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Back for its ninth season, the popular Intelligencer/Bucks County Courier Times ‘Let’s Talk Football’ features the ‘Game On’ crew: Drew Markol and Todd Thorpe. To view this week’s show, click on the following link: http://www.theintell.com/videos/hsgameon/ To stay on top of the high school football news in the area, visit the Intelligencer http://www.theintell.com/sports and Bucks County Courier http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/sports/high-schools web sites.
Check out this week’s picks by our panel of experts: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/football-forecaster
SuburbanOneSports: Drew, you covered the CB East/Souderton game last week. Your thoughts.
Drew Markol: “We talked about this before – the SOL Continental is really close. You have the three undefeated teams with North Penn, CB South and Souderton. Souderton needed that win. They started 0-3, and one of those losses was a one-point loss to Hatboro-Horsham, which was a bit of a head scratcher, although they were without DeAndre Wakefield in that game because of an injury.
“Wakefield is a huge part of their offense. In the first half, Souderton didn’t play too well offensively, but he caught a touchdown pass – his only catch of the game. It was a nice throw by Andrew Vince but an even better catch by DeAndre Wakefield that tied the game 7-7 at the half. In the second half, he broke two long runs, and once he got in the secondary, he was just gone. He had another gear that East couldn’t stop. John Donnelly had talked about him all week being the problem trying to stop Souderton. Well, they got to the game, and he was right. When Wakefield got to the clear and once he got going, he’s a home run threat, which a lot of teams don’t have. He can score from anywhere. He had a 79-yard run, which nobody touched him and then he had a 50-yard run where no one touched him either. If the field was a thousand yards long, no one still would have touched him. He gives them a good threat to score from anywhere, and that’s a great thing to have.
“East is not bad. They’re 0-2 in the conference and 2-4 overall, so basically, they’ve got to win the rest of their games, which is never easy. Souderton has turned it around. Now they have to play North Penn on Friday, but they go in with a ton of momentum winning three straight. I talked with a couple of Souderton kids yesterday. Their confidence was at zero after that lost to Hatboro-Horsham, but then they beat Pennridge in that 38-33 game, and now they’re going to North Penn – I don’t know, you’ve got to like North Penn in that game, but if Souderton were to upend them, I’m not sure I’d be shocked.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Drew, you also covered the Pennridge/CB West game. Your comments about Pennridge’s 21-10 win.
Drew Markol: “For Pennridge, that was a must-win game if they want to get to the playoffs. They’ve already played North Penn and right now, they’re 2-4 and they had lost four in a row heading into the West game. A lot of us – and we’ve talked about this before – we thought the win over Delaware Valley was a great win on opening night. Well, that Delaware Valley team is 3-3 or 2-4 themselves, so that turned out to be not as good a win as you might think. They played well against West. They ran the ball more. I’ve had coaches from other teams question why Pennridge wasn’t running Ryan Garner more and getting its running game going. Well, they turned more to Garner, and Jon Post, who’s just been outstanding, had another great touchdown catch on an unbelievable catch in the end zone. Maybe they’re back, you never know. They have to go to CB South on Friday. Brian Hensel asked me the question the other day – who would you pick to finish behind North Penn in the Continental, and I said CB South. It’s going to be tough for Pennridge. They have to go to South this week, and South has a lot of weapons. They don’t just rely on one guy.
“The Continental is interesting now. Almost anybody can beat anybody else. East gave North Penn all it wanted, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Souderton/North Penn was a close game on Friday. I’m not sure how good the quality is top to bottom. I don’t think these are outstanding teams, but maybe they’re all about the same except for North Penn. That makes for close games, which kind of makes it interesting.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Your thoughts about the SOL Continental, Todd.
