Across the PrepNation: Charlotte

Time to check in again with John Teal, our man in Charlotte, N.C. He witnessed West Charlotte's 20-14 upset of regionally ranked Butler on Friday/Monday.


By John Teal

West Charlotte traveled back to east Charlotte Friday (and again Monday) to play undefeated Butler. The Lions lost to Indy the previous week while Butler came in undefeated but untested. The Bulldogs are loaded with talented skill position players with five being elite D1A recruits. WC is loaded with speed and has some huge offensive linemen.

The game was suspended Friday night with nine minutes to go in the third quarter. WC had just scored to go up 13-0 and was preparing to attempt the PAT when a bolt of lightning sent the teams to the dressing rooms.

Play resumed Monday night with a converted PAT and a 14-0 lead for WC. WC upped it to 20-0 on a long pass after a scramble by qb Darius Thomas at the end of the third period. Thomas is good quicks and size to go with a good arm and nice accuracy.

Butler was able to score on a 35 yard pass from Ryan Charest (Illinois verbal) connected with Jarrett Boykin making it 20-7 with seven minutes to play.

On the next possession WC faced third and twelve and attempted a middle screen that was returned to the WC 15. Next play Butler runs a midsdirection and the wideout runs it up the middle cutting it to 20-14.

WC drove the ball and had a second and one on the Butler 32. Butler stopped them and took over with a little under a minute to go. Charest connected on two passes including one over the middle to Mickey Brewer for about fifteen yards. Brewer lateraled the ball to a Butler receiver dragging across from the opposite side. WC ran him down. Charest then ran eight yards and spiked the ball making it third and two. Two passes fell to the ground and WC had the victory.

WC's speed and physical play on the Butler wideouts threw the Bulldogs off their game. Butler did not stretch the field and hit the short passes underneath. Seemed the field was bottled up for the Butler receivers.

This game changed attitudes. Butler had been picked to be the team to take out Indy the last game of the season but after the last two weeks no one is so sure.

Elsewhere, regionally ranked Indy beat Vance 28-0 in a game called early in the third period. Vance was stopped on a two point conversion in the last minutes in 2006. With a new school, Mallard Creek, opening and losing alot of seniors Vance is not up to its past level.

Greenville Rose lost for the second week in a row. After winning 38 straight it is apparent that Rose is in a rebuilding year. Wilmington Hoggard, Rose's semifinal victim last year, manhandled the Rampants 48-17.

NOTE: PrepNation is looking to add more bloggers from across the country to contribute game reports, commentary and other nuggets about high school football and boys basketball. Drop us a line at prepnation@aol.com if you are interested.

The week in review: 9/17/07

I say it a lot, but sometimes people still have a hard time believing me when I tell them the national rankings I compile are a living, breathing organism capable of changing each week.

Every team in the poll is re-evaluated and re-ranked every week in accordance with how it is playing, who it has played against, and my best forecast of how it will fare against the remaining teams on its schedule.

I do not lock a team in to a ranking and say "this spot belongs to them until they lose."

Teams move up. Teams move down. Be it from No. 15 to No. 12 or from No. 17 to No. 22. So too can teams from down from spots in the Top 5.

Unlike the college football polls where several head-to-head results and common opponents can be factored in, ranking high school teams is as much an art as a science. Each week I view game film of the teams I am ranking and blend my own evaluation in with the opinions of experts around the country whose opinions I value and trust.

I don't know of a better way to do it -- and I am proud that I to take the time to share with readers how I do it.

Not unexpectedly, my email box was already overflowing with Prep Poll-related correspondence this morning. A lot of it emanating from the folks living in or near the 513 area code (that's Cincinnati). There was plenty of concern expressed by some St. Xavier supporters about my decision to leap frog Miami Northwestern to No. 1 in this week's rankings over their Bombers.

St. Xavier supporters: You have my complete and utter understanding of your position. It's one side of an argument that played out in several phone conversations, email exchanges, and in my head as I finalized this week's rankings last night.

Because I am so fully aware of both Northwestern's and St. Xavier's strong cases for No. 1, I will give a thumbnail sketch of both.

But before you read it, keep in mind that it's only September 17. There are three full months of football to be played before the National Prep Poll titlist is crowned.

Northwestern's case for No. 1 and the case against St. Xavier (as of 9/17/07):

• Northwestern owns the single best win of any team in the country this season. They not only defeated the then-No. 2 team in the country, they did so in pretty convincing fashion. They also did it on a field located no more than 30 miles from Carroll's campus and no less than 1,300 miles away from their own.
  
• Northwestern's winning margin was only 8 points, but the Bulls were able to shut out Carroll in the second half -- something perhaps no other team has done this decade. This is a Carroll program that has won 80 of its last 82 games with four state championships and two National Prep Poll titles since 2002.
  
• Beating the Dragons in their own backyard answered questions a lot of people (including me) had about just how well Northwestern would jell this season. I was dubious considering the turmoil that Northwestern's players endured during the offseason and considering the players were not introduced to an almost entirely new coaching staff until just a couple of weeks before the start of two-a-days. You know the old axiom that championships are won in the offseason? Well, as a subscriber to that notion, I am in disbelief at how well put together Northwestern's program looked Saturday night. I cannot applaud enough how terrific the senior leadership on this team must be and what an outstanding job Coach Billy Rolle and his staff have done in getting the team to remain focused and together.
• To the trained eye, the Bulls simply look superior to St. Xavier in terms of athleticism at just about every position on the field. This case is further supported by Northwestern's placement of seven players among the Top 100 prospects in Florida, according to rivals.com.
  
