Eastern Team's Preview with Nate Lull

In this episode, our Football Analyst, Nate Lull will give you an in-depth preview of the Eastern Teams in Section IV.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:21

Let's go. Welcome to the Cover Four Podcast preseason team preview of the Eastern teams. Now you say you don't want any lull in your coverage. Well, yeah, I beg to differ. We want Nate Lull in our coverage. Welcome, Nate. And what do you got for us?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

All right. Thanks, Coach. It's uh great to be on with you here once again. I always enjoy doing this, and uh it's just hard to believe that it's that time of year again uh for high school football season. We've already had a game on the radio. It's uh it's been a ton of fun. Just so everyone knows, kind of off the bat, um, I work for WCDO Radio in Sydney, uh, and we can be found on the dial 100.9 FM if you're up by us. We also have a new signal over in the Norwich area, 92.3 FM. And you can listen to all our games uh online at wcdo sports.com. So uh anytime you want to listen to us, feel free to jump in. So the coverage area that we basically uh look at is Shenango, Delaware, Atseago counties. That's what CDO stands for. So we have a majority of Class D teams. We have one eight-man team, uh, a couple of C's, and one B. So I thought I would kind of go through everybody here and give give our listeners and your listeners uh kind of my thoughts on the early part of the season. And I thought I would start with our one Class B team that we uh followed this year, and that's Norwich in Division III in Class B. Uh head coach Mike Christie, known him for a long time. He does a great job. But boy, what a juggernaut of a division with Maine Enwell and JC, OFA, Waverly. I mean, me for me, top to bottom, that's gotta be the hardest uh division that we have. And this is a young Norwich team. They've lost some pieces over the last couple of years. But Mike has his two boys up. Uh they're young, they're just freshmen, but Mike has Cooper and Carter Christie up. And this is a group that Norwich fans have talked about for a long time across a variety of sports, whether it be football, basketball, track. This is a really nice group coming through. I think it might be tough for them this year, uh, but I think it's a group that has come up through the Cyclones program and their youth. And in a couple of years, we could really see something. But this year, uh they'll be getting those first varsity reps. So I'm excited to see what they can do uh under the lights and playing for dad, that's pretty cool too. So uh just to look at the two class C teams that we have. We have Oneanta and Windsor uh in Division IV Class C. I'm excited about this Oneanta team. They open up with a nice win over Green Oxford on the road, 37 to 6. And Coach Will Neal is just, he's been plugging away the last few years of kind of rebuilding things. And I think this could potentially be a year where we see them make a little noise in Class C. It's it's always so tough because there's some just great storied programs, but I think they're gonna be very competitive there, and I'm excited to see what they can do. And the same thing with Windsor. A very impressive win for Windsor, nine to seven over Tyoga to start the the year, and that was two weeks ago, uh kind of when nobody else was playing. They snuck that game in out in Waverly. Um, and anytime anybody at any level can beat Tyoga, I'm impressed just because they're so well coached with Coach Aiello, and uh so I expect good things for for Coach Hogan and Windsor this year. So I think that's gonna be very competitive. But to get into our bread and butter, the biggest division that I'm gonna cover top to bottom is the Class D Division 6, which includes BG, Deposit Hancock, our reigning Section 4 Class D champ Delhi, Afton, Harpersville, Sydney, and Walton. Personally, I'm excited because this puts Sydney back in D, back with some of these rivalry games that we really enjoy on the radio in terms of uh Bainbridge Guildford, them getting to play Walton. We've had some years where Sydney was, you know, up in C and playing with Forks and some of those teams, and so it was tough for us to kind of decide where to split our time. I really do miss Sydney Unitego. That was always something that we had circled on the calendar. And now with Unitego playing eight men in the last few years, we missed that. But uh, I think this is gonna be a great division. And for me, it's still you gotta go through Del High. Uh we saw them the other night. They they beat up on Burt Catholic from section nine, 56 to 13. They have four returners on the line, seven returners on both sides of the ball for offense and defense. Coach Newman just has these guys humming. To me, they looked in midseason form against Burt Catholic, a team that went to the state finals, I believe, last year. And they were not a bad team. It's just that I really felt like Del High controlled things in the trenches. They have Lucas Nealis at quarterback. He's been waiting. This is his turn. He's played wide receiver, he plays both sides of the ball, but he just knows what they want to do. They have a great running back and Adam Cook. They were bringing in sophomores in the second half that I was just so impressed with that were guys that could play wide receiver, play in the back. Um, they have Johnny Wilson, is probably their big threat at wide receiver, and he caught three touchdown passes the other night. They have a brand new turf field. They're playing on Friday nights under the lights. I mean, it's an exciting time right now over in Delhi. So I expect the division to run through them, but that being said, it's not going to be easy. Walton is very good. BG is very good. DH, I