Post 487 – Bull Session Playoffs

Congratulations to Paulsboro head coach Glenn Howard getting his 300th career win this past Saturday. He is a top coach and a very classy human being…..Pet Peeves: A player for Notre Dame who will go nameless returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown, but hot dogged it the last 10 yards and came very close to being the Ass of the Week. A Prep defender in close pursuit of five yards or less actually came very close to stripping the ball from him. The defender (#40) was breathing down his back on the 2-yard line, had his hand on the ball on the 1, but Williams’ momentum carried him into the end zone where the ball came out. Two yards earlier and the player is the Ass of the Week…..I would be shocked if the Non-Public Group 2 final did not involve St. Joe’s (Hammonton) and Holy Spirit….. Bergen Catholic played Don Bosco last Friday night, but I went to the Lyndhurst-Mahwah semi-final instead. BC-Bosco is one of Jersey’s premier rivalries, but it will be the 33rd time they have played since 1999 and I’ve seen most of them. My attitude is “how many times can I see them?”…..With so many schools getting lights to play on Friday nights, there aren’t as many Saturday afternoon games and it is hard to see quality games at that time. Last Saturday was a prime example with the playoffs if one lives in the northern half of the state. There were 49 playoff games last weekend and only 9 are on Saturday. Of those 9, 4 are in South Jersey and 5 are Catholic school contests. Not a good choice of games…..If anyone is looking to attend a Thanksgiving Day game, there are fewer and fewer of them. This year, there are 35 games on Thursday and 7 on Wednesday night, Thanksgiving Eve. On Thanksgiving Day, 19 of the 35 are in South Jersey, 7 in Central Jersey, and 9 in North Jersey. Wednesday evening has 6 of the 7 games in South Jersey and the other in North Jersey…..My finale on the Howell football team ends with good news: their first win, 27-6 over Perth Amboy. Their nine losses were by a total of 76 points – the largest margin being 25 points. Subtract that and they lost eight games by a total of 51 points: a little over 6 points per game. In this age of blowouts, that is very competitive for a 1-9 team…..With the new system of seeding the playoff sections, there is good and bad. The good features interesting matchups we would not see under the old format. Additionally, the sections have more balance among them: not as many weak sections as there used to be. The bad thing is that many of us don’t know who is playing who that week, including yours truly. We never had to worry about that under the old seeding format…..With this new seeding system, South Jersey is looking very good, finishing 24-11 against Central Jersey. I have said South Jersey has a better quality of high school football than North Jersey and it may be the case with Central Jersey…..With the New York metropolitan area having bad football and the Knicks in basketball, the Islanders are having a very good start to their season…..I thought the Giants might not win another game this year, but they have a chance against the Redskins…..That’s it for this week. I will be back soon for some more bull!