HS Football: Week 3 Preview
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We’ve passed the Labor Day holiday—and already we’re approaching the third week of high school football campaign!
It’s still hard getting used to these early starts to the season, but, ready or not, we have one of our most competitive weekends of the fall, filled with many intriguing match-ups.
Speaking of high school sports, our special in-studio guest on this week’s “SportsTalk” will be PIAA Assistant Executive Director Melissa Mertz, as she discusses a number of scholastic sports topics and controversies over recent changes to the high school sports landscape. You can call with a question or comment on our live show this Thursday on RCN-TV, or email us your opinion right now to rcnsportstalk@rcn.com and we might read and respond to it on this week’s program.
Now, here are our first “in-season” high school football polls for teams in the District XI region…
“ Big” Schools Poll
1) Parkland
2) Emmaus
3) Freedom
4) Easton
5) Nazareth
Other schools receiving votes: Liberty
“Small” School Poll
2) Palisades
4) Notre Dame
Other schools receiving votes: Northwestern, Central Catholic
Our poll remains in the standard, tried-and-true format that we have utilized for many seasons. We will take the 400-male enrollment number as the cutoff for schools within the District XI/RCN-TV footprint. All of the schools above that number qualify as “big schools” in our poll. These schools consist of Parkland, Liberty, Allen, Easton, Emmaus, Liberty, Dieruff, Freedom, Stroudsburg, Pleasant Valley, Northampton, Nazareth, Whitehall, Southern Lehigh, East Stroudsburg-South, and Pocono Mountain East & West.
“Small schools” (below 400-male enrollment) consist of Bangor, Saucon Valley, Central Catholic, Bethlehem Catholic, Northwestern, Wilson, Palisades, Palmerton, Salisbury, Notre Dame, Pen Argyl, Northern Lehigh and Catasauqua.
Here are our RCN football experts weighing in on four of the biggest high school games this weekend . . .
| The “PICK 4” |
Whitehall vs. Emmaus | Southern Lehigh vs. Notre Dame | Parkland vs. Freedom | Liberty vs. Bethlehem Catholic |
| Gary Laubach | Emmaus | Southern Lehigh | Parkland | Bethlehem Catholic |
| Tony Cocca | Emmaus | Notre Dame | Parkland | Bethlehem Catholic |
| Keith Groller | Emmaus | Notre Dame | Parkland | Bethlehem Catholic |
| Chris Michael | Emmaus | Southern Lehigh | Parkland | Bethlehem Catholic |
Check back next week for more high school football notes, polls, video highlights and predictions.
By the way, if you saw all of our “SportsTalk at the Fair” programs last week, you already know that Keith and I have “upped the ante” by pledging that if either of us loses this year’s “Pick 4” contest, we agree to do a Fortnight Dance, live on “SportsTalk” (we’re still waiting to hear if Gary and Tony will commit to this).
