible at this point to think that’s going to happen.
I thought last week was a ‘put up or shut up’ week for some teams, and I think Pennridge was one of those teams that didn’t really live up to their end of the bargain.
East can start to see its way. If they win this week, East can kind of play its way back into it. They’re at 3-3 again – is it good and is it really strong right now? Probably not, but it’s something. They have Souderton and CB West up ahead, but if they beat CB West – which they could, maybe you get to 6-4, and maybe you can roll the dice a little bit over that. One of East’s wins is over Abington, which will give them a lot of points.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Central Bucks West came out strong against North Penn but then fell behind by 38-7 before rallying to make the final score 38-21. What are your thoughts about West’s performance?
Kevin Cooney: West played North Penn tough. They can’t afford a slip up, but they’re playing consistently right now. Losing by 17 to North Penn for a program that had one win last year is a good stepping stone. Rashaad Williams is going to look to go over a thousand yards this week, and in week seven, that’s pretty impressive. They have some weapons. You look at Bill Bell, you look at Ward Udinski. Max Stella and Oskar Duva have done a good job for them. They have some good offensive weapons beyond Williams, and Seth Ehlo and Cody Riemenschneider are playing well in the back defensively for them.
Not just the fact that they’ll make the playoffs – I think they could do something once they get there. I’m not saying they could win the district title, but I think they have a shot to do something pretty substantial – maybe go a game or two into the playoffs.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Pennsbury went back to its vaunted ‘ground and pound’ attack and came away with a huge win over William Tennent. Comment about that game.
Dom Cosentino: I think Pennsbury realized they needed to make a change. Galen Snyder told me he made the decision pretty much to shake up the offense on the bus ride back from the Council Rock South game the previous week. Just given where they were – they were too talented a team to be 2-3 and fighting for their playoff lives -- it was the kind of shake-up I think they needed, and the guys certainly responded.
Brandon Pepper is certainly a very good running back, but his skills are also suited to being that Wing-T quarterback because of his ability to run, and it worked out for them. They rushed for 339 yards. It was a very dominant performance on the part of their offense.
For Tennent, I think Shakat Kofa is a very good quarterback. He throws a nice ball, and he can run well, but I just think they don’t necessarily stack up well against some of the better teams in the league -- the Pennsburys, the Abingtons, the Council Rock Souths and the Neshaminys. The one time they did have that kind of test against CB West – you saw what happened (a 49-7 loss). Connor Geiger is also a terrific player, but Tennent doesn’t have enough of those players. They’re the lowest enrollment school in that league by far, and that hurts them.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Comment on the performance of Daquan Mack in his new role of running back and what he adds to the mix for the Falcons.
Dom Cosentino: Mack had been a defensive end who had not played on offense this year at all. He’s only a sophomore, and that was basically his first varsity start on offense. It kind of makes you wonder where he’s been all this time, but I guess with the nature of the offense they had set up, there really wasn’t a place for him. Now with the Wing-T and the different options, there was, and he responded very well.
SuburbanOneSports.com: In your opinion, what was the thought process behind Pennsbury going away from its ground and pound offense?
Dom Cosentino: With Pepper’s ability to run the ball, Jeff Prine came up and looked like he could be a pretty good pocket passer and the kind of quarterback for the Power-I they were running. Galen took a look at what he had and said, ‘We want to try this,’ thinking it might work. I guess they’ve heard that they never throw the ball enough and that they’re limited on offense, and I think he thought this was a way to open things up.
They had some success, but it was a little bit inconsistent just because of the way things played out. We still have to see now if this is going to work going forward. It’s only been one game, and it’s easy for people to get carried away based on one game. Tennent was 4-1, but the four teams they beat were a combined 1-19.
SuburbanOne Sports.com: The Falcons face Abington on Friday night. What are your thoughts about that game?
Dom Cosentino: While Council Rock South/Neshaminy is going to be the big game that everyone is focused on this week, I think that’s a very good matchup because I like what Abington brings defensively. The only team that really took it to them was Neshaminy, and a lot of that had to do with the fact that Abington’s offense did absolutely nothing that night. They had 106 yards.
Abington’s defense has the speed and physicality to stay with Pennsbury. We’ll see though. Pennsbury with this change – it could be a very even matchup, and maybe Pennsbury has come to life and turning into the sort of playoff team a lot of people expected them to be.
It’s a very good matchup, a very good matchup. It’s a big game for both teams. Three losses puts you on the bubble for the playoffs. Four potentially could put you on the outside looking in. Neither team can really afford another loss. Pennsbury would be looking at its fourth loss, and it still has to play Neshaminy; Abington would be looking at its third loss, and it still has Council Rock South on the ledger.
