Archbishop Wood...

[district1elite]

Their non-league schedule: TOUGH
Red Catholic league: Prep/La Salle/Wood.. very tough!

5A playoffs for Wood: COWARDLY!

I hope next season assuming Wood makes the 5A title... or 4A ( I hear their moving down LOL) that the team representing the West boycotts the game and calls it a season because it's just bullshit. You take a team like gateway who earned the right to be there and they have a .0000001% chance of winning. Like I said, that season schedule is competitive and to me is exactly what type of schedule a team like wood should play. But Lou Pacciolli and the PIAA governing body should feel embarrassed it's not right or fun for anybody other than Wood playing in the 5A bracket...

Proposition: Bring back catholic league or play in the 6A brackets. OR a independent national schedule.

I remember when Wood used to play in the BLUE catholic league and play Tennent every year on Thanksgiving. Now they steal players from Doylestown, Abington, Warminster, and whoever else they can get their hands on.

Wood: GREAT TEAM. Seriously, their awesome and extremely balanced and well coached and I absolutely take nothing away from the players... they deserve the success clearly they are playing hard and for scholarships which I love to see... but cmon... Poor Gateway out there getting truck sticked like madden. That's what it looks like... like a video game!

 

[Relayer]

Happy for the Wood program. However, I will say that Wood's road to the title was comical. If you are consistently mercy ruling every opponent in the post-season, there is something wrong with the system, especially at the 5A level.

 

[district1elite]

Exactly! It needs to come from PIAA to make a change... you can't blame the wood program for being successful. I do think it's cowardly not to join the 6A brackets when you're given the option.

 

[ChesmontLeague1]

Their non-league schedule: TOUGH
Red Catholic league: Prep/La Salle/Wood.. very tough!

5A playoffs for Wood: COWARDLY!

I hope next season assuming Wood makes the 5A title... or 4A ( I hear their moving down LOL) that the team representing the West boycotts the game and calls it a season because it's just bullshit. You take a team like gateway who earned the right to be there and they have a .0000001% chance of winning. Like I said, that season schedule is competitive and to me is exactly what type of schedule a team like wood should play. But Lou Pacciolli and the PIAA governing body should feel embarrassed it's not right or fun for anybody other than Wood playing in the 5A bracket...

Proposition: Bring back catholic league or play in the 6A brackets. OR a independent national schedule.

I remember when Wood used to play in the BLUE catholic league and play Tennent every year on Thanksgiving. Now they steal players from Doylestown, Abington, Warminster, and whoever else they can get their hands on.

Wood: GREAT TEAM. Seriously, their awesome and extremely balanced and well coached and I absolutely take nothing away from the players... they deserve the success clearly they are playing hard and for scholarships which I love to see... but cmon... Poor Gateway out there getting truck sticked like madden. That's what it looks like... like a video game!

Public school Southern Columbia has won 8 but nobody bitching about them? I don’t think Wood is stealing anyone. I’d want my kid to play for them over a crappy Tennett, Hatboro or Lower Moreland.

 

[delcofootball1]

Agreed, I'm not sure what the answer is though. People call for a private division, are there enough private schools to do so? WhAt would it look like? All I do know is that the product in these championship games stink.

 

[Relayer]

Public school Southern Columbia has won 8 but nobody bitching about them? I don’t think Wood is stealing anyone. I’d want my kid to play for them over a crappy Tennett, Hatboro or Lower Moreland.

....and Southern Columbia will be even better next year. That's a scary thought at 2A.

 

[delcofootball1]

Public school Southern Columbia has won 8 but nobody bitching about them? I don’t think Wood is stealing anyone. I’d want my kid to play for them over a crappy Tennett, Hatboro or Lower Moreland.

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure Pitts started his high school career at Abington- 9/10th grade year. Is that stealing?

 

[Fletchster1]

What a shame for those Gateway kids. Great season comes crashing to an end. I don’t have all the answers, but teams need to play by the same rules (boundaries).

 

[ChesmontLeague1]

Exactly! It needs to come from PIAA to make a change... you can't blame the wood program for being successful. I do think it's cowardly not to join the 6A brackets when you're given the option.

I wouldn’t mind seeing them play up too but helll.. we are talking about schools running table. Let’s have Southern Columbia play up. I think they should play up to 6A. They’ve made the point at a lower class?

 

[ChesmontLeague1]

Agreed, I'm not sure what the answer is though. People call for a private division, are there enough private schools to do so? WhAt would it look like? All I do know is that the product in these championship games stink.

