State Poll - Week 9

[JustMyThought]

Maryland High School Football Media State Poll

FREDERICK -- The Maryland High School Football State Poll, in its 23rd year, is based on a statewide voting by sports reporters. Schools are ranked by points received. The number in parenthesis reflects first-place votes. LW is last week’s ranking. The rankings are compiled by Sheldon Shealer.

Rank, School, Record, Points, LW


1. Good Counsel (12), 8-1, 300, 1
2. Gilman, 7-2, 287, 2
3. Wise, 9-0, 277, 4
4. River Hill, 9-0, 254, 5
5. Damascus, 9-0, 246, 6
6. Arundel, 9-0, 237, 7
7. DeMatha, 7-2, 236, 3
8. Calvert Hall, 7-2, 214, 8
9. Seneca Valley, 8-1, 206, 9
10. Quince Orchard, 8-1, 192, 10
11. Middletown, 9-0, 183, 11
12. Westminster, 9-0, 172, 12
13. Walkersville, 9-0, 152, 13
14. Franklin, 8-1, 144, 14
15. Dunbar, 8-1, 123, 16
16. Old Mill, 8-1, 102, 17
17. Huntingtown, 8-1, 93, 18
18. Patuxent, 8-1, 89, 19
19. Northwestern-PG, 8-1*, 85, 20
20. St. Paul’s, 8-0, 71, 21
21. Sherwood, 7-2, 47, NR
22. Urbana, 6-3, 41, NR
23. McDonough, 8-1, 40, 24
24. Perryville, 9-0, 34, 23
25. Suitland, 8-1, 20, 25

Others Receiving Votes: Douglass-PG (8-1, 11 points), Gwynn Park (8-1, 11), Milford Mill (8-1, 9), Kent Island (9-0, 7), Edmondson (8-1, 5), Bullis (7-1, 4), Landon (6-2, 4), Westlake (7-2, 4).

* - record does not reflect forfeits

[bigcountry]

No way Wise, River Hill or Damascus could come close against Dematha or CHC. Damn damasucs barely beat sherwood!

[First_Down]

Would it be safe to say that you haven't seen Wise, River Hill , nor Damascus play this season biggie and you're just going off a single box score of the names of Damascus ( at 5 ) vs Sherwood ( at 21 ). Or perhaps you're even a privates guy who is ticked that some publics can be ranked so high above your chosen privates you may have reserved the spots for in your mind? The way I see, there is no reason why Wise, River Hill, and Damsacus can't beat your DeMatha or CHC. Gonzaga clipped DeMatha and you don't see Gonzaga anywhere in the ranking table, not even honorable mention yet they took out your Stags, the mules. I'm thinking Maritime Academy may want a shot at your team biggie about now for a mary time!

Just sayin'

[eaglesinsider]

Would it be safe to say that you haven't seen Wise, River Hill , nor Damascus play this season biggie and just going off a single box score of Damascus vs Sherwood. Or perhaps you're even a privates who is ticked that some publics can be ranked above your chosen privates? The way I see, there is no reason why Wise, River Hill, and Damsacus can beat your DeMatha or CHC. Gonzaga clipped Dematha and you don't see them anywhere in the ranking table. Not even honorable mention yet they took your DeMatha out. I thinking High Point may want a shot at your team biggie!

Just sayin'

Your whole point about Gonzaga is wrong. Gonzaga's not ranked because they're in DC, so they don't qualify for the state poll. If Gonzaga was in MD, they'd be top 5 in this poll.

[First_Down]

Your whole point about Gonzaga is wrong. Gonzaga's not ranked because they're in DC, so they don't qualify for the state poll. If Gonzaga was in MD, they'd be top 5 in this poll.

Fair enough. Good point I did not consider. But the question still stands. Has the poster seen Wise or River Hill or Damascus to say they couldn't beat DeMatha or CHC? Now I haven't seen River so I can't say a thing about them. I haven't seen Damascus so I can't say a thing abouit them. But I saw a strong powerful brusing team of Wise in the PG Pigskin Classic and those boys mean business. The playoffs are coming and they will need to erase being derailed in the titled games as has happened before. But they are no joke. Can you or biggie say you've seen Wise to say I'm full of it. Oh, and I've seen DeMatha. A game between DeMatha and Wise would be not cake walk for The Mules.

