Top 5 Dark Horses by state.

[TheMaximumHornetSting]

39 minutes ago, Cossacks said:

You'd roll through there like an F5 tornado the ladies would have no idea what hit them.

Man... I used to think all Mid-West Ladies where the same....  

Then I went to Wisconsin.... 

I swear everyone in Wisconsin and Minnesota are just Legal Canadians... 

[FootballGuy]

47 minutes ago, ATLien12x said:

NAIA Baseball, baby! Go bellevue Bruins 

You used to play for them?

[Omaha Vol]

12 hours ago, Bones said:

I don't know that I have ever seen Nebraska discussed here. Y'all should start an ongoing thread. Just to keep us in the know.

Not much to say about high school ball in Nebraska. Bellevue West would've, barely, been top 20 in IL. Millard North had a powerhouse team about a decade ago. They never play OOS games, either. Also, don't rely on Calpreps for their rankings. They were terrible last year! Lol

[Adam Kurkjian]

22 minutes ago, Omaha Vol said:

Not much to say about high school ball in Nebraska. Bellevue West would've, barely, been top 20 in IL. Millard North had a powerhouse team about a decade ago. They never play OOS games, either. Also, don't rely on Calpreps for their rankings. They were terrible last year! Lol

I'd still like to see you post about Nebraska's big games when they come up. Someone's got to mix it up on here from the usual suspects.

[Omaha Vol]

16 minutes ago, Adam Kurkjian said:

I'd still like to see you post about Nebraska's big games when they come up. Someone's got to mix it up on here from the usual suspects.

I can do that. I am from Tennessee, so I tend to follow them a little more. 

[Adam Kurkjian]

Just now, Omaha Vol said:

I can do that. I am from Tennessee, so I tend to follow them a little more. 

Yeah, love to hear those as well.

I know the major powerhouses are what drive most of the interest on this site, which is great, but, I guess since I'm from Mass., I like hearing about the *other* programs and states, too. All part of the fun.

[Ararar]

1 minute ago, Adam Kurkjian said:

Yeah, love to hear those as well.

I know the major powerhouses are what drive most of the interest on this site, which is great, but, I guess since I'm from Mass., I like hearing about the *other* programs and states, too. All part of the fun.

If we could get a stream so people could watch these games there would probably be more talk about them

[Omaha Vol]

3 minutes ago, Adam Kurkjian said:

Yeah, love to hear those as well.

I know the major powerhouses are what drive most of the interest on this site, which is great, but, I guess since I'm from Mass., I like hearing about the *other* programs and states, too. All part of the fun.

I always love your breakdowns of MA ball. Are Everett, or Xav. Bros., the favorites again this year? 

[Adam Kurkjian]

Just now, Ararar said:

If we could get a stream so people could watch these games there would probably be more talk about them

I'll see what I can do. I'd like you guys to get your eyes on Everett at some point. They're up to 10 scholarship kids, three ACC - including one 2019 kid who is a 4* with SEC offers - plus another kid who will be offered by another ACC team by the time his senior tape gets out.

[Adam Kurkjian]

2 minutes ago, Omaha Vol said:

I always love your breakdowns of MA ball. Are Everett, or Xav. Bros., the favorites again this year? 

See the above post. Everett is a wagon this year. They will be fun to watch. No one really wants to play them up here. It's hard for them to even find a scrimmage. GSB and I have been trying like hell to hook up an OOS game for them on the Sept. 30 weekend. One good one fell through because of $$. Another one with a good NY team is DOA for some reason.

Xaverian returns only 4 or 5 starters but they will be good up front and has a couple 1aa-types. Coaching is excellent, so they'll compete. They have a game with Abp. Stepinac (N.Y.) in week 3. They open with Everett, Bridgewater-Raynham (who beat them last year) and Stepinac. If they figure things out at QB they'll be fine, though.

The best D1 teams are all likely in the North. Everett, Central Catholic and St. John's Prep are probably your 1-2-3 in the state. Central has a QB headed to UNH and four returning OL. Prep has a good junior class and will unveil a new, $28 million athletic facility in September. BC High, X, Catholic Memorial and Brockton will be the teams to watch in the South.

But, really, it's Everett and everyone else. The Tide did lose a lot on the lines but their skill is crazy. Seven deep at WR/RB and their three top DB from last year are all ACC/SEC recruits. QB missed all of last season with an injury and already picked up a 1aa offer as a junior.

As far as the ISL teams go, Lawrence Academy has three kids going to BC and probably the best line talent in the state. Skill wise they don't match up with Everett, but it's just one of those great games everyone wants to see but will never happen.

[Gospeeder]

8 hours ago, TheMaximumHornetSting said:

Man... I used to think all Mid-West Ladies where the same....  

Then I went to Wisconsin.... 

I swear everyone in Wisconsin and Minnesota are just Legal Canadians... 

OH YAA .... YA BECHA!

[Omaha Vol]

29 minutes ago, Adam Kurkjian said:

See the above post.

BC High, X, Catholic Memorial and Brockton will be the teams to watch in the South.

 

Didn't notice the above post until just now. Thanks. 

I remember when Brockton was a power in the 90's. 

[Adam Kurkjian]

Just now, Omaha Vol said:

Didn't notice the above post until just now. Thanks. 

I remember when Brockton was a power in the 90's. 

Yeah, they had some real dudes back in the 80s and 90s. I don't know if you remember Greg McMurtry (WR-Michigan), but his junior year they were so loaded at the skills that they had to play him at fullback. Here's a great article about them from way back by former Boston Globe columnist Leigh Montville (1988 or 87, forget which):

 

LEIGH MONTVILLE
FOXBOROUGH - There was an invincibility about the team in black shirts from the beginning. The game had to be played and the score had to be recorded, but the result was in little doubt. The black shirts would win. Brockton High School would win.

