SPB's High School Football

We got quite a few good guesses yesterday from our panel of regulars. Good guesses. But, definitely wrong.

Our No. 7 is, as you now know, Notre Dame of West Haven.

OK, OK, calm down, people. Shhhh! Yes. I hear you. Loud and clear.

Let me begin by saying I wrestled a long time with this decision. Ask Ned Griffen of The Day. He’ll tell you. It wasn’t easy. I made a few phone calls, poured over the few prospectuses that have come into my office (deadline day, coaches, is only two days away and I’ve yet to hear from quite a few of you), and even considered your Top 8s.

I made a choice. I’ll stick with it… that is until the Green Knights get hammered by Xavier in Week Two. (I can already hear the most superstitious guy I know, ND Alumni/PR director Steve Kirck, screaming at me this morning from his office: “Why’d you pick us!? You’re the kiss of death!!!”

Look, understanding that this group was 4-6 a year ago, and that a lot of things have to go Notre Dame’s way for this pick to come to fruition, the Green Knights have a team to make a run over there in the toughest league in the state, SCC Division I. Last year, if you remember, Notre Dame beat Hand (once again, a trendy preseason pick in the SCC. Location keeps it from being a part of these rankings) and it also beat playoff-bound Hamden in the Green Bowl.

The pieces, as I’ve discussed in today’s paper, are there. Athletic director Tom Marcucci is back running the show. He believes they’ll contend with every team on the schedule.

Oh yes, the schedule.

Did I mention it’s brutal? That early-season test with Xavier is at Palmer Field. Ask Shelton and Hamden what it’s like to compete up there. …Then Notre Dame comes home to play West Haven, which hammered the Green Knights last year. …They go to the Maclary Complex to face Cheshire. Home vs. for a non-conference vs. Naugatuck, home vs. dangerous Wilbur Cross. …And then, just as it starts to get windy and cold, they head to the Surf Club to play Hand.

What? The SCC couldn’t throw in the New York Giants for kicks?

So… yeah. A gutsy pick on my part, given the schedule and Notre Dame’s penchant for vanishing at times during the regular season. But, hey, you have to take a few shots in this business (remember Trinity Catholic at No. 8 in 2005?).

This is mine. For better or worse.

We’re getting closer. Can’t you feel it?

Yes you can. We know you can, because today we started the Elite 8 High School Football Countdown across the Hearst Connecticut Newspapers group, the Connecticut Post, The Advocate of Stamford, the NewsTimes of Danbury and the Greenwich Time.

Annnnd our No 8 is… Ansonia.

Right off the bat, we get busy with a perennial Elite 8 selection. Though the Chargers haven’t been ranked this low in quite a few years. It was waaay back in 2005, we think, incidentally the last time Ansonia missed out on the state playoffs.

That was, of course, one coach, back-to-back state championships and a runner-up finish ago. After surveying what we’ve seen and what we know (so far), Ansonia seemed to fit on the bubble. They bring back just six starters, but they’re still Ansonia.

Read the full Elite 8 report here: Sean Patrick Bowley’s Elite 8 Countdown

From here, the Elite eight gets a bit tougher. There are still plenty of good teams remaining that can fit either above or below the No. 8 spot occupied by the Chargers.

Any guesses? C’mon. We know you think you know. Try to climb into my head and see if you can figure it out…

By the way, the Ansonia-West Haven football scrimmage video will be up tomorrow around noon. Not as comprehensive as the others, and certainly not my best effort this year. Nevertheless, check back here later to see it.Update: The video is now up on our Ansonia-West Haven scrimmage report.

Stay frosty, my friends. Football season is just eight days away.

Stamford’s Khairi Fortt isn’t the only regional high school football player who has caught the eye of major college scouts. In this story by the NewsTimes’ Dan Farrandwe’re introduced to Ridgefield prospect Tommy Jordan, a massive offensive and defensive tackle for the Tigers.

Jordan, who stands out at 6-foot-5, 285 pounds has already received written offers from (drumroll…..) Florida and Boston College. Apparently, the two NCAA Bowl, uh… Sub.. no, um, Champ… um… NCAA Division I universities were impressed with what they saw from Jordan at their respective summer football camps.

Wait, there’s more: he’s only a 16-year old junior. Impressive stuff.

“I’m really excited,” Jordan told Farrand. “I guess I’m still a little in shock. This is the kind of stuff you dream about.”

Typically, when you get two big offers like that, more is bound to be more on their way. And underclassman offers have only come to a select few Connecticut high school football players. It happened with Stratford’s Torrey Mack, Fairfield Prep’s Masengo Kabongo, Greenwich’s Jonathan Meyers, among others. Since such offers usually start with lower-level or local Division I teams and then grow nationally, for Jordan to get such high-profile offers so early speaks volumes.

It also helps to have a Connecticut guy like Steve Addazio on the Florida staff. The former state championship coach at Cheshire and offensive coordinator at WestCon has become pretty good at mining this overlooked part of the country (He got Bristol Central’s Aaron Hernandez to decommit from UConn, grabbed New London QB Jordan Reed and nearly landed Kabongo and Meyers for Florida a few years ago.

