Post 155 – HS Football – Bull Session Week 7

This is the last week before the playoffs begin and there is still an unknown on the seedings and what teams get in.  There is a good article by Mike Pavlichko of WCTC (not to be confused with WCTV in Westwood) on making calculations easier to determine.  Go to the web site at www.wctcam.com and search for “Cutoff Weekend Cheat Sheet: how can my team make the playoffs?”……….Speaking of playoff calculations, I discovered the term northing  is a geographic measurement of things headed northward.  Additionally, there is a term called easting, also geographic, except it measures things eastward……….When I do my weekly polls, my rule of thumb for the public schools is I do not penalize them for losing to a good Catholic school team………. Some may be surprised to see Buena being undefeated, but I am not.  They played a very tough schedule for a Group 1 and finished 5-5 against the likes of Holy Spirit, Cedar Creek, Group 4 Absegami, Group 4 Highland, and Pleasantville.  This year the schedule is more realistic with an experienced squad……….One of the games I attended last week was the Clifton-Bergen Tech game at Clifton. Clifton Stadium is a good place for a game with stadium-like seating on the home side and Clifton has an outstanding band that performs before the game, halftime, and after the game.  There is also a lot of history on that field as Clifton was a power many years ago……….One surprise from last weekend was Don Bosco beating DePaul as easy as they did, rushing for over 500 yards, mostly from Kyle Monangai and Jalen Berger, as talented a pair of running backs as one can find……….While I am for curing any kind of cancer, including breast cancer, I have never been a fan of football teams wearing pink in October.  I am not being insensitive because my mother once had a lump in her breast that was non-cancerous.  That being said, I see less of the pink both this year and last year, which is a good thing. Bring awareness to breast cancer, I just don’t want to see football teams wearing pink.  And if I worked for one of the networks, I would probably get fired for saying that……….While many schools have converted their football fields over to field turf, I still enjoy seeing a game played on a grass field.  There is something good about a dirty uniform; John Madden can appreciate that……….Uniform front – The Good and Bad together:  Both Verona and Cedar Grove have good uniforms and they would have excellent uniforms if their home uniforms had contrasting numbers.  They have dark numbers on their white away jerseys, but Verona has maroon numbers on a maroon jersey and Cedar Grove has black numbers on a black jersey.  If they had contrasting numbers, they would look unbelievably good……….One section that may be wide open in the playoffs this year is Group 2 in North Section 1.  Defending champion Newton will be the favorite, but anything can happen in that section in any round……….Montclair has had some struggles this year, but they have just posted two consecutive games scoring 51 points……….It appears a great football played between Red Bank Catholic and Rumson-Fair Haven, with RBC winning, 14-13……….A good game between two Catholics to look forward to is St. Joe’s (Hammonton) and Holy Spirit.  I also expect them to meet again in the playoffs………. Other good Catholic matchups this weekend are Bergen Catholic-DePaul and St. Joe’s (Montvale)-St. Peter’s Prep……….Four teams with recent success with either state titles or finals appearances: Westfield, Timber Creek, Passaic Tech, and Bridgewater-Raritan have a combined record of 6-22 this year……..That’s it for this week.  I will be back with more bull, next week!