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Back for its 13th 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: Neshaminy defeated Pennridge 7-6 in a classic defensive battle. You covered the game – your thoughts about those two teams.
Drew Markol: “You had Neshaminy at 3-2 and Pennridge at 2-3, and you knew it would be close. They just played between the 30s the whole game. Pennridge went to a freshman quarterback in Noah Keating, who’s the grandson of former coach Jeff Hollenbach. He’s a freshman, but he has a nice arm, and there’s a presence that he has. It’s just hard for a freshman to compete at that level, but if he keeps improving, Pennridge is going to have found something.
“Neither side could get their offenses going because the defenses were really good. Neshaminy was coming off a shutout against Abington, and Pennridge was 
coming off a double overtime loss to Central Bucks East, and they played like two good defenses. I believe Pennridge has lost its last three games by a total of seven points. It was a matter of – Pennridge went down for the go-ahead field goal with a little less than two minutes to go. There was a high snap, and by the time the ball was placed, half the Neshaminy defense was standing there to block it.
“But then, to Pennridge’s credit, they held Neshaminy, and Neshaminy gets a bad punt on fourth down, and Pennridge has the ball inside the Neshaminy 40 again with about a minute to go. They move it down to the 15, and I guess they didn’t want to try another field goal because they haven’t had much success in their kicking game, so they go for it on fourth-and-15, which was the final play of the game. It might have been fourth-and-five or whatever – they needed to score. It was a harmless incompletion, and the game’s over.
“Now if you’re Pennridge and you’re 2-4, you still have to play North Penn, you still have to play Pennsbury, and you’ve got a tough road ahead of you. Then you have Neshaminy – now you’re 4-2, and you’re thinking ‘Okay, we’re in pretty good shape as far as getting into districts.’ I don’t know this as a fact, but they went 2-8 last year, which for them is not what they’re looking for, so I think a reasonable goal would be – ‘All right, if we win six or seven games, we’ll get to the district playoffs and see what happens.’ Winning that game – Neshaminy lost to North Penn in overtime. If they win that game and they win against Pennridge, now they’re 5-1, and they’re one of the teams we’re talking about like Pennsbury and CB East. They’re getting better, and they have a legit defense, and that helps every week.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Speaking of the kicking game – your thoughts about it at the high school level.
Drew Markol: “We don’t talk about it much but having a good kicking game in high school is just invaluable. When I was at Neshaminy and before that, the football coach would walk over to the soccer coach and say – ‘All right, who has the best leg?’ I saw it happen right in front of me where the football coach walked over, and the kid with the best leg all of a sudden now he was the kicker. Just having that is just huge.
“Look at Souderton – they have two kickers in Ty Quintois and Rylan Zuk. Pennridge was looking at a 32-yard field goal to win the other night, and the opted to go for the touchdown. It’s hard to score when you have one play to go 15 yards, and they didn’t. Kicking gets overlooked at the high school level, but when you have a good kicking game and a good punter, it changes a lot of things. You get to the 25-yard line, and you’re thinking, ‘We can try a field goal here.’ It’s a whole different story.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Pennsbury earned an impressive 37-22 win over Central Bucks East. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “We’ve talked about this before – Pennsbury had the long losing streak of 16 games dating back to 2019. Then they open the season with a loss to Coatesville, and we thought, ‘Okay, Coatesville is always good,’ and maybe it’s just the same old Pennsbury trying to right the ship. Well, as it turns out, Coatesville is really good. They’re undefeated, and most people I talk to have them as the favorite to win the district title, so that loss doesn’t look so bad anymore after Pennsbury’s gone and won five in a row, including last week beating a CB East team that was undefeated and is really good. That’s a good East team that can throw it and they can run it, and they played a really good defense.
“What Pennsbury does is they run. That’s what they do. Galamama ‘G’ Mulbah, the senior running back, had another 200-yard game against a good East defense. Again, there are no surprises when it comes to Pennsbury. We’ve joked forever that the forward pass hasn’t made its way up to Fairless Hills yet. They ground and pound – they have it on their Twitter account - and they play defense. They run it down your throat, they keep the ball and tire you out. Their defense gets you off the field quickly, and then you’re back trying to stop them again, and they’re pounding away. That’s hard to do. Now Pennsbury is sitting at 5-1. They still have to play North Penn, and they still have to play Neshaminy. They play Pennridge this Saturday at Harry S Truman.
“East was hindered in that loss to Pennsbury because Pat Keller, the senior quarterback, didn’t play. They moved Declan Kelly - who is kind of a do-it-all wide receiver/running back – to quarterback, but that weakens you in two spots, and that’s not what you need when you’re going up against a team that had won four in a row at that point. I’m not sure of the severity of Keller’s injury, but hopefully, it won’t keep him out any longer, and he’ll be able to come back. He’s obviously an important part of their offense. He’s been their quarterback for a while, and he was a passing threat to go along with Ethan Shine, the very good running back. Hopefully, it’s not season ending or something like that because that would be a shame for an East program that’s having a heck of a year.”
SuburbanOne Sprots.com: “Talk about some of this week’s key games.
Drew Markol: “CB West beat North Penn two weeks ago. I heard people call that an upset. I didn’t go to that game, but from the sounds of it, it wasn’t much of an upset because West was able to control things and run the ball at will against North Penn. Against Neshaminy this week – that’s an interesting matchup. Eli Boehm, the senior running back, is very good, and Markus Barnett, Neshaminy’s senior running back, is also very good. Do they cancel each other out? Do they both get 150 yards rushing and does it come down to something else? That’s a good matchup. I’ve seen them both at some point this year, and those are two teams that are district tournament worthy. Not that they would make a long run in the district tournament, but if either one or both got in, you’d say, they’re good enough, they’re at that level. Facing each other, you flip a coin on that one.
“With North Penn and CB East – North Penn definitely needed that win against CB South last week, and they got it. Some of these other programs are seeing this and saying, ‘North Penn is 3-3. They’ve been a dominant force in their conference forever since before any of the kids on these teams were born, they’ve been a dominant team.’ If North Penn is starting to right the ship, and maybe they are after that win – these other coaches that are saying, ‘Maybe this is our chance to get North Penn’ – well, maybe it is but maybe it isn’t. North Penn playing CB East this week – a lot comes down to if East gets their quarterback Keller back because North Penn at 3-3 still has to play Pennsbury. Pennsbury hasn’t beaten North Penn in forever, but it looks like this year they’re the better team. North Penn is looking at it and saying, ‘We’ve got to get some wins.’ Granted, North Penn’s losses have come against a good La Salle team, a good Upper Dublin team and a good West team. Okay, but still, a loss is a loss. Those are two good games absolutely that have a lot of playoff implications surrounding them.”
Markol’s picks (Winners in bold)
(Last week: 11-2)
Central Bucks South @ Abington
Quakertown @ Bensalem
North Penn @ Central Bucks East
Neshaminy @ Central Bucks West
Springfield Twp @ Cheltenham 7pm
Council Rock North @ Harry S Truman
Council Rock South @ Upper Dublin
New Hope-Solebury @ Lower Moreland
Plymouth Whitemarsh @ William Tennent
Warwick HS @ Souderton
Upper Moreland @ Wissahickon
Pennridge @ Pennsbury at Truman