Nevertheless, it’s a tremendous honor for Jordan. Now he’s going to have some decisions to make. Like Ridgefield coach Kevin Callahan says: this is only the beginning. “We’re expecting about 40 (offers) to come in,” Callahan said. “Once we get them all, we’ll go through them and he can pick where he wants to take his official visits.”

At least he has two years to figure it all out.

Read the full article here: Ridgefield’s Jordan drawing interest from Florida, BC

Just a quick note to report that Ansonia defeated West Haven, 13-7 tonight at Ken Strong Stadium.

Montrell Dobbs and newcomer Bobby Kinnebrew scored touchdowns for the Chargers.

But it was the Ansonia defense that saved the night in this one. They stuffed West Haven at the goal line to end the first half and preserve a 7-7 tie and also had at least two interceptions–Tyler Woods and Tim Troy had one apiece. New quarterback Nick O’Connor is a tough hombre.

Since rumors have been circulating that the Chargers got roughed up a bit by a big Notre Dame-West Haven team, this was a nice pick-me-up for the Chargers.

Update: (The video, as you can see, is now up).

Attention: This wasn’t the CIAC master schedule you printed out at the start of the high school football scrimmage season.

And it won’t show up now, either. You were going to have to dig a bit to find the annual West Haven-Ansonia scrimmage date, namely the Ansonia individual schedule. Never one to tip its hand even slightly, West Haven didn’t list it.

Newsflash: It’s tonight at 6.

Here’s another important tidbit. It’s being played down at West Haven’s Ken Strong Stadium and not Jarvis Field.

West Haven must want to put its sparkling new turf field to the test. It was just laid down over the last few weeks. You can get a sneak peak at it tonight, in addition to see how the new-look Ansonia Chargers are doing after what many dubbed a beating at the hands of the Tom-Marcucci-led Notre Dame-West Haven football team across town last week.

The early reports aren’t great on West Haven, either. But that’s why they’re scrimmaging, I guess.

See you there. …And, if not, I’ll see you elsewhere.

Shelton senior Paul Piccirillo sported a smile that stretched the length of a football field as went to meet his father, Paul, Wednesday night.

“We beat Masuk,” he said. “First time since I’ve been here. We actually beat Masuk.”

“Beat,” of course, is a relative term when it comes to high school football scrimmages. We are, after all, exactly two weeks away from the start of the regular season.

But there was no doubting the outcome in this 10-play-a-side scrimmage between Shelton and Masuk at Finn Stadium. Shelton looked flawless. Behind Piccirillo, Mike Georgalas and QB Ray Pendagast, not to mention three interceptions, made Shelton a winner in the eyes of those in attendance.

It was a scrimmage, yes, with coaches out on the field an an unorthodox format. But make no mistake, the players on both sides love putting this in the win column. And for the first time in a long time, Shelton could say they did a number on their neighbors.

Despite a few key mistakes at crunch time, Masuk coach John Murphy liked what he saw from his offense, particularly his trio of soon-to-be-starring sophomores, RB Colin Markus, QB Nick Chacho and QB Casey Cochran (whose father Jack watched from the stands.). The two QBs rotated time. Cochran threw two interceptions, Chacho one. Those three picks killed what had been otherwise effective Masuk drives. It also didn’t help that RB Alex Trump didn’t play and RB Jon Testani only played a series or two (he did, however, score a touchdown). One TD pass from Cochran to Markus was called back by a penalty.

That said, this was clearly Shelton’s night. Pendagast was absolutely on fire in Shelton’s new-look spread offense. It’s going to take a truckload of players to catch and bring Piccirillo down this season. Georgalas, a receiver, caught TD passes on back-to-back plays during one series. Piccirillo even saw time taking snaps at QB and, at one point, practically orchestrated a touchdown drive all by itself.

Masuk’s defense, a strength last year, needs some work.

Since Masuk didn’t run the ball much, we didn’t get to see Shelton’s defensive front-seven in action against the run after being ripped a tad by Staples on Sunday. But its defensive secondary was outstanding at times reaffirming the Gaels’ strength at the skill-positions. Georgalas had two interceptions, Tim Scalzi had one.

I also checked out Staples and Bunnell for about 40 minutes. Like Shelton, Staples appeared to dominate the proceedings as it did on Sunday against Shelton and Seymour. I didn’t stick around long enough to get a handle on who was who and who did what. So feel free to add your thoughts if you were there.

In fact, feel free to add any thoughts on any scrimmage you might have seen so far. We’ll have video up shortly, I hope.

For those of you who don’t know yet, we’ve added another correspondent to the Connecticut Post football crack staff. It’s Bridgeport native and Notre Dame-Fairfield graduate Henry Chisholm. Henry, who has been working with the Post for most of this year in the field and on the desk, has been a busy guy since football season started.

He’s been out and about, scouring through the trenches for any and all local high school football tidbits he can grab while I tend to my 9-5 as the online sports producer. He’s already seen about 10 regional teams, from as far away as Hamden all the way down to Staples, all while tending to his desk duties and logging some time at the Pilot Pen Tennis Tournament.