• How would St. Xavier match up with Northwestern? Could St. Xavier's secondary do a better job than Carroll did with Northwestern's big and fast receivers? I have serious doubts.
• St. Xavier is currently at full strength on defense from a personnel standpoint. But in their last two games the Bombers were outgained by Cleveland Glenville and allowed more than 400 yards of offense to Louisville Trinity. St. Xavier's defense has been very good, but not quite as impenetrable as I expected.
  
• Part of evaluating the strength of a schedule is continuing to track the success of the teams you have beaten and the success of the teams that it has played. Glenville's rather close loss (21-13) to then-No. 5 Long Beach Poly on September 1 was diminished when the Jackrabbits lost in rather convincing fashion (20-7) to an 0-1 Birmingham team the following week.
  
• St. Xavier has defeated three teams that started the year in the Power 50 preseason rankings I did for RISE magazine. The Bombers have also done so with arguably their best player, RB Darius Ashley, on the sidelines with an ankle injury. But with that said, all four of St. X's wins have happened inside Cincinnati's city limits. The Bombers have not faced the fatigue and distraction factors associated with traveling halfway across country to play a big game against a Top 5 opponent as Northwestern just did.
  

St. Xavier's case for No. 1 and the case against Northwestern (as of 9/17/07):

• Even with Northwestern's big win against Carroll, it's still only one win. Comparatively, the rest of Northwestern's schedule doesn't come close to matching that of St. Xavier's. The Bulls' other nine regular season opponents have only a 7-15 cumulative record right now. Their remaining seven games will be against teams who are 6-11 combined with only two state titles since 1980 (and none since 1993).
  
• St. Xavier's 10 regular season opponents are currently 26-13. The Bombers' remaining six opponents are currently 17-8 and have combined to win 20 state championships since 1980.
  
• If rankings mean anything, St. Xavier figures to have a much more difficult road than Northwestern will in the playoffs. There were 12 Ohio teams ranked in the National Prep Poll's preseason Top 25 in the Midwest region. Eleven of those teams compete against St. Xavier in Ohio's Division I classification.
  
• Northwestern competes in Class 6A, Florida's largest classification. But, incredibly, only six of last week's Top 25 teams in the Beef 'O' Brady's Florida all-classification poll came from Class 6A.
  
• We have seen a lot of good things from St. Xavier so far this year, but we haven't seen the best St. Xavier yet. Not without Darius Ashley in the lineup. He not only gives the Bombers' offense the outside threat its currently lacking, he should take some pressure off St. X's defense as well. Remember, nothing takes pressure of a defense like an effective ball-control offense.
  
• We don't know how good Southlake Carroll is yet. Entering the season there were concerns about the Dragons' inexperience on defense. Some of those concerns were brought to light on Saturday night. If Southlake Carroll does not finish the season ranked in the Top 25, some of the luster off Northwestern's win will certainly be gone.
  
• We also don't know how well Northwestern will react from this win. So much attention and energy was focused by the Bulls on this one, enormous game. I am left wondering if the state playoffs will mean as much to Northwestern this time around. Can winning another 6A title mean as much as winning what so much of the media has already described as a national championship? And how about that bulls-eye (no pun intended) that is now sitting on Northwestern's back. Watch very carefully when Northwestern takes on Miami Central on October 27. Keep in mind, it was Central that Rolle left for the Northwestern job in late July.
  

So, there is a LOT of football left to be played. While the No. 1 spot belongs to Northwestern this week, it is still very much up for grabs. Hang in there, St. X.

California Shake-Up (and it has nothing to do with an earthquake)

The only thing that appeared completely clear when putting together the preseason rankings this year was that there was no clear favorite in California.

We gave the early rankings nod to Long Beach Poly because the Jackrabbits returned nearly all of its big people and, outside of QB, seemingly always have better than average players at all the skill positions. Poly also had momentum from winning a top 7-on-7 title in Southern California near the end of the summer, for whatever that was worth. We also liked the fact that Poly had a chance to impress by playing Cleveland Glenville at the Herbstreit Classic.

But it could have just as easily been Mater Dei, St. Bonaventure, Notre Dame, De La Salle or Corona Centennial.

So far, what we have seen is Poly losing to a Birmingham team that I actually ranked No. 33 in the preseason. But that was before the Patriots lost QB Exavier Johnson to injury and before their season-opening loss to Crespi.

We have also seen Mater Dei crush a couple of inferior opponents. St. Bonaventure and Notre Dame have shown improvement as the young season has gone on.

But so far Corona Centennial and De La Salle seem to be playing better than anyone in California. Because of that, the Huskies and Spartans have moved into the Top 25 and ahead of St. Bonaventure and Notre Dame in the rankings.

It's pretty simple.

No. 19 Centennial has beaten the pants off of a really talented Dominguez team. On Friday, they ran away from the same Crespi team (minus QB Kevin Prince) that beat Poly. They have perhaps the top QB-RB combo in the state with Matt Scott and Ryan Bass, who have already combined for more than 1,200 yards of total offense. Most importantly, Centennial will have a chance to show its the best on the field when it travels to play No. 10 Mater Dei on October 4.

As for No. 22 De La Salle. When coach Bob Ladouceur says things are clicking, my ears perk up. That was the tenor of Ladouceur's comments to the Contra Costa Times following Friday's 55-14 rout of Los Angeles Loyola. The Spartans scored on their first six possessions in the game led 41-0 at halftime.

Like Centennial, the Spartans' longevity in this year's national rankings will be tested on the field. An October 6 trip to West Coast No. 5 Mission Viejo and probable return to the state Division I championship game loom on the horizon.

• Week 5 National Prep Poll Scoreboard