So we had 1.bad game which included a Catholic school winning. Ithe championship includes 6 classes. Doesn’t seem like Catholic schools dominated all the championship games. Hey.. always good to keep changing but let’s not be short sited about the whole picture!

 

[00shoe]

recruiting was not the question tonight. regardless of their record Gateway was a poor team. Poor fundamentals, couldn't block, couldn't tackle,lineman stood straight up on every play, and their offense looked like a back yard pick up game. Yes, Wood had better players but good coaching could have made the game more competitive,

 

[delcofootball1]

Not 100 percent sure of my stats but I know
I'm close- 18 or 19 of the last 34 champions have been from private schools. That's more than 50 percent of the championships while making up less than 15% of piaa schools.

 

[delcofootball1]

to my last point- 12 of the 18 private school wins were over public schools. The other 6 were over fellow private schools. Again, less than 15% of the piaa football population.

 

[Fletchster1]

It will be interesting to see how PIAA handles it; pressure seems to be reaching a breaking point.

 

[SPEED&JUMP DR.]

Southern Columbia has become a popular destination for the transfer / recruiting issue in District 4. Their starting QB for example 'prepped ' a Lewsiburg High for a year rather than sit behind SC all state QB. Once that QB graduated , he transferred in to SC where he has the chance to win three state titles.

 

[kitwor]

What a shame for those Gateway kids. Great season comes crashing to an end. I don’t have all the answers, but teams need to play by the same rules (boundaries).

I expected to see at least a semblance of a Gateway team that Terry Smith had about 8 years ago with 7 or 8 division 1 players. That team was really something. Although Wood is very well coached they had much better talent on both sides of the ball. Gateway only had a sprinkling of good athletes and it was apparent after the first series. Holl did a great job and got the best out of his kids all year. Although Devlin gets blasted on this board there is no denying that he always gets the best out of the talent he brings in every year.Its starts up front and year after year they appear to have the best offensive line in football.

 

[kitwor]

....and Southern Columbia will be even better next year. That's a scary thought at 2A.

Relayer,

If you look at the results of Southern Columbia's games the last couple years, it blows my mind that Roth doesn't at least try to play up in classification. To me it has to get boring blowing out teams by halftime all year long. Bottom line, his teams are good enough and coached well enough to compete with even 5A schools in the state. Wood gets a lot a crap on this board but I think the route that Southern has taken all these years is worse.

 

[ChesmontLeague1]

It will be interesting to see how PIAA handles it; pressure seems to be reaching a breaking point.

Fletcher - Who are we kidding? PIAA is going to cave in on the gut reaction and the vast majority of imember schools who are public. No doubt in my mind PA will eventually have separate public and private championships for better or worse!

 

[Burrs5]

I refuse to believe that everything is on the up and up at Southern Columbia. They started a bunch of freshman and sophomores last year and made it to the state final. It’s very uncommon to have that type of quality and depth in younger classes like that, especially from a part of the state that really isn’t over-populated.

 

[Stalker]

One thing in my view is….moving up in class won’t settle the core argument. Moving Wood to 6A or Cathedral, Berks Catholic, Bishop McDevitt whoever, will see Wood/SJP/LS eliminate each other, I guess the goal of those dissatisfied now, but also see Cathedral eliminating McDowell/Erie High and Berks and McDevitt eliminating a Wilson/CD/Township/CV type. What have you gained? An all private school tournament? Talk about irony.

 

[Burrs5]

PCL wants to have a team that can compete in every class, so Wood moving to 6A with SJP and LaSalle already there won't happen.

Wood moving up to 5A could and should happen, IMO. Now, I'm pretty sure they are going to play in the big school division, but i'm not sure if it's going to be as a 5A or 4A team. No reason for them to move down and play in their actual class until they show regression as a program. The PCL has been in the PIAA 10 years now and they have reached the semifinals in at least nine of them and won 5 state titles at 3A/5A (the second highest enrollment). The year they didn't get out of their district was the year they lost to Imhotep in D-12 final. Imhotep went onto to win the 5A title that year. Wood was obviously the second best 5A team in the state that year and arguably the second best team regardless of class.

For discussion sake if they were to remain at 4A for state classification purposes then they would have to (maybe) get by Imhotep if they opt to remain at 4A (Numbers fall at 3A, but they were at 3A in last go-around and they moved up). Imhotep had a strong junior class and are probably the favorites at 4A as constituted.

