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Back for its 12th 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.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Central Bucks West notched a bounce-back 28-20 win over Central Bucks South. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “CB West was coming off a loss to a very good Coatesville team, and CB South had beaten Plymouth Whitemarsh in week one. West just took it to them. They ran up the middle at will and finished with 333 yards on the ground. Donte Mancini had a huge night, and Eli Boehm also had a huge night for the Bucks. They had a third quarter scoring drive that ate up over half the quarter, just pounded, pounded and pounded. Nothing fancy but they were able to do it and picked up a 28-20 win that wasn’t as close as it sounds.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: North Penn has been impressive in its first two games. Your thoughts about the Knights after their 58-8 win over Abington.
Drew Markol: “North Penn has just started out with a tremendously big win over Souderton in week one and then they opened conference play by blasting 
Abington. They put up 58 points on them. It’s just very telling. Abington is a team that will probably be right in the thick of things in the National Conference. North Penn – from start to finish – really stuck it to them. You talk to other coaches in the area, and they’ve already figured out that the top three teams in District One in 6A are North Penn, Coatesville and Garnet Valley. Take your pick of where they’ll fall, but North Penn is firmly in that mix as one of the best teams in the district. They were 4-1 last year – lost their opener to Neshaminy and then ran off four straight wins but couldn’t get into the COVID condensed playoffs. If they had, they probably would have done pretty well then too. Just a great start. Khalani Eaton, the senior running back, is just going nuts the first two weeks. He has close to 400 yards rushing already. It’s early but this looks like a vintage Dick Beck team. “
SuburbanOneSports.com: Also in the SOL National, Central Bucks East notched its first win over Neshaminy since 2003 and Pennridge shut out Pennsbury. Your thoughts.
Drew Markol: “That was a good win for CB East over Neshaminy. That Patriots had lost their opener to Ridley in tough fashion, and Neshaminy lost to Archbishop Wood 37-0. East evens its record and gets ready to face CB South on Friday night at South. The Patriots got big games from Ethan Shine, Quinn Moody and quarterback Patrick Keller. Neshaminy – at 0-2 – has to go up to Pennridge on Friday and try and right things against a Pennridge team that took care of a struggling Pennsbury team 35-0 last week. I don’t know what the answer is for Pennsbury. They got blown out in their opener against Academy Park, and they got blown out again against Pennridge, so they need to try and figure something out.
“Looking a little closer at Pennridge, they lost their opener to Downingtown East. Downingtown East did not have a great season last year, but those kind of down years don’t happen very often for either Downingtown East or West. That Downingtown East team that beat Pennridge on opening night is a pretty good team. They beat State College last weekend while Pennridge took care of Pennsbury. I think Pennridge is a team to be reckoned with in the National Conference. Are they at North Penn level? No, but will they be right in the mix? I think so. They might be the second best team in the conference when things are done. We’ll see what happens Friday against Neshaminy, but you have to give Pennridge a pretty big edge in that one.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Your thoughts about the Continental Conference in week two.
Drew Markol: “Souderton bounced back after losing to North Penn in its opener and hammered Harry S. Truman, which is off to an 0-2 start, so it looks like Souderton has gotten things back together. Quakertown took care of Council Rock North 42-7. The Panthers have won both of their games by the same score 42-7. They beat Southern Lehigh in week one, and in what is a very top heavy Continental Conference, Quakertown – along with Upper Dublin and Souderton – look to be right there at the top. This week Quakertown gets Council Rock South, which hasn’t won yet. It looks like the Quakers – if they keep doing what they’re doing – will find themselves off to a 3-0 start. You get off to starts like that you can start thinking about qualifying for district playoffs, but again, we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves.”
“We have to talk about what Upper Dublin was able to do after the community was devastated by the hurricane with flooding, wind and a tornado and all the damage, including to the school and the football field. The Cardinals had to go down to Council Rock South instead of having a home game, and they won big to go to 2-0. It will be interesting to see – Upper Dublin is good yet again as we seem to say every week and every year, but now they will have an unfortunate roadblock put in front of them with the damage that is done. It may just mean road game after road game from here on out for them, which just makes it that much more difficult. Again, credit to them for getting themselves together 36 hours at most after all that devastation and able to come up with a win.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Upper Moreland rallied for a 34-29 win over Archbishop Ryan. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “Upper Moreland may have had a classic case of overlooking an opponent. They played Archbishop Ryan last year in the opening round of the state tournament and really thumped them pretty good, 35-0. They played the Raiders again last week, but this week they had to come back from a 14-point deficit in the final quarter – which they did to get the win. That’s hopefully a lesson learned for the Golden Bears to not overlook anybody because things change, and if you do that, you can get burned. They almost did, but they didn’t so they go to 2-0.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: What are the games to watch this week?
Drew Markol: “Looking forward to this week with Abington at CB West, can the Ghosts bounce back after losing by 50 points to North Penn? They need to forget about that, and that can be easier said than done. They’re taking on a West team that rebounded nicely after getting blitzed themselves by Coatesville in week one. They came back and beat rival CB South. It’s a case of a team riding a high in West and a low in Abington. It will be interesting to see what transpires there.
“Another good one to look at would be CB East at CB South. Can South, which is on a roller coaster, wins their opener and now they play another CB rival in CB East. Can they bounce back against an East team that’s in the same mindset as West since they beat a Neshaminy team they hadn’t beaten in almost 20 years. It will be a big test for South. Can they bounce back? They don’t want to lose to both CB schools, for sure, and can East keep building on that win over Neshaminy?”
Drew Markol’s picks (Winner in bold)
Abington @ Central Bucks West
Upper Dublin @ Bensalem
Central Bucks East @ Central Bucks South
Archbishop Wood @ Cheltenham
Quakertown @ Council Rock South
Harry S Truman @ Hatboro-Horsham
Neshaminy @ Pennridge
North Penn @ Pennsbury
Norristown @ Plymouth Whitemarsh
Council Rock North @ Souderton
Phoenixville @ Upper Moreland
Methacton @ Wissahickon
New Hope-Solebury @ Academy of the New Church
William Tennent @ Palumbo