Brockton High School always wins.

"How big is that school?" a reporter asked in the press box as the black shirts moved into a systematic march to a 28-0 win over Woburn High for the Division 1 Super Bowl title at Sullivan Stadium yesterday afternoon. "Isn't it the biggest school in the country? Or something like that?"

"The statistic we always hear is that it's the second-biggest high school on this side of the Mississippi," a Brockton resident replied. "Maybe the third biggest now. Something like that. Just say it's big. Very big."

Big. Very big. A colossus.

This once again was a football team cut from the same bolt of grainy cloth as those powerhouse operations in Pennsylvania, the same big numbers, the same no-nonsense sons of the same no-nonsense fathers. This was an Ohio sort of football team, a civic steamroller from Canton or Youngstown Massillon, rolling along and adding chapters to a fat book of local lore. Big-time high school football. A team that always wins all the time. Almost always.

"They worked out at our place last week," Boston College coach Jack Bicknell said. "Half of them looked like men. Just some big kids."

In 16 years of schoolboy Super Bowls, this was Brockton's eighth appearance. This team was no different from all those other teams that had pumped out players to Notre Dame and Michigan and Iowa and Penn State and the most famous football foundries in the land. These kids always look like men. This team was rated seventh in the USA Today national high school poll.

"For a football program, you probably couldn't have a better situation than they have in Brockton," Walpole head coach John Lee said. "You have all the right ingredients. You have the numbers . . . and numbers are important in football, more than any other high school sport. You have the right kind of town, a working-class town with a good ethnic mix of tough kids. You have a great football tradition. You have a great coach in Armond Colombo.

"This is a team that could play anyone in the country. Absolutely anyone."

How do you beat this team this year? How do you beat this team any year? You're always an underdog. You're always fighting the numbers and the deeper talent. You're always hanging on to a whirlwind and trying not to let go. How do you win? Hold on? Hope for a fumble or interception? Hope for mistakes? You're always shoveling in soft sand.

"It's a hard way to play," John Lee said. "You play against them and you'd better be able to pass, for one thing, and most high school teams really can't. If you attack them just by running, you don't have a chance. And on defense, you'd better be able to play their receivers one-on-one because you need the extra people to turn those runners inside when they try to turn the corner."

This year's team featured two running backs -- Darnell Campbell and Rudy Harris -- who are as good as any of the running backs who have played at the school. Which one would you try to stop? How could you stop both? If you tried, what about quarterback Bob Zurinskas finding wide receiver Rocky Marciano down the field? All this didn't even mention a Brockton defense that had allowed only 13 points in the last five games.

"Just show these kids (from Woburn) they don't have a chance," Colombo, the coach, told his team before the game. "Show them from the beginning."

Wasn't this the way it went? No chance. Even when there was no score, there was the feeling Woburn had no chance. Every time Harris or Campbell carried the ball, he seemed a step away from breaking into the clear. A spark always was lit, a conflagration a definite possibility. Every time someone from Woburn carried the ball, there was nowhere to go.

"We were ready for this game," Harris said. "They'd been talking about us, and that made us mad. They also beat us in the Super Bowl in 1979. We wanted revenge for that."

Talk? Revenge?

"You remember the Super Bowl of 1979?" someone asked.

"Oh no," Rudy Harris said. "I was 9 years old. I lived in Stoughton."

Midway through the second quarter -- after Brockton had controlled the ball for most of the first quarter -- Harris pounded up the middle for a 1-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead. On the next possession, Campbell ran 15 yards around left end for a second touchdown and 14-0 lead. No chance. No chance at all. On their first possession of the third quarter, the black shirts jumped the score to 21-0. The game basically was over. Done.

"Do you think these kids could have beaten Harvard for the Ivy League title?" someone asked as the black shirts rolled to the finish. "If not Harvard, they surely could have beaten Columbia, couldn't they?"

"Wasn't this the best running attack seen in this stadium this year?" someone else asked as Campbell ran for 144 yards and Harris for 137. "Wouldn't these two kids look good on the roster for the Patriots tomorrow in Denver?"

"They say we're No. 7 in the country," Colombo said in the Sullivan Stadium parking lot when all of the business was finished and the trophy had been presented. "Well, I'd like to see those six other teams. I'd like our chances."

His kids filed onto buses, the invincibility of the black shirts proven again. Another year. Another championship. The powerhouse still had the power. The kids who looked like men still looked like men.

"I remember talking to Armond after his team won the first Super Bowl ever played," Bill Abramson, sports editor of the Brockton Enterprise, said. "I still remember what he said -- 'It's a winner's world.' "

Sixteen years and the football message from Brockton has not changed. Not a bit. 
 

[Gospeeder]

Great post Adam!

[Adam Kurkjian]

^thanks, man

[PrepGridiron]

6 minutes ago, Gospeeder said:

Great post Adam!

Yep, really awesome post

[Adam Kurkjian]

Thanks, man. Leigh was an excellent writer. I actually worked at the Brockton Enterprise (and the Globe) in college. The Enterprise night shift - since it was an afternoon paper - was from 2 am-7 am. Would drive down from Boston to Brockton to do the scoreboard page, drive back at 7, get to my place, sleep, wake up, eat, then drive back down to Brockton. Good times.

[TheMaximumHornetSting]

1 hour ago, Gospeeder said:

OH YAA .... YA BECHA!

Please dont...