 

[SOL#1]

Their non-league schedule: TOUGH
Red Catholic league: Prep/La Salle/Wood.. very tough!

5A playoffs for Wood: COWARDLY!

I hope next season assuming Wood makes the 5A title... or 4A ( I hear their moving down LOL) that the team representing the West boycotts the game and calls it a season because it's just bullshit. You take a team like gateway who earned the right to be there and they have a .0000001% chance of winning. Like I said, that season schedule is competitive and to me is exactly what type of schedule a team like wood should play. But Lou Pacciolli and the PIAA governing body should feel embarrassed it's not right or fun for anybody other than Wood playing in the 5A bracket...

Proposition: Bring back catholic league or play in the 6A brackets. OR a independent national schedule.

I remember when Wood used to play in the BLUE catholic league and play Tennent every year on Thanksgiving. Now they steal players from Doylestown, Abington, Warminster, and whoever else they can get their hands on.

Wood: GREAT TEAM. Seriously, their awesome and extremely balanced and well coached and I absolutely take nothing away from the players... they deserve the success clearly they are playing hard and for scholarships which I love to see... but cmon... Poor Gateway out there getting truck sticked like madden. That's what it looks like... like a video game!

Lou Patch is District 1, has nothing to do with District 12. Kids are leaving Public Schools to go to Wood for academic & religious reasons, not football related. Transfers for athletic purposes are not allowed by PIAA. Wood, I believe has a outstanding Advanced Placement and College Preparatory Academic Programs, hence the attraction.

 

[bohucon]

PIAA should create a two-classification playoff system for private schools.
AA - larger private schools with a male enrollment larger than 226.
A - smaller private schools with a male enrollment less than 226.
If during the regular season, they play public schools they should fall into whatever classification their enrollment places them on the public scale.
In order to even out the playoff brackets at the district/state levels - the PIAA would need to merge districts to make it feasible.

It's not very difficult to create, other than legislative action....

 

[Stalker]

PCL wants to have a team that can compete in every class, so Wood moving to 6A with SJP and LaSalle already there won't happen.

Wood moving up to 5A could and should happen, IMO. Now, I'm pretty sure they are going to play in the big school division, but i'm not sure if it's going to be as a 5A or 4A team. No reason for them to move down and play in their actual class until they show regression as a program. The PCL has been in the PIAA 10 years now and they have reached the semifinals in at least nine of them and won 5 state titles at 3A/5A (the second highest enrollment). The year they didn't get out of their district was the year they lost to Imhotep in D-12 final. Imhotep went onto to win the 5A title that year. Wood was obviously the second best 5A team in the state that year and arguably the second best team regardless of class.

For discussion sake if they were to remain at 4A for state classification purposes then they would have to (maybe) get by Imhotep if they opt to remain at 4A (Numbers fall at 3A, but they were at 3A in last go-around and they moved up). Imhotep had a strong junior class and are probably the favorites at 4A as constituted.

I was meaning if Wood and others were forced, if such as thing is possible, to go to 6A.
And amen on another thread Huck that Gateway was clearly lacking in many areas and it was obvious early. Defense!

 

[newman107]

So...by moving all the good non-boundary schools into the same classification we can eliminate all but two of them from any chance of winning a state title and allow "deserving" teams like Gateway and Unionville to play for the championship? Maybe that's a more closely contested game, but is it really what you want? I'm pretty sure there was a boatload of high school football players across the state last night, not wearing Gator uniforms, that were thinking "damn, that's the way it's done".

 

[HSFballFan19]

Newman, fair point. I brought up the "success factor" but that's certainly a downside. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but it stinks to see people put Wood down. Full disclosure, I was rooting for Gateway (I'm an avid public league supporter), but Wood's fundamentals are impressive. They don't just have great athletes. They are well-coached, pay great attention to detail, and have a weekly gameplan. I feel like they are one of the few teams in the state that play great defense and change their looks/schemes on that side of the ball. Credit to Devlin and his staff, and especially the kids!

 

[00shoe]

Sol 1, Academic reason? For some maybe, but those from Central Bucks, Council Rock and others that would be BS. If it was really about academics they would not go to Wood but Malvern Prep, LaSalle or an Inter-Ac. school. Nice spin try!

