SPB's High School Football

Got anything going on tonight? Wanna talk high school football? Well, look no further than right here.

Join yours truly, Sean Patrick Bowley, the online sports producer for Hearst Connecticut Newspapers, in a live chat with Advocate writer Dave Ruden tonight at 7 p.m.

We’ll take a look at the upcoming high school football season, which starts Wednesday night with three regional games, and continues Thursday and Friday.

We’ll take as many questions as we can over the course of an hour. Hope to see you all there.

Three weeks into high school football preseason, two days before the regular season and I don’t recall getting any Ansonia comments from our good pal, Ray Brown.

Are you out there, Ray. You still with us? Anybody who knows, drop a line.

I know we have a proxy in our pal “Masuk Rules,” but it won’t be the same without Ray goin’ ga ga over his Ansonia Chargers, and putting everybody’s poor teams down.

Ray, come back to us. Your pal, Sean Patrick

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT…

This is something I’ve been pushing for for at least a year, maybe two: a neutral poll conducted by the Connecticut Sports Writers Alliance. Well, after a lot of work this offseason grabbing as many potential voters as possible from all the major dailies down the the smallest, one-school weekly, the CSWA has launched its inaugural poll.

Take a look and give us your thoughts. It’s not the official poll of record yet, the New Haven Register still holds sway over that, but its a start. Many of the the members of our Hearst Connecticut Newspaper group are participating, we have interesting representation from all across the state… and, if I may say so, quite an interesting result for the preseason.

New Canaan dominates the No. 1 ranking with 21 first-place votes. Hamden chimes in at No. 2 (seven first-place votes).

Glastonbury, last year’s Class LL champion (which lost a massive amount of last year’s team and, in my opinion is a one-year wonder) gets seven first-place votes, but only ranks as high as  No. 6. That basically means there are some serious true believers out there, and some serious doubters. No in-between.

Greenwich gets a first-place vote, but only comes in at 10.

Elsewhere, Shelton, Hand, Montville, Staples, Ridgefield, Notre Dame-WH get little love. As does Southington, Xavier, etc.

Bizarre, bizarre, bizarre.

This is nowhere near the way I would have ranked the Top 10 teams in the state, but who the heck am I and what do I know, right?

No worries, it’ll all come out in the wash, we hope.

CSWA Football Poll
Pre-Season
Released September 14, 2009

Also Receiving Votes: New London 12-1-0 161; Montville 9-3-0 140; Cheshire 10-3-0 136; Daniel Hand 7-4-0 130; Hillhouse 11-1-0 130; Shelton 7-4-0 120; Darien 11-2-0 116; Ledyard 10-3-0 77; Staples 6-5-0 65; Notre Dame-West Haven 4-6-0 58; Ridgefield 8-3-0 35; Crosby 9-2-0 28; Southington 7-4-0 24; Xavier 7-4-0 24; Windsor 9-3-0 22; Berlin 6-4-0 20; Bunnell 9-2-0 17; Fitch 2-9-0 14; Newtown 9-4-0 13; Northwest Catholic 8-2-0 12; Simsbury 9-3-0 12; West Haven 6-4-0 12; Wilbur Cross 6-5-0 12; Trumbull 7-3-0 11; Newington 10-3-0 10; Pomperaug 6-5-0 10; Bloomfield 5-6-0 8; Bridgeport Central 3-8-0 7; Rocky Hill 10-2-0 7; Canton 2-9-0 5; Hyde Leadership 9-3-0 5; Cheney Tech 10-1-0 4; Avon 9-3-0 3; St. Joseph 6-5-0 2; North Branford 10-2-0 1; Norwich Free Academy 6-4-0 1