Todd Thorpe: “I don’t think it would be a surprise to anyone if North Penn was 10-0 in three weeks, but I don’t think it would be a surprise if the next five teams in that conference were 5-5. It’s just kind of the nature 
of the beast. I really liked CB East when I saw them lose by one point to Pennsbury. I thought that was a team that potentially could finish 7-3 and finish second in their conference, and they turn around and lose two close games. It’s just the nature of the league this year. A lot of credit to Souderton. We were over there for Game On last week, and those kids had a little bit of a swag to them. They were pretty confident going into that CB East game, and I think it showed they had a reason to be. If I know Ed Gallagher, he’s not going to have a game plan to – well, maybe we can be close to North Penn. They have a game plan that he thinks can win with the talent he’s got. The Wakefield kid is running like crazy – every week he’s having big games. The other thing is – their defense shut down CB East. CB East is a team that can spread you out. They can run it with Jake Ventresca, they can throw with Evan O’Donnell and Chris Lochetta, the wide receiver. They can do a lot of different things offensively, and to be able to control them the way Souderton did was pretty impressive. I like where Souderton is right now. It’s almost like – I’ll take this horse again because it’s easy to do. When you start football the second week of July, maybe teams aren’t ready to play the first couple weeks of the season, but to put it a little more gently, it really took them a while to get going. Now that they’re at full steam they appear to be doing well. The negative for them is they have three losses and they’ve still got to play North Penn this week. That’s the hard part, but like I said, to finish 6-4, these teams in the Continental Conference might be good enough to make the playoffs. I really think this side of the district does not have the glossy record that some of the teams on the other side of the district do.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Your thoughts about the SOL National Conference.
Todd Thorpe: “If you look at the National Conference, they’re kind of in the same boat. They’re even more congested because they don’t have a North Penn in that conference. They have four or five teams that can all finish with seven or eight wins. You saw Council Rock South against North Penn – I spoke with people from Council Rock South last week during the week. They didn’t plan on losing. They went into that game to win because they thought they could do it. If things go one way or the other, they might very well walk out of that game with a win. They were up 10-0 at halftime. Who shuts out North Penn for a half, but they found a way to do it. In the end North Penn won, and a loss is a loss whether it’s by a hundred or three, but the fact that they lost the way they did really kind of stamps them as the favorite in the National six weeks in. They play Bensalem this week, but then they’ve got Pennsbury and Neshaminy back to back and then they play Council Rock North in their rivalry game to end the season. For them to run the table the next four weeks is not going to be easy. It would be tough to predict that even, but that conference is so balanced at the top. Truman is now 5-1 overall and lost one league game to CR South. This week they have their game against Pennsbury. If their game against Neshaminy was the first one, this is the second one. They played last year so it’s not the first time the Truman coaching staff is going to play Pennsbury, but it’s the first time Galen Snyder and head coach Mike LaPalombara, who was an assistant to Snyder at Pennsbury, are going back to play at Pennsbury. I’m sure there’s going to be those emotions. It’s tough when you’re there for that long, but now the shoe’s on the other foot. They’re going into Pennsbury and they’re forcing Pennsbury to find a way to stop them. It’s not going to be easy. Terrence Rogers had a huge game last weekend. They have a lot of different guys that can beat you. I give Pennsbury credit. They’ve started to put it together the last couple of weeks. They’re back to 3-3 now, and they’re right in the mix. If they find a way to win this week, then you got Council Rock South and then you’ve got Neshaminy. That conference is just brutal this year.
“I don’t think Neshaminy is out of it. I think they’re right there too. They’re going to find a way to be in the mix. I really like that conference and the competitiveness of that conference. The counter to that is – you’re not going to have a top three or four seed in districts. You’re going to get teams that are battle tested but are going to have to play district road games and not have the easiest road in districts. This year is an example of that. I think people are looking at the Downingtowns, Garnet Valley and obviously, Coatesville, the number one team in the state, as the favorites in districts, and North Penn will be there too.
“I think fighting for the league title is what theses teams have to be shooting for. I think right now Council Rock South with those two wins under their belt over Truman and Abington – they’re in pretty good shape, but it’s going to get real interesting the next couple of weeks when they play Pennsbury and Neshaminy in back-to-back weeks.”