Just sayin'

[bigcountry]

Would it be safe to say that you haven't seen Wise, River Hill , nor Damascus play this season biggie and you're just going off a single box score of the names of Damascus ( at 5 ) vs Sherwood ( at 21 ). Or perhaps you're even a privates guy who is ticked that some publics can be ranked so high above your chosen privates you may have reserved the spots for in your mind? The way I see, there is no reason why Wise, River Hill, and Damsacus can't beat your DeMatha or CHC. Gonzaga clipped DeMatha and you don't see Gonzaga anywhere in the ranking table, not even honorable mention yet they took out your Stags, the mules. I'm thinking Maritime Academy may want a shot at your team biggie about now for a mary time!

Just sayin'

yeah - I did see damascus play sherwood. just sayin home slice

[First_Down]

Fair enough for me biggie. I conceed. There are just so many in here who say what will happen between teams and just don't know a thing about them. If you say you saw Damascus play Sherwood this season and assess that Damascus can't touch DeMatha, then I bow to your observed expertise.

[bigcountry]

Fair enough for me biggie. I conceed. There are just so many in here who say what will happen between teams and just don't know a thing about them. If you say Damascus can't touch DeMatha, then I bow to your observed expertise.

Damascus has a stud in Bradshaw and some other good players... not kockin the guys but the level of play is just different. I saw wise and RH scrimmage. Arundel is the only team I have not seen...to me its really not about public or private but team size, speed and their formations on both sides of ball

[First_Down]

Damascus has a kid George Vinson who is suppose to be a nice linebacker. I meet his uncle on a train several months ago and he told me George is going to Buffalo and I heard the Bradshaw kid decommitted from Penn State over the child abuse issue and is going elsewhere, maybe UVA.

[harcohorns]

Really the only two differences I see from the top public and privates is line size and depth on the lines.. Every top team has great skill guys they are a dime a dozen in Md.. The privates just can consistently field good teams full of studs where as publics fluctuate class to class based on enrollment... That said the large schools with a larger pool of players can be consistent in Md and the privates can counter that by selection of applicants... This is a reason large Texas and FLA public schools (4000 plus student) are always consistently good and rivals Private recruited teams..

Point being if Maryland had more schools of 3000 plus students then they would be as good as Gilman, CHC etc and could also be nationally relevant... The National seen favors states that have huge public schools like Tex , FLA, Cali, Ohio etc.. at least as far as public schools go.. Of course privates can enter the scene from any state if they recruit to counter balance not having large numbers to draw from. ie.. Gorman(LV), even take University in FLA ranked 9 in the country right now( 2 IN FLA) though only having 300 students or so...

If the privates didn't recruit (in all states) the publics would dominate and obviously building more school watered down the pool for publics.. Take Harford County for example .. first adding C milton, J towne and them Patterson Mill now they have 8 schools.. suppose HC did like Texas and just made the schools bigger instead of adding schools and watering down the talent.. Talent is everywhere its just a matter of if its concentrated in one school.. If HC just had 5 high schools the teams would be very strong particularly Edgewood and Bel Air if there was no PM, JT or CMW.. Look at whats happening n Cecil Co... Cecil Co is growing but no new school and Perryville and Elkton are getting better by more of a pool to choose from

[bigcountry]

Really the only two differences I see from the top public and privates is line size and depth on the lines.. Every top team has great skill guys they are a dime a dozen in Md.. The privates just can consistently field good teams full of studs where as publics fluctuate class to class based on enrollment... That said the large schools with a larger pool of players can be consistent in Md and the privates can counter that by selection of applicants... This is a reason large Texas and FLA public schools (4000 plus student) are always consistently good and rivals Private recruited teams..

Point being if Maryland had more schools of 3000 plus students then they would be as good as Gilman, CHC etc and could also be nationally relevant... The National seen favors states that have huge public schools like Tex , FLA, Cali, Ohio etc.. at least as far as public schools go.. Of course privates can enter the scene from any state if they recruit to counter balance not having large numbers to draw from. ie.. Gorman(LV), even take University in FLA ranked 9 in the country right now( 2 IN FLA) though only having 300 students or so...

well said harco

[44Defense]

yeah - I did see damascus play sherwood. just sayin home slice

Don't be surprised if Sherwood doesn't upset Westminster. They have the speed at LB and Secondary to slow down Westminster's offense. Only thing is can they score enough vs the Owls?