Voters: Marc Allard (Norwich Bulletin), Bob Barton, Bill Bloxsom (Hersam Acorn), Don Boyle (Sporting News CT), Jim Bransfield (Middletown Press), Johnny Burnham (Bristol Press), Bryant Carpenter (Meriden Record-Journal), Bryant Carpenter (Meriden Record-Journal), Matt Conyers (Hartford Courant), Ray Curren (Elm City Newspapers), Anthony Della Calce (Central CT weeklies), George DeMaio (WELI Radio), Gerry deSimas, Bill Donovan (WXLM 104.7 FM), John Goralski (Southington Observer), Dave Greenleaf (CCC website), Mike Guerrera (Southington Citizen), Mark Jaffee (Waterbury Republican), Larry Kelley (Times Community Newspapers), Greg Lederer (Cheshire Herald), Ken Lipshez (New Britain Herald), Andrew Lovell (New Britain Herald), Robert Mayer (Berlin/Plainville Citizen), Tim Parry (FCIAC Football Blog), Sean Patrick Bowley (Connecticut Post), Joe Perez (Norwich Bulletin), Pat PIckens (Fairfield Citizen-News), Ryan Pipke (New Britain Herald), Mike Pucci (New Haven Register), Jesse Quinlan (Greenwich Time), Dave Ruden (Stamford Advocate), Steve Sellers (Shore Publishing Newspapers), Mike Suppe (Hersam Acorn Newspapers), Peter Vander Veer (Elm City Newspapers), Tom Yantz (Hartford Courant), Rich Zalusky (Willimantic Chronicle), Jimmy Zanor (Shore Line Newspapers)

And, after a brief blog respite, we continue to countdown our top eight football teams in southwest Connecticut.

Here’s the list so far (which can be found on our High School Football page here).

8. Ansonia
7. Notre Dame-WH
6. Masuk
5. New Canaan
4. Staples
3. Shelton

A pretty good list, in my estimation. Although judging by many of the comments (particularly the Ansonia post which can be found here) many of you have had some vast disagreements with me.

And that’s absolutely fine. Everybody is entitled to their thoughts. This is, after all, the preseason and anything put out there at this point is basically blindly throwing darts at a board. We really won’t know who’s got what until the season finally kicks off in T-minus 2 days.

But that won’t stop us from trying to get a little arc onto our throws, see if we can’t hit a bullseye (or eight).

So, that said, we present to you our No. 2 team in southwest Connecticut…

(coming soon!)

FCIACfootball blogger Tim Parry and The Advocate’s Dave Ruden are reporting some intriguing news out of New Canaan, where a Division I football recruit has suddenly dropped into coach Lou Marinelli’s lap. His name is Turner Baty.

From Ruden’s latest blogpost, which can be found on our site here

Baty, a senior, passed for 1,800 yards at Menlo-Atherton High School in California last season. His father, Greg, is a former NFL tight end. Baty is 6-foot-2, 205 pounds and reportedly has an offer from Stanford and has drawn interest from Tennessee and Miami.

Baty, according to Marinelli, started this season at a school in Florida, but is moving with his family to New Canaan to be closer to his mother, who works for ESPN. Greg Baty is good friends with former NFL quarterback Terry Hanratty, whose son Conor is a junior tackle for the Rams.

Marinelli said he has known about the possibility of Baty transferring for about a week, has met him several times and will see him workout for the first time today.

“I haven’t seen the kid practice at all,” Marinelli told Ruden. “I hear he’s good. He seems like a nice kid. But I haven’t seen him do anything yet.”

According to Ruden, who apparently talked to the coach this morning, Baty’s sudden arrival has created some upheaval within the program. Players, a source told Ruden, are unhappy that an interloper would parachute in and take a starting job.  As of now, Marinelli said Willie Oulette is his starter, but anything’s possible. “I’ll do what’s best for the team,” Marinelli said.

You can watch Baty’s 2008 highlight reel here.

This is wild. We haven’t seen such a case ’round these parts since the day Carson Palmer transferred to St. Joseph for about a week in the late 1990s before heading back to California, where he obviously starred as a senior and became a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback at The University of Southern California.

Just like that situation, Baty has moved from one parent’s home, to another. But, unlike that situation, he’s likely here to stay–especially since football season is so close to starting. It’ll get tougher and tougher to make another switch as the days go on.

So Marinelli is going to be torn, especially if Baty turns out to be the better quarterback on the roster. On one hand, he’ll have Oulette–who has come up through the program, put in his time and earned the starting job in the preseason. On the other, Baty might be one of those exemplary players that can turn a good team in to a great one. In an upscale town like New Canaan, there certainly won’t be an easy solution to this mess.