Drew Markol: “It was a big win for Neshaminy against Abington last week. That one went a long way to keeping Neshaminy in it. I gave that game a coin flip. Maybe much like the American Conference – could we be looking at four-team race between Pennsbury, Council Rock South, Neshaminy and Truman for the top spot? Again, you’re beating up on each other which is going to hurt your district seed. If you talk to coaches, they say with Coatesville, Downingtown East and Downingtown West, our teams would have a very hard time competing with them this season. If you’re a 16 seed, a 15 seed or a 14 or 13, you’re probably going to get one of the Downingtowns, Coatesville or North Penn, and that’s a tough road.
“Half the district 6A teams get in, which is ridiculous. It’s an accomplishment, I guess, to get in, but this year you want to be one of the top 10 teams or it’s going to be awfully hard to win that first round. Truman beat Neshaminy. Well, now they’ve got to beat Pensnbury because if you lose to Pennsbury that negates the Neshaminy win. You can put a stamp on it and really help yourself later if you can do that. Truman goes into Pennsbury – the Truman kids don’t care if their coaching staff came from Pennsbury. All they care about is they haven’t beaten Pennsbury in a long time and they want to do it. I don’t think the Truman kids will be intimidated, so that will be interesting.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Quakertown will be travelling to Upper Dublin for a key contest. Your thoughts about the SOL American Conference.
Drew Markol: “With Upper Dublin beating Cheltenham last week and Cheltenham beating Quakertown a couple of weeks ago, Quakertown needs to win this game to get a share of the title. You could end up with three teams sharing the title. Quakertown beat Upper Dublin last year in what was a must-win at the time but then ended up losing to Upper Moreland and Upper Moreland goes on and wins the conference. Quakertown’s first goal, like a lot of teams, was to win the conference title. If they want to do it, they’ve got to beat a good Upper Dublin team at Upper Dublin. Can they do it? Yes, I think they can, but Upper Dublin is good every year. Some years they’re better than others, but in their conference, they’re at or near the top. That’s a credit to Bret Stover and what he’s doing there. I’m sure they go in thinking – we beat Cheltenham, and if we beat Quakertown, we’re going to win the conference and get a high district seed. There’s obviously very big incentive for both teams. That game to me is a coin flip. I like Upper Dublin if my life depended on it, but that should be a good one.”
Todd Thorpe: “I think Quakertown’s got something to prove here. A couple of weeks ago they lost at home to Cheltenham, and that’s one of those things that’s a tough pill to swallow, and it took a few days to recover from that and get ready for next week. I also think they’ve got the right coach for that. There was some video of the postgame huddle after that loss, and I’ll paraphrase – George Banas said, ‘I still love you guys, but we can’t make any more excuses.’ I think George has the right temperament for that, and I think they still are the team we thought they were two weeks ago, but Upper Dublin is going to be a real battle. There’s something in my gut telling me Quakertown is going down there with a real chip on their shoulder and something to prove. I think they might find a way to pull this one out. You’ve got to throw Cheltenham into the mix because they did beat Quakertown, but these are the two teams that are the best teams in the league. Cheltenham is right there too. It’s interesting to see them play in back-to-back-to-back weeks like this. It really is kind of like an unofficial playoff in the American Conference, a round robin. Cheltenham is rooting for Quakertown a little bit this week. They have to take care of business too. You can’t afford to let your guard down. Not that these aren’t the best teams in the league. The other teams are going to be there too and they have something to prove. Hatboro-Horsham last week beat Upper Moreland, and that’s a great win for them because those two teams don’t’ like each other. To play that game not on Thanksgiving doesn’t seem right, but it is still a rivalry game, and it does still mean a lot. I just think there are a lot of teams in that conference that would like to be the team that knocked one of those teams off their perch. It’s an interesting conference.
“Cheltenham is kind of a surprise guest to the dance there, but it’s a pleasant surprise when you look at the depths that program went to and where it is now. It’s good to see another team get involved. We’ve said it over and over again whenever we talk about football in the Suburban One League- you can kind of pick the half dozen teams that will be there at the end in all these conferences, so it’s good to see a team come out of nowhere and put together a real good season. There’s no shame in losing to Upper Dublin. I’m sure that one bothers them a little bit, but Upper Dublin is pretty good too. If Upper Dublin wins this week, they will probably coast to the league title. It’s interesting. It’s a good conference.”