[First_Down]

Really the only two differences I see from the top public and privates is line size and depth on the lines.. Every top team has great skill guys they are a dime a dozen in Md.. The privates just can consistently field good teams full of studs where as publics fluctuate class to class based on enrollment... That said the large schools with a larger pool of players can be consistent in Md and the privates can counter that by selection of applicants... This is a reason large Texas and FLA public schools (4000 plus student) are always consistently good and rivals Private recruited teams..

Point being if Maryland had more schools of 3000 plus students then they would be as good as Gilman, CHC etc and could also be nationally relevant... The National seen favors states that have huge public schools like Tex , FLA, Cali, Ohio etc.. at least as far as public schools go.. Of course privates can enter the scene from any state if they recruit to counter balance not having large numbers to draw from. ie.. Gorman(LV), even take University in FLA ranked 9 in the country right now( 2 IN FLA) though only having 300 students or so...

If the privates didn't recruit (in all states) the publics would dominate and obviously building more school watered down the pool for publics.. Take Harford County for example .. first adding C milton, J towne and them Patterson Mill now they have 8 schools.. suppose HC did like Texas and just made the schools bigger instead of adding schools and watering down the talent.. Talent is everywhere its just a matter of if its concentrated in one school.. If HC just had 5 high schools the teams would be very strong particularly Edgewood and Bel Air if there was no PM, JT or CMW.. Look at whats happening n Cecil Co... Cecil Co is growing but no new school and Perryville and Elkton are getting better by more of a pool to choose from

If only your blanket statements would fit all then you would be absolutely correct and well stated as biggie affirms. But it's not. The top schools don't have the depth of studs you may think because a good second or third stringer who is quality depth would opt to go elsewhere and play rather than ride the pine. If I thought I were a good stud, I would not play behind Henry Poggi, the son of the coach. No way! I would be headed to GC or DM or Spalding or somewhere. And thus you have the massive transfers that frequently occur on private teams at times just before the start of school. That happens a heck of a lot with privates but rarely with publics in my opinion. So that depth in the top privates just isn't all its cracked up to be or what you may think in MD. The backups just ain't all That Good! If they were, you wouldn't see Gilman studs going both ways just like public where I saw Moeller coaches having full offensive or full defensive player talks when the other squad was on the field. They had the studs and at all positions and they went one-way.

Large schools don't necessarily produce a greater pool of players. The program produces the number of players. There are many a 4A schools that have small numbers of players on the varsity team, some no more than than 30. And they have no JV teams. And some of the better 2A and 3A teams have tons of players on the varsity and JV. Why, because the program is well organized and well run and most importantly, they are winners. Gwynn Park and Douglass and Patuxent and McDonough and Huntingtown comes to mind when I say this. Those non-4A teams have tons of players on both JV and varsity levels with 4A teams like High Point, Parkdale, and others can barely produce a varsity squad and they have no JV.

Regarding new schools going up in areas to water down teams. Again I turn to the south where a nice school of North Point was built just years ago. It had minimal effect in my opinion on Westlake, McDonough, and others around it. Gwynn Park and Douglass were studs programs before Wise was built. I even think that Douglass was 4A before Wise and became 2A the second Wise opened for business at 4A. But Douglass and Gwynn Park are still stud programs and Douglass is probably the most productive team that hasn't won it all but they are in the mix every year. Again, because I think its a well run program that's not so severely impacted by enrollment ups and downs because they believe they can win with whatever 40 they field. They may even think that 50, 60, 70 kids on a team like I saw at DeMatha is far too many. They may prefer to be lean and mean.

[harcohorns]

Allot of that makes sense on the macro level.. And I agree to an extent.. Having studs go both ways is a faction of lack of depth but also lack of coaching.. ei.. with the talent Gilman has they really don't need kids to go both ways but the coaches are stuck in rec mode where you play the best athletes both ways rather than recognizing a kids better suited for D or better suited for O... for example many coaches put their RB's at LB but in reality a great RB rarely make good LB One thing I noticed about Ohio being my sons team played 3 of them last year is the coaching is on par with the college level.. Ohio teams were very well coached hands down and very few kids ever play both ways.. So I see your point on depth in Md privates in the skill positions .. Lets face it some kids are DB's and some are WR .. Just because a kid is fast and great wr does not mean he is a great DB .. This is something the Md coaches haven't grasped yet... but as far as lineman go the privates do have more depth than the publics..

[Oldtime]

Damascus has a kid George Vinson who is suppose to be a nice linebacker. I meet his uncle on a train several months ago and he told me George is going to Buffalo and I heard the Bradshaw kid decommitted from Penn State over the child abuse issue and is going elsewhere, maybe UVA.