Personally, Baty’s arrival in Connecticut already makes him the best quarterback in the state. I mean, sheesh, he has an offer from Stanford, and interest from Tennessee, Miami, Florida, Florida State, Ole Miss and Georgia. What other bona fide Division I seniors do we have running around out there? Khairi Fortt of Stamford,  DeVaughn Millington from Ridgefield…? Anyone else? How about QBs? Nick Merullo from Hand isn’t going Division I from what I understand. Even if there were other QBs of interest in this state, none of them are getting looks from practically every big Division I school of note.

New Canaan plays Bassick to start the season, so they technically have some time to figure this out.

Read the latest from both Parry and Ruden here:

Ruden: A potential quarterback controversy in New Canaan

Parry: Division I quarterback shows up on New Canaan’s doorstep

We continue to countdown the Elite 8 high school football games of southwestern Connecticut. We’re at No. 6, now. That means just five more days to football season.

Annnnnd our No. 6 is… Masuk.

Pshhhhhhhhhhhsssssst!

Hear that? That’s the sound of a few of our fans’ hopes for a high Masuk rank deflating into the suddenly chilly air. Sorry, boys (you know who you are). Masuk only chimes in the bottom half of this list. (Hey, at least you’re on it.)

As discussed in the section, it’s a talented team, but also a young team. Yes, Casey Cochran comes over to the Class L champions after helping New London win the Class SS title over Seymour. But he’s still a sophomore who has to learn a whole new system, and save for a few veterans scattered through the lineup, the rest of the Panthers are practically a brand-new team. Lots of underclassmen up and down the roster.

Luckily, Masuk’s schedule is here to help. Pomperaug, expected to contend for the SWC title, is not the regular season slate. The other biggies really don’t come until Week 7. (We’ll just see about New Fairfield and their QB, guys. We’ll see.) Masuk has plenty of time to work out the kinks until then.

I’m guessing Masuk has a good chance to be undefeated come November. So I’m sure they’ll make the climb as the pretenders get knocked off this list. Always happens. …Until then, there are a few other teams we like more than the defending Class L champions. Tune in tomorrow to find out our No. 5.

Not a heckuva lot to report from tonight’s Ansona-Shelton clash at Finn Stadium. Ansonia, already banged up and struggling with depth, took an early touchdown lead but succumbed to a rash of Shelton touchdowns in a 19-7 first half.

Ryan DeAngelis scored on two short runs and Paul Piccirillo caught a 44-yard touchdown pass from Ray Pendagast.

And it could have been worse. Shelton got inside the 5 twice but botched a pair of field goal attempts (one was wide, the other, on the last play of the half, ended in a bad snap).

Ansonia’s defense was shaky against Pendagast and his cadre of receivers, including Shaquille Holman and Mike Georgalas. The Gaels’ new-look spread offense found all kinds of seams in the Charger’s secondary.

Quarterback Nick O’Connor (leg) didn’t play and the Chargers handed the reins to sophomore Elliott Chudwick Chudwig, who scored the first touchdown of the night on a short plunge. On the same drive, Ansonia had long touchdown run by Bobby Kinnebrew nullified by a penalty. Overall Ansonia had some problems getting the ball out from under center. Even when it did, fumbled quite a bit.

A bright spot for the Chargers came toward the end when, after Shelton’s Tim Scalzi picked off Chudwig with about 30 seconds remaining, Ansonia stopped the Gaels from scoring inside the 5-yard line.

The subs came in for the second half. I got out of there. Ansonia is hoping to get O’Connor back in time for the opener vs. Hillhouse. Shelton looks to be ready for Thursday night’s opener against West Haven (which defeated Central’s first team 7-0 today at Kennedy Stadium.

The Ansonia at Shelton scrimmage scheduled for Friday night, has been moved up to tonight, Shelton coach Jeff Roy said.

Apparently it’s supposed to be a monsoon on Friday night, so this sounds like a pretty good move.

Ansonia coach Tom Brockett said earlier the two teams are only going to scrimmage full bore for two quarters, anyway. So if you’re looking for a showdown scrimmage, this isn’t the one you’re looking for.

We will be live Tweeting from the event. Follow me at http://twitter.com/spbowley. If you don’t have Twitter, what are you waiting for? This is where you will get all your breaking High School sports news from here until the next big thing comes along. You can watch all the live tweets by searching #cthsfootball on your home computer, laptop or mobile device. Works great with Blackberrys and iPhones.