I’ll be real curious to see what Pennsbury does this week against Abington because it’s a very good defense they’re going up against, and they’re going to be able to game plan for the Wing-T as well. (Tennent coach) Biz Keeny told me he prepared for both the I and the Wing-T, thinking Pennsbury might go back to it at some point, but it didn’t matter. Pennsbury had too many weapons. We’ll see what they do against Abington.
Kevin Cooney: I don’t know if Pennsbury has a strong enough non-league schedule where even a win here would help. I think the only win that can really help them would be Neshaminy. Obviously, Abington has found something that works. Pennsbury is still looking for the answers. Last week, they beat a Tennent team that was overmatched. Pennsbury went back to its ground and pound and had 339 yards on 47 carries, and they threw three passes for five yards. This is Pennsbury football. This is what they’ve always done. You get Mack, you get Pepper, and you have six rushing touchdowns. This is what you’ll get from Pennsbury when it’s going good. This may be the wrong time for Abington to catch them. I think it should be an interesting game.
SuburbanOneSports.com: After watching Abington play Truman, what is your read on the Ghosts?
Dom Cosentino: Abington is right there. They’re 4-2, and they’re in a good situation. What’s going to be tough for them in the weeks ahead is they still have to play Pennsbury this week, and they still have Council Rock South down the road. With Julien Ireland and that defense, they have an opportunity to play their way into the playoffs. They still have two very, very tough games on the schedule, but they really made it look easy against Truman last week.
SuburbanOneSports.com: What are your thoughts about Truman after watching its game against Abington?
Dom Cosentino: They’re determined to finish their season. I think that barring any catastrophic number of injuries, they should be able to do that.
You have to give (coach) Ed Cubbage credit. Given everything they’ve gone through and given their numbers situation – to make the kind of decision he made to not play Derron Thompson, he was trying to do the right thing in that situation. He wouldn’t necessarily elaborate on the record about what went on, but he clearly felt it was best not to play him that night. It would have been very easy for him, given their situation, to not do something like that, but he’s clearly in control of that team and is not afraid to do what he feels is right. He knows you have to be flexible, but you can’t have different rules for different guys. That’s a big thing.
Larry Winton had 207 of their 270 yards on Friday night. He had about 100 yards in the first half. Here’s a kid, like Ed said after the game, that’s really worked hard to get better. It’s been a gradual thing where he’s developed confidence. He rushed for 190 yards the week before against Tennent, so he has that ability, and it’s finally starting to show. Ed said you have to turn the light switch on and off with him, and the light switch now seems to be on with the kid. He’s buying into the fact that if he puts in the time and effort and works hard, he could be a very good player. He showed that in a game where not a whole lot else had gone well for Truman.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Moving away from high school football, share your thoughts about the upcoming Phillies-Giants series.
Kevin Cooney: I think this is a more dangerous series than people believe right now because the big bats in the Phillies lineup have historically not done well against San Francisco and especially have not done well in that park.
I think it’s going to come down to the Phillies’ bats. If the Phillies’ bats wake up, this series is over. If they don’t, you give San Fran and their limited offense a chance to hang in there. It’s not the Phillies’ fate accompli to go to the World Series every year. They’re a very good team, they’re very cocky almost, but they hit .212 in that series against the Reds. You’re not going to get a no-hitter thrown in this series. You may get a complete-game shutout, but you can’t bank on it. It’s very rare that these things happen in the playoffs.
I’m going to pick the Phillies. I think the Phillies’ lineup head to toe is better. When you look around the horn, this is just a better lineup, but this is the type of series if they have any type of hiccup, they’ll lose it. They have to play their best. I think it will go six, and I think the Phillies will win in six, but I think this is the toughest hurdle for the Phillies the rest of the way. I think they will beat either the Rangers or Yankees. This is the one they may not get over.
Dom Cosentino: I’m going with the Phillies in six, but that’s a very cautious pick. San Francisco’s got good pitching, and it’s the kind of pitching that has given the Phils fits. But what sets the Phillies apart — and what could very well lead to another parade later this month — is the gamers they have, the Victorinos and (especially) the Ruizs, the guys who do so many little things that add up in big ways at this time of year. I wouldn’t be shocked if the Giants won, but I just don’t see it happening.
*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 feedback, write to Cooney at KCooney@phillyburbs.com and Cosentino at DCosentino@phillyburbs.com.
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