Henry’s a machine, folks. And we couldn’t be happier.

We got Henry set up with a twitter account and, wow, has he been tweeting away for anybody who checks out the #cthsfootball tag on Twitter.

If you’re on Twitter, be sure to follow him at MisterHRCtp, for all of his insight into the 2009 season. For those who aren’t on Twitter, get on and check him out.

To see what we’re talking about, here’s a transcription of Henry’s tweets from Bassick’s practice Monday afternoon. Remember, these are just 140 character bursts, but Henry managed to pack them with lots of good information.

MisterHRCtp MisterHRCtp football tour cont…Bassick brings back 18 guys, 10 on O 8 on D. #cthsfootball

MisterHRCtp Still here for Bassick Rodney Lanham at QB Jacquii Tuck, (cousin of Justin) at RB and Sebastian Guarrd at MLB. #cthsfootball

MisterHRCtp Gone but, not forgotten for Bassick Ross Ward at TE #cthsfootball

MisterHRCtp New Bassick coach Frank Marcucio is pumped. He raved about his coaches which includes Kevin Collins former Sacred Heart CB #cthsfootball

MisterHRCtp According to Marcucio his coaching staff has 4 st. champs and 5 st. champs appearances. #cthsfootball

MisterHRCtp Bassick only has 10 seniors, but many returners. Still trying to get Harding for y’all hopefully manana will by the day. #cthsfootball

As Henry mentioned, he’ll be out trying to get information at Harding. He also might visit the Ansonia-Notre Dame scrimmage in West Haven today.

I passed on the first few football scrimmages held Friday and Saturday because I was working hard with my new coworkers on the new websites Friday and because of all the bad weather and Pilot Pen finals on Saturday.

But I finally got myself together on this gorgeous Sunday to watch Staples and Seymour visit Shelton for a tri-scrimmage that–for a football-starved reporter–was four hours of bliss.

That is, until I felt sizzling skin on the back of my neck… yeah, forgot the sunblock. I’m in pain.

Won’t get too, too detailed on the report. Besides, reader Dave K beat me to the punch on another entry. Here’s what he saw:

Staples,Seymour @ Shelton
1 Staples – excellent skilled players QB and RBs Excellent line play out played Shelton
2 Shelton – deep in skilled positions; OL and DL need to improve; new offense (spread and wildcat) needs time to develop. played an entire scrimmage with out one toss pitch.
3 Seymour- small line, not impressed with QB, out played by both Shelton and Staples

Update: Here’s another take, this time from Johnny Ribbs on a seperate post:

Staples,Seymour @ Shelton (my take)
1 Staples – QB’s didnt impress me at all. Big squad. Solid overall.
2 Shelton – deep in skilled positions; QB looked great to me.
3 Seymour- no argument they were outplayed by both squads. QB looked ok in the pass skeleton, Seymour got smacked around pretty good in the 7 on 7.

That’s pretty much what I noticed, too. (Thanks, guys). Indeed, there was one stretch during the rushing portion of the scrimmage when Staples’ offensive line consistently opened big gaps or flattened the ends on sweeps off tackle, to bust their tailbacks loose for potentially big runs. Shelton passes the eyeball test for size. But, surprisingly enough, the run defense’s ineffectiveness stood out.

Passing defense? The Gaels were pretty good. They have athletes at the skill positions. And, on offense, 6-4 senior quarterback Mike Brighindi Ray Pendagast and his receivers picked Staples’ secondary apart, prompting Wreckers assistant Mac DeVito to quip to boss Marce Petroccio during one play, “Do you want to fire me now or after the scrimmage?”

Shelton’s run game was particularly good. Its offensive line, which returns three starters, broke open some holes for senior tailback Paul Piccirillo and junior Ryan DeAngelis. Piccirillo, in fact, scored often, including back-to-back TDs late in the scrimmage. Like Dave said, they’re trying a some new things on offense.

Staples’ QB Brandon Pacilio threw decent long passes to his receivers. They made a few nice catches. The Wreckers’ option offense under his direction and the aforementioned O-line looks like it could be pretty good.

Seymour has some issues. The ‘Cats are a mix of vets and kids who never played a lick of football in their life. Taylor Searles, the tailback, stood out at times. QB Conor Shugrue has to break in a brand-new receiving corps. The defense struggled against both Staples and Shelton. Big and athletic tackle Jacob Drozd may make a move from D-line to linebacker. So far, it’s a work in progress.

New coach Tom Lennon who is taking over for 28-year coach Paul Sponheimer says they have some work to do. That Seymour eschewed spring practices for extra days this August, Lennon says, has made a world of difference.

But, don’t forget, this is far early in the preseason. None of this means squat come Sept. 16.

Anyway, video to come as soon as I get it transcribed and edited. First football video of the season with the new camera. We’ll see how this goes.

Until then, your comments are welcome.

(Thanks to Dave K, again, for correcting me on Pendagast. Like I said to a few people at the scrimmage, I always got him and Brighindi mixed up.)