Monday Musings 9/12/2005

As late, great Des Moines Register columnist Maury White used to write: A little bit about a lot of things ...

In preparing our preseason rankings for the NPP and the Sporting News/School Sports 2005 High School Football Preview Magazine, I spoke with three different prep sports writers in the Dallas Metroplex who cautioned against ranking defending Prep Poll champ Southlake Carroll No. 1 to start the season. The consensus was that SLC's offense would still be darn near impossible to stop, but that they just would not be as good as last year's team. With the loss of Chase Daniel (Missouri) and Aaron Luna (Rice baseball), I tended to agree. But now I'm not so sure. We moved the Dragons up from No. 4 to No. 2 in this week's poll, and as I said even back in April making those calls, if SLC runs the table again in Texas, it will be pretty close to impossible for us NOT to crown them Prep Poll champs again. Of course, there's still 13 weeks of football left to be played, and the target on coach Todd Dodge's team back continues to grow larger. We'll see how it plays out. But kudos to SLC for keeping things rolling so far.

Speaking of Texas football, I am already tired of the Texas vs. Ohio wars being waged on prep football message boards across the nation's cyber battle fields. Cincinnati Colerain's convincing 27-12 defeat of Tyler Lee Friday night on ESPNU did NOT show the world that Ohio football is superior to Texas. Far from it. Colerain simply had the more experienced team and, seemingly, was better prepared for the game. This is not the same REL team that won Texas' 5A/I title last season. Only eight starters from that team played Friday night. It's no more accurate to say Ohio prep football is better than Texas than it would be say Big 12 ball is better than the Big Ten following UT's win over tOSU Saturday night. As a University of Iowa alum, I can confidently say that's not true. :-)

Is anyone else sad to see another De La Salle come to an end? The Spartans' 308-game run of not being shut out ended Saturday night at Clovis West in a 7-0 defeat. I have great respect for the De La Salle program, its coaches, players and the community that supports it. I will always be a fan of teams that outwork and outexecute the competition, which DLS has been able to better than nearly everyone throughout the years. But shed no tears for Coach Lad and the gang, redemption could come as early as an October 8 trip to No. 1 Mission Viejo, and if not, I'm told the Spartans have a sophomore and freshman class that might be as talented as any to step foot on campus.

If you haven't yet picked up the Sporting News/School Sports Preseason High School Football magazine, please do so soon. I still see copies on magazine racks in nearly every grocery store I enter, so they are out there. It's a terrific book with a lot of information, photos and features. If you enjoy prep football enough to read this blog, you will probably read the magazine from cover to cover twice before setting it down.

Mailbag. My doing this blog on a regular basis will depend in large part on the kind of response it gets. Please let me know you read it by sending me your comments, suggestions and questions to PrepNation@aol.com. I'd like to answer your questions and comments in this blog on at least a weekly basis.

This week's too early to predict prediction: No. 6 Long Beach Poly 34, No. 17 Bellevue 24. I like what I saw from Bellevue in Week 1 with the addition of some passing elements and personnel to its base Wing-T set and I love that it has an extra week to prepare for the Jackrabbits. But I still think Poly will have too many athletes and too many weapons to lose this game -- athletes and weapons DLS did NOT have when it lost to Bellevue last year. I also think the Poly kids will thrive on the big stage of playing on FOX Sports Net and in the NFL stadium. Look out for a very entertaining game. I can't wait to watch it.