 

[lilromeo]

Sol 1, Academic reason? For some maybe, but those from Central Bucks, Council Rock and others that would be BS. If it was really about academics they would not go to Wood but Malvern Prep, LaSalle or an Inter-Ac. school. Nice spin try!

Those school districts you mentioned have Catholics that have always chosen to attend Wood and that includes Ryan Bates and Jake Cooper now at Penn State. Maybe ,just maybe Wood is the choice rather than LaSalle,Prep .Malvern etc. is financially its Much Less expensive and their proximity to Wood as well as continue playing with the kids they grew up playing with which was why my son went there.

 

[SOL#1]

Sol 1, Academic reason? For some maybe, but those from Central Bucks, Council Rock and others that would be BS. If it was really about academics they would not go to Wood but Malvern Prep, LaSalle or an Inter-Ac. school. Nice spin try!

Double Zero, you can't transfer to Wood for athletic reasons, has to be educational or religious reasons. Devlin was quoted about the high standard Wood has in academics. So if a Public School athlete is leaving after junior, soph, and freshman year, and was starting at that Public School athletic program, why would they transfer?

 

[SOL#1]

So...by moving all the good non-boundary schools into the same classification we can eliminate all but two of them from any chance of winning a state title and allow "deserving" teams like Gateway and Unionville to play for the championship? Maybe that's a more closely contested game, but is it really what you want? I'm pretty sure there was a boatload of high school football players across the state last night, not wearing Gator uniforms, that were thinking "damn, that's the way it's done".

Very well schooled in fundamentals, Mike Carey and Mike Pettine also preached and schooled players with fundamentals at CB West. Mike Carey has instilled that in Wood no question.

 

[d1football1]

Is Carey still involved? Was blown away how their o and d-lines come off the ball. That's a whole lot of coaching.

Hoping tonight's game delivers...

 

[HSFballFan19]

D1- I was wondering the same thing, but I didn't see him on the sidelines. Any AW guys know?

 

[PennStateNate]

recruiting was not the question tonight. regardless of their record Gateway was a poor team. Poor fundamentals, couldn't block, couldn't tackle,lineman stood straight up on every play, and their offense looked like a back yard pick up game. Yes, Wood had better players but good coaching could have made the game more competitive,

And the reason why, Wood recruited so they had better players to make Gateway look that bad.. Gateway isn't a bad team. You have never seen them so STFU

 

[curbed]

Carey has been gone for last 2 years.

 

[lilromeo]

Is Carey still involved? Was blown away how their o and d-lines come off the ball. That's a whole lot of coaching.

Hoping tonight's game delivers...

During the year I was at The Candlewick in Bucks County for lunch and talked to one of Mikes brothers and one of his daughters another time about Mikes future football plans. They both said Mike would like to get back into coaching at some point . Mikes brother said he still advises at Wood whenever he can. I hope he does return to coaching .He was IMO the BEST line coach in the state both at CB West and Archbishop Wood.

 

[lilromeo]

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure Pitts started his high school career at Abington- 9/10th grade year. Is that stealing?

Pitts decided to transfer which is his right to do , just as the QBs from Southern Columbia from Lewisburg and of course North Penns QB for the last couple of years. This is NOT stealing .I have no issue with those situations.

 

[district1elite]

I wonder if Carey is putting in for the pennridge job ?

 

[delcofootball1]

The problem is the "transfers" have become the norm in high school football. that's my problem.

 

[coverandmove1]

Athletic transfers are the problem and as soup says is supposed to be considered a no no.

 

[South Ave Sam]

Double Zero, you can't transfer to Wood for athletic reasons, has to be educational or religious reasons. Devlin was quoted about the high standard Wood has in academics. So if a Public School athlete is leaving after junior, soph, and freshman year, and was starting at that Public School athletic program, why would they transfer?

SOL, let's be honest, the real reason for these transfers is athletics. The reason penned on application to school and district cannot say that. Some definitely transfer to Wood for the athletic opportunity that the current football climate provides - championships and college athletic opportunities. No complaint there as parents and students should have the right to make the best choice for the students future. Devlin does do a great job coaching and preparing his players. The only issue I would have is the conduct of recruiting/enticing of players from other teams. Some of these parents/students make their choice based on the prospect of the opportunities without recruiting, however some are sold on these opportunities and provided the financial incentive to act on. This is where I would draw the line. Let's stop trying to penalize the student/player for making a decision based on their best interests, the PIAA should penalize any school for recruiting and for allowing such unsportsmanship like activities to occur.