Vinson decommited, and is getting alot of D1 looks and offers, Bradshaw is commited to UVA. Don't sleep on their super soph Christian, who already has offers from Ohio State, South Carolina, NC State, WVU, Pitt, Conn, among others.

[GREYHOUND ALUM]

Allot of that makes sense on the macro level.. And I agree to an extent.. Having studs go both ways is a faction of lack of depth but also lack of coaching.. ei.. with the talent Gilman has they really don't need kids to go both ways but the coaches are stuck in rec mode where you play the best athletes both ways rather than recognizing a kids better suited for D or better suited for O... for example many coaches put their RB's at LB but in reality a great RB rarely make good LB One thing I noticed about Ohio being my sons team played 3 of them last year is the coaching is on par with the college level.. Ohio teams were very well coached hands down and very few kids ever play both ways.. So I see your point on depth in Md privates in the skill positions .. Lets face it some kids are DB's and some are WR .. Just because a kid is fast and great wr does not mean he is a great DB .. This is something the Md coaches haven't grasped yet... but as far as lineman go the privates do have more depth than the publics..

You are very very right. I will continue with what you said about Gilman because its what I know best n Gilman has PLENTY of depth. Thu have over 60 players on their roster. In years pass, they play a lot of players both ways, they no longer do that. There are really only four players who play both ways. Henry Poggi(and he should), Micah Kiser, Wyatt Dixkerson and Miles Norris. Norris and Poggi are the only two that start both ways. Outside of Poggi at TE, none of the OL or DL play both ways. Norris starts both ways because Danny Blair has been injured a lot this season and missed another game last week. If he weren't, Gilman would only have one two way player.

But as you say, a lot of Maryland teams like to play their best athletes both ways. And a lot of time they have to because lack of depth. This isn't the case at Gilman anymore.

[bigcountry]

Vinson decommited, and is getting alot of D1 looks and offers, Bradshaw is commited to UVA. Don't sleep on their super soph Christian, who already has offers from Ohio State, South Carolina, NC State, WVU, Pitt, Conn, among others.

No doubt - hes a real good back and that LB Vinson it tough

[First_Down]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV7yx2y3TtY


Yes, so it appears that I've been Had! I've been Took! I've been Hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led Astray! Run Amuk!

This Is What He Does!

Why did you do this to me biggie. You Got Some 'Plainin' To Do.

I asked you point blank regarding a question of actually seeing Damascus play Sherwood this season with respect to rendering an opinion about Damascus beating DeMatha and you point blank told me that you saw Damascus play Sherwood this season and is of the observed authority that Damascus would not beat DeMatha. To that, I graciously conceeded to your objective observation. Well, my friend GA makes a comment about the depth of his beloved Gilman team and that very few are actually two-way players and I questioned this in my mind because I thought this was a major concern of his in the Gilman - Moeller game. So I went back to see just what he said in the Moeller posts but they are long gone.

However, I stumbled across dialog of YOU biggie yaking with GA right here about other matters on September 28 at the same time Damascus would have been playing Sherwood so it patently appears sir that you were not at the game you said you were to tell me that Damascus would not measure up to DeMatha by firsthand observation!!!

Exhibit 1:

yeah - I did see damascus play sherwood. just sayin home slice

Exhibit 2: http://talk.baltimoresun2.com/showpo...58&postcount=5

Exhibit 3:

Fair enough for me biggie. I conceed. There are just so many in here who say what will happen between teams and just don't know a thing about them. If you say you saw Damascus play Sherwood this season and assess that Damascus can't touch DeMatha, then I bow to your observed expertise.

Care to explain yourself biggie? You could start off with how you were actually using a PDA at that time but didn't bother to tell us about what was going on at the game you were watching. You just wanted to chat about DeMatha and Calvert Hall or other matters at that time. I'll buy that since I bought your previous line that you saw Damascus barely beat Sherwood and it wasn't just a box score you saw. I'll even buy that you were late; that you arrived in the 4th-quarter because you didn't want to pay the full $5 game fee. I'll buy that you meant you watched it on TV as the game of the week. Explain something here biggie or your street sports creds is shot!

Or, was I Had! Took! Hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led Astray! Run Amuk!

or home sliced !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is what he does, the privates, anything to maintain the persona of superiority.

Just sayin'

[bigcountry]

whaaaat??

[First_Down]

whaaaat??

My apologies. That explains it.