Week 7 - "Games of the Week" with Roger Neel

In this episode, Roger Neel, provides his weekly insight into the Section IV "Games of the Week". Coach Smith reviews the New York State Sportswriters Association Weekly Rankings.

This podcast will run weekly during the season and continue as long as a Section IV Football team is playing.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Cover Four. If you're a Section 4 football fan, this is your podcast. I'm Coach Smith, and I'll be your host. The Cover Four Podcast is brought to you by TDS Performance Improvement. Sixty percent of first-time leaders fail. TDS Performance Improvement prevents these failures by verifying often overlooked prerequisites. To see if you have the leadership prerequisites, visit TDSPI.com. That's TDSPI.com. Click the Let's Have a Conversation button and schedule your free informative conversation. Welcome to Games of the Week with Roger Neal, the sports voice of the Southern Tier. Welcome, Roger.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Hey Tim, thank you. And uh we look forward to another exciting week and weekend of high school football section for action around our area. Just rewinding a bit, going back to action last weekend. Uwe's Tigers continue to roll unbeaten, 6-0. They rang up 41 points, 41 14 winners over Elmyra. Max Eventelli, the quarterback for UE on fire. If he can't throw for a TT, he runs for one. Six scores accounted for by him in that victory. CV, a big win over Norwich, 20-6. Maine Enwell went out of the section. They picked up a 30-7 win. That puts their record as they beat Queensbury overall at 5-1. Tyoga over Harpersville Afton, 48-0. And uh Tyoga with that win goes to 6-0. Corning continues to be impressive, 42-12 winners over Vestal, and the Forks knocked off the much bigger schoolman Ithaca 34 to nothing. What about this weekend? Well, for me, a spotlight is going to be on the UE game at Horseheads. The Tigers outstanding 6-0. They've outscored opponents 41 to 10. And also, Horseheads 5-1. They've scored 139 points, given up 93, each 1-0 in Division 2. That should be an outstanding football game coming up this weekend in Class A competition. Also, double A Corning puts a 4-1 record on the line against Elmira and Elmira. Elmira trying to rebound after getting covered by UE over the past weekend. How about it? Main and well, the Spartans in action against the JC Wildcats. Oh, I know. Johnson said he's struggling. The Spartans, well, like they always are, they're outstanding, five and one. But you can take the records as we've talked about backyard rivalries. Toss them. The Wildcats at Maine and Well, it should be an outstanding game coming up this weekend as well. Also, how about Class C? Waverly is showing they are outstanding, 7-0. They host Oneana coming in at 2-4. Look for a Waverly big win in that one. Also, in other action, it'll be Tyoga in play. Tyoga has been rolling and they play host to Bainbridge Guilford. Tyoga 6-0. They put up 45 and a half points a game, and they've only given up seven points per contest. So that should be an outstanding contest. And then also in other eight-man football, Groton at Trumansburg, another big game for them. Groton's 5-0, 2-0 in the division. Trumansburg 4-1, 2-0 in the division. And so uh lots of outstanding competition coming up. And Tim, as we're getting down to the last couple of weeks of regular season play, hey, games are always important, but boy, some of these really are going to be keying in on the standings for these respective schools. So a big weekend of Section 4 football is on the way.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Absolutely, Roger. And before I get to the state rankings, I just did uh some quick analysis here on week six. And there is a lot of teams scoring a lot of points and not so much for others. There's been five, there were five shutouts last week. And what I look at when I see a shutout, and usually if it's a really lopsided score, that tells me that that team that scored a lot of points is probably pretty deep on the defensive side because what tends to happen is you get way ahead and you put some of the other student athletes in, and maybe the other team keeps their first team in so that they get the goose egg off the scoreboard. So that's just tells me that a lot of these teams that are shutting people out are probably pretty deep on the defensive side. In week six, there was five teams that scored 40 or more points, two teams that scored 50 or more points, and two teams that scored 60 or more points. And this is really kind of irritating if you're these teams, but there's two teams that scored 40 points and lost. That doesn't happen very often. We can score that amount of points and you end up losing. So my point is there's there's a lot of uh lot of scoring going on, and there's a lot of good defensive play going on in section four. Also, there's uh six undefeated teams right now, still in class A, you've got UE's undefeated, class C Waverly, D, Tyoga, and three in the eight player. That's just Groton, Spencer Vanetton, Cander, and Green. So you've got you know a lot of teams that have haven't uh felt that loss yet, and uh the way that they're playing, some of them may not. They're just that good. But I think Roger, it's gonna be a year to be a tiger, either a UE tiger or a Tyoga tiger.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Yeah, I would think you're right.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Now for the uh New York State Sports Writers Association, uh rank teams through Sunday, October 17th. In class double A, you've got Corning is cracking the top 20 at number 20 with a four and one record. And now Elmira, this honorable mention with three and two. Class A, you've got Unit Endicott at 16 with a six and zero record, and uh at 17, horseheads with a five and one record. In class B, you've got Maine Enwell that you alluded to, that played out a section in section two opponent last week and won that game. They're number seven in class B, five and one. And in the honorable mention category, you have Windsor at four and two. Now, class C, you've got Shenango Forks right now, they're at number four with a five and one record. Waverly is number eight with a seven and zero record. And some people say, How do they have seven games? Well, they played that week zero game. If you if you remember, that's how they've got six games under their belt. In the honorable mention, you've got Norwich that's kind of falling on hard times right now with injuries and probably maybe a little bit of impact from COVID, which is unfortunate because I know Coach Christie's got a real good program up there. You got Susquehanna Valley is also an honorable mention at four and two, and Watkins Glenn O'Desome Montour is uh an honorable mention at four and two. They uh would be higher in the rankings than they have been, but they had a real barn burner with uh Waverly and it came down to the last seconds in that particular game. So that's a you know, that's also a strong class, the class C classification. In class B, you've got Tyoga that's still sitting at number one with a six and zero record. And I know Coach Ayalo, like most coaches, would say, that's fine, we're getting the recognition, but that ranking doesn't really mean that much until December 3rd or 4th after we play the final game. But uh they're they're rolling along at six and zero and uh having no problem scoring points and really you know shutting people down. Honorable mention in class D is Delhi at four and two and Newark Valley at four and two. In the eight-player classification, in the top five, section four has three at number two is Spencer Badett and Cander, four and zero, green, number three with four and zero record, and Groton at five with a four and zero record, and then Trumansburg with a four and one record. So, like you alluded to, Roger, things are really starting to shake out right now. And is is to use an old farming analogy, the cream is starting to rise to the top. So you're starting to see the teams that are that are really uh potentially you know taking things to the next level. And this is the point in the season where you really want to have everything ironed out and you want to be playing your best football. And I, as a coach, I used to love to play tough what we call tougher teams or the better teams later in the season because that sets you up for the postseason because you don't you don't want to play a game that's uh that you're really expected to win and you tend to maybe let down a little bit. So I think uh a lot of teams in section four are really on the cusp right now and looking to do good things for the section and also at the state level. I think that's it, Roger. Cool, good, good all right. Well, listen, thanks again. I appreciate it. And um, I was glad to hear that you had a good time down at your uh 50-year reunion for your national championship team there at Westminster College. And I saw a post somebody had said, uh, remember the Titans, and I think they were talking about the the Tennessee Titans in the NFL, and I I chirped in and said, Don't forget about the uh Westminster College Titans in 1970. Yep, there you go. For sure. You betcha. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe. And remember, tell your friends, Coach Smith says, visit cover4.com and be the next fan up. In football and life, it's not where we line up, it's where we wind up. Thank you for listening to the Cover 4 podcast.