Back for its 11th season, the popular Intelligencer/Bucks County Courier Times ‘Let’s Talk Football’ features football beat writers Drew Markol and Todd Thorpe. To stay on top of the high school football news in the area, visit the Intelligencer (https://www.theintell.com/sports/high-school) and Courier Times (https://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/sports/high-school/) web sites, which will feature a live blog on football Fridays.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Your thoughts heading into the final week of the regular season with district playoffs scheduled to begin next week.
Drew Markol: “We’ve talked about this before – I’m not a fan of the district or state playoffs, especially not this year in this pandemic-shortened five-day season for the Suburban One League teams. It’s not a big enough sample size. If Pennridge can beat Abington on Friday, they’ll be 5-0, and they’re very good, but the question will always linger – how would they do against North Penn? North Penn has been the 
king of the mountain forever and Pennridge and North Penn don’t play each other. That’s no fault of anyone. It was just the luck of the draw how they made up the schedules because when you can only play five games, you’re not going to play everybody when you have eight teams in your conference. You can’t take it away from Pennridge. They said, ‘These are the teams you’re playing,’ and they went out and played them. Is it a little bit hollow? Yes, it is, but you can’t fault any of these teams. If these teams like a Souderton in the Continental, Upper Moreland in the American and Pennridge in the National - if they win this week, get your banners and say, ‘We won our conference’ because you did. This whole year, sports aside, is just a giant asterisk on life. It’s not like Pennridge said, ‘We don’t want to play North Penn.’ They were told who to play, and they played them.
“The district did exactly what the PIAA wanted when the PIAA wanted the state playoffs after the PIAA washed their hands of this whole mess and told all the individual districts ‘do what you want’ as far as if they wanted to play.’ You had districts like Truman and Cheltenham that said, ‘Okay, we’re not going to play,’ so now they’re left out in the cold. The other teams are playing, but they only have a five-game season, and you’re going to have the playoffs starting next week already. We have talked about this – I really like what District 11 did, and I’ve talked to several SOL coaches who said the same thing. District 11 said, ‘The heck with the PIAA, we’re going to have our own district tournament,’ and they’re basically letting every team in and giving all their teams more games, and they’re going to have district champions in the different classifications. They said, ‘We don’t need to have a state champion in such an odd year with the pandemic. What we want to do is give all of our teams games to play and as many as possible.’
“That’s what we should be doing in District One, but they just fell in line with whatever the PIAA said, and they should have told the PIAA to pound sand. They didn’t do it, and now you have a team like North Penn, which lost its opener to Neshaminy but has won four in a row and looks really good, but they’re done. I talked to coach Dick Beck after last Saturday’s game against CB East and said, ‘Are you going to play any games after next week like some teams?’ A team like Quakertown is playing, Hatboro-Horsham and Upper Moreland are playing. He said, ‘No, we’re done.’ So they’re getting five games. If – and it’s a big if since it didn’t happen – the district would have said, ‘We’re just going to have an inter-district tournament,’ you’d have teams like North Penn and everybody else perhaps playing two or three more games. And wouldn’t that be nice for kids in a pandemic when you’re looking at a winter season that’s just as much up in the air as the fall season was and maybe more.
“It’s just a very bad job by District One to just lay down at the feet of the PIAA and say, ‘All right, we’ll do whatever the PIAA says even though the PIAA gave us very little guidance when we needed it at the start.’ Again, it’s a very poor job of doing whatever the PIAA says, and who pays the price? Unfortunately, the kids. It’s a shame it had to be that way. District One could have told the PIAA, ‘No thanks’ and then just played all their conference games. Even if they just did that but instead we have this fragmented season, so what are we going to gain in 6A? If you’re Pennridge, maybe you can win a district title. That would be great, but then you have to play St. Joe’s Prep. Good luck with that because they’re the best team money can buy. It’s just a shame. You’d have thought it would difficult to make a bad situation worse, but they did.”
Todd Thorpe: “There’s a lot of questions about any team that isn’t year in and year out in the playoffs – how good are they? Like Souderton, Pennridge has beaten the teams in front of them, and they’ve beaten teams they don’t normally beat. They handily beat Neshaminy, who had handily beat North Penn the week before and who beat Abington. They beat all the Central Bucks teams – and I don’t know if they beat any of them last year. You only play who’s on your schedule, and to the credit of Cody Muller and their coaching staff, they 
kept that team together, and they have really, really good leadership with Shane Hartzell – he’s a tremendous leader. They’ve been able to stick together, and they’re the best team. It’s a shame they’re not going to play North Penn because this is a year I’m sure they’d go in thinking they could beat North Penn. As far as when they get to playoffs, people are going to look at them and say – ‘yes, this is just their year,’ but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Pennridge win a couple games in the postseason. Certainly if they play Souderton they’d be a favorite.
“I know of Coatesville’s reputation and I don’t know anything about Spring-Ford. Is that necessarily a game they couldn’t win? No, I think they could. I think you’re playing for a district title. You shouldn’t really worry about states. The St. Joe’s Prep specter is waiting for whoever emerges out of District One, except St. Joe’s Prep didn’t play last week because of a COVID outbreak, so we still don’t know the status of that. Take care of the games that are on your schedule. Win as many as you can. Get your kids playing time so they get look from colleges. Give the seniors a chance to go out on the field. That’s the important thing. Play the games, do the best you can. At the end of the road, Pennridge is going to say they’re the National champs this year. How many times can somebody do that in the last decade except four or five teams. You can only do what you can do. For Pennridge’s group of seniors, they’ve had a really good season, but it’s a different feeling.
“This is going to be an asterisk year. That’s not a shot against the teams that are playing, by all means. The teams that are playing and the teams that win – they get all the credit for doing it, but the way this was organized, the way this was put together – basically, this should have been a ‘let’s just get the kids on the field at all cost’ type of season. It turned into self-interest. For whatever reason, the precious sanctity of our PIAA Tournament is more important than seeing the big picture. The big picture is – the PIAA Tournament is the least important thing about this season. The most important thing is that they played. It’s not the same not having fans and all of that, but if the only thing you were really concerned about – and I heard this a lot in August, it was ‘give the kids a chance to play.’ Well, this gives them a chance to play, but it’s artificial. The playoffs are not the end all. Keep the games local. I’m not sure anybody wants to drive all around and play in state playoff games out of the region. Who knows? If you play in the local community, you’re keeping the games local.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Your comments about the SOL National Conference.
Drew Markol: “The kids are playing the games, and they’re into it. They don’t have the perspective that a lot of people who have been watching this forever have. I was at Pennridge last week, and if you said Pennridge and CB South both weren’t into that game, you’d be a liar because they were. Pennridge gets its third straight shutout, and they’re good. They’re a good team, and that defense is absolutely legit. You just wish it was a regular 10-game season, but it’s not. Again, we have to have a little perspective. In August, we didn’t think there’d be any games, so at least there’s been some games. You could even say Pennridge got a little bit unlucky because they’re really good this year in a year that everything is going to be overshadowed by the pandemic. That’s a shame for them, and it’s a shame for all the teams that are really good. People are going to say that was the year of the pandemic, hopefully just one year of it and not more than that. I take nothing away from Pennridge. That’s a good team – pandemic, non-pandemic, you name it. They’re legit.
“This week Pennridge plays Abington. That won’t be easy. Pennridge would be ‘favored’ if you looked at such things, but Abington has players that can do things. That won’t be a pushover. It would have been the game of the season had Abington not lost to Neshaminy. You looked at it two weeks ago and we’re thinking both Abington and Pennridge would be 4-0 and they’re going to play the night before Halloween. Well, then Abington stumbled a bit. Now the problem is Abington realizes they don’t have a chance to get into the playoffs because they have a loss. That has to take away a little bit of the incentive, and that’s unfortunate. Again, that’s what we’re dealing with. That will be a test for Pennridge. They shut out Neshaminy, they shut out a decent CB South team, and now they’re playing Abington, and that’s no free lunch for sure.
“With the limited spectators, it’s just a shame – you have Neshaminy and Pennsbury. Pennsbury is scuffling. There have been a lot of years when either Neshaminy or Pennsbury were scuffling and the rivalry meant so much that the underdog won the game. I think it will be harder for the underdog to win a rivalry game because you don’t have the crowd there to fire you up. If Pennsbury would take an early lead on Neshaminy, the Pennsbury crowd would be going crazy. Well, there won’t be a Pennsbury crowd to go crazy.
“All the rivalries – CB East/CB West. East has a ton of injuries, and I think West is the best 0-4 team in the Suburban One League. They’ve had a tough schedule. They’ve played Pennridge, they’ve played Neshaminy, they’ve played North Penn. Perhaps they got the short end of the stick with the draw, but that happens. You wish they could have played the whole schedule, but that wasn’t the case, so that game loses luster.”
Todd Thorpe: “The Pennridge defensive masterpiece continues. They have three straight shutouts now, and they’re absolutely rolling, just shutting out everybody. CB South has a good offense. They’re a good offensive team. They put up 49 points against Pennsbury the week before. Pennridge is just dialed in. When a team’s dialed in offensively like that, it’s just tough to beat them. I remember a couple of years ago Neshaminy had a real good defense, and their first team defense went a month and a half without allowing a touchdown. You always got the impression they were never going to allow a lot of points, and they were always going to be in the game. They haven’t really been in a spot where their offense has to score a ton of points. Abington has a pretty potent offense this week, but Pennridge is on a roll right now. It’s certainly their game to win on Friday, especially the way they’re playing defense.
“Like we said, CB South scored 49 points the week before. They can really spread it out and throw the ball, and they can throw in a run here and there. They’re a pretty good team. They play North Penn this week, and North Penn has won three in a row. The shame of it is – I would have liked to see North Penn/Pennridge. Unfortunately, we’re not going to see that this year. I think once North Penn got out of the blocks a little bit they were going to be as good as they always were. I think that’s the shame of it. All credit to Pennridge – they clearly look like the best team right now. Abington’s got a good offense. They’ve got some talent, and they’ve got speed, so they’ll be a test, but I imagine Pennridge will win that game too.
“This is kind of a weird week. You look at East/West. They’ve got one win between them. East is all banged up. I’m sure they didn’t expect to be where they are right now, losing quarterback Anthony Giordano like that. West hasn’t won yet this season. Unfortunately, West picked a bad year to not have any non-league games. If West had played a couple of non-league games early and gotten a couple of wins under their belt, I think they would have been in a lot better shape. With as many new pieces they had, running right into the gauntlet against some pretty good football teams was not kind to them.
“It’s a tough week in the Lower Bucks National. You look at Pennsbury/Neshaminy, and it doesn’t have the same kind of luster it always has. If you’re Neshaminy, you have to be like, ‘All right, we really need to win this game if we want any chance’ of getting into districts. They’re in the same spot as Abington and North Penn. They’re all in the same spot and have to hope for a couple of upsets this weekend. Neshaminy/Pennsbury could be a game. Pennsbury hasn’t really stopped anyone, and that’s the problem they’re going to have. Can Pennsbury stop Neshaminy at all and can they avoid giving up a ton of points? That will be the question. Last year, Pennsbury was the team that beats Neshaminy.
“An interesting game could be Rock North/Rock South, not necessarily because they’re having great seasons, but I think they’re both considerably improved from last year. I think it will be an even matchup. Both were on the short end of the stick last week, but I think that will be a pretty even matchup.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Your thoughts about the Continental Conference.
Drew Markol: “Souderton is playing Bensalem. It’s been a rough go for Bensalem. Souderton loses Jalen White, the senior running back the first game of the season. Now he’s back. They have it going on. That’s another team – you wonder how they’d do with a full schedule. They’re doing well, and it looks like they might end up playing Pennridge in the first round of districts. Only four teams get into the district tournament. You have a 5-0 Pennridge versus a 5-0 Souderton next week, which would be interesting.
“It’s just a weird year. I’m happy for the kids that they got to play. I just wish they had done it a different way and maybe played some more.”
Todd Thorpe: “Souderton – the beat just keeps on going on for them. If I’m them, my biggest concern would be that since Quakertown they haven’t had a real stern challenge. They beat Upper Dublin, and Upper Dublin is a good team, but if you’re Souderton, you haven’t had that huge step up yet, and right now they’re staring at a game with Pennridge. For them to be sitting at 4-0 with a lot of holes and an injury earlier to their running back, Jalen White, I give them a ton of credit. They deserve it. You can only play who’s on your schedule, and they’ve beaten everyone on their schedule. That’s the way it is.”
SuburbanOneSport.com: Your comments about the American Conference.
Drew Markol: “You look at Wissahickon. They hadn’t won more than two games since 2013. Well, now they’re 3-1, and if they win this week, maybe they get in the 5A playoffs at 4-1. How cool would that be? Talk about a team that would love to have a bigger schedule, but they’re taking advantage of their situation. If they get into the playoffs, they’re not going to say, ‘Oh, it was the pandemic.’ They’re going to say, ‘We got into the playoffs’ and good for them. You need something like that. That’s one of the true bright spots of the season to see that kind of turnaround. It was unexpected. Imagine if we didn’t play this year. We never would have known that Wissahickon had a pretty good team.”
Todd Thorpe: “The story I’m seeing in the American is Wissahickon, who is 3-1. They’ve won their last two games in overtime and had to come back to win both those games. They’re right in the playoff mix. That’s a program that for five or six years really hasn’t been able to win much, and they found a way – in a Cheltenham-less season – to kind of emerge as one of the better teams in that conference. Upper Moreland is the best team, but give Wissahickon a ton of credit.
“A game I really kind of like is Quakertown/Upper Moreland. It really doesn’t have any meaning in terms of the playoffs. I think Upper Moreland is fine as far as the 4A district tournament, but I think this is probably their best test so far. Quakertown has played pretty well the past three weeks, and I think that is Upper Moreland’s best test and should prepare them for the playoffs. That could be a really interesting game.”
Pick the winners:
Todd Thorpe (picks in bold)
Abington @ Pennridge
Souderton @ Bensalem
Central Bucks East @ Central Bucks West
Central Bucks South @ North Penn
Council Rock North @ Council Rock South
Hatboro-Horsham @ Upper Dublin
Pennsbury @ Neshaminy
New Hope-Solebury @ William Tennent
Plymouth Whitemarsh @ Wissahickon
Upper Moreland @ Quakertown
Drew Markol
Abington @ Pennridge
Souderton @ Bensalem
Central Bucks East @ Central Bucks West
Central Bucks South @ North Penn
Council Rock North @ Council Rock South
Hatboro-Horsham @ Upper Dublin
Pennsbury @ Neshaminy
New Hope-Solebury @ William Tennent
Plymouth Whitemarsh @ Wissahickon
Upper Moreland @ Quakertown
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