think everybody's writing them off a little bit because Blake Fortunato and some of those guys have graduated from a team that put up 48 points a game last year. But I think they showed in their opener, they still put up 30 plus points against Whitney Point. So I I think there's some really strong teams in this division. BG's quarterback, Connor Davy, is the Patrick Mahomes of this division. He can he can run, he can do crazy things. He's so athletic. He runs track both in the winter and uh in the spring. He's also a baseball guy. He's just one of these guys that can do everything. So if you're looking for a game, you know, maybe you catch BG Delhi. So you can see Delhi and you can see Connor Davies sling it all over the place for BG. I was a little surprised that BG lost to Trumansburg. It was 41-16. I thought that game would be closer. But also BG is homeless right now. Uh they are putting in a brand new turf field and it's not done yet. They played that home game, quote unquote, at Sydney. And even as we're recording this, they don't know when that field's going to be done. They're hoping it could be done as soon as this week. They're supposed to have another home game. And I wonder how much that plays into the dynamic of things. Where are they practicing right now? Um, you know, they've always played on grass and now they're getting used to turf. And I know everybody plays on turf today, but just it's a big change for them there at BG. So I think that is tough for them. I expect Coach Regis to have them, you know, kind of settled in at some point. But I think it's got to be hard to not have that normal field and the routine and your locker room and all those things. So I still think they're gonna be strong. Very impressed with Walton, a 30-0 win over Liberty to start the season. They're celebrating 50 years of Jim Hoover there. Uh he claims that this might be the last one. Uh, you know, Adam is head coach, but Jim is, you know, Jim is still helping out. He doesn't ever go away, which is great. But they had a great home opener, classic Saturday Walton football. They had a bunch of commemorative t-shirts uh and a little barbecue out, kind of a tailgate out in the parking lot to celebrate uh Jim and everything that he's done there. So I I think they're out to play for Coach Uber this year, and let's see what we can do. And I also think Walton football is so proud that they don't like losing to Delhi. They don't like not being in control of the division. So I really have that one circled, Delhi Walton, uh, when that comes up mid-season. I think that's gonna be a ton of fun. There's been trash talking privately and publicly about it already in in the media and on TV, so it's just it's just one of those great things. So I still think it runs through Delhi, but um gonna be a great division. And lastly, I just wanted to talk about DH a little bit. I mean, this is a program that three years ago only scored 36 points for the whole season. And then last year they were averaging 48 points a game. And I just think the culture has changed so much there for Matt Davis. And that was something I didn't even realize that it was something he said uh in a little article that they put out in their school newsletter down there at Hancock, and I thought, wow, I mean, he's changed that so much in three years. And yeah, they're missing some pieces, but they got some guys back and they know how to win from the baseball program there. They were in the state finals last year for baseball, and it's a lot of those same guys. They're they're very proud guys, and I think they'll be strong as well. So, top to bottom, that's that's the division that I'm gonna cover the most. The other D division is mostly the Western schools, which I only see when they come out here. But it's exciting. Green Oxford is now back playing 11 man. They've made the commitment to uh combine. They have a new coach. Coach Gorton has uh retired and kind of decided to step away. So uh Jim Rench has stepped in there and William Dunlop is a former player from a few years ago. So I think they'll probably have some transition things to work out going from eight back to eleven. And that's a tough division with Tyoga and Trumansburg and Newark Valley. Um, so I think they got their hands full, but both divisions indeed look great, and I'm excited for that. And then lastly, the last team that I cover, the only eight-man team I have this year is the combined Unitigo, Franklin, Gilbert Silmount, Upton squad. And I mean, it's hard to really tell from one game, but they put up 71 points in their opener. Uh they beat Hoosick Valley uh 71-26. I mean, Coach McCrony always does a great job. And I'm really interested, they had some guys that have not played before come back from soccer to football. They hadn't played since they were little, I should say, or maybe not at all. Uh, but they have an athlete and Xander Johnson. He's an all-state pitcher, he's an all-state basketball player, and he's playing football. He was always a soccer kid. And I'm just excited to see what they they can do with all that space, and now they have some extra athletes to throw at it. And we'll see. I mean, they were a team that you know made the playoffs last year. There was some eligibility things going on, which was nobody's fault, really, at the end of the day. Uh, just a numbers thing. Uh, so I think that these kids are motivated, they want to get back to the playoffs, and they want to say, hey, we can compete with some of these really good teams out west that have represented section four so well. So those are the teams in my area. Again, we're so excited to to follow them, and you know, hopefully we can get somebody back to the state tournament to make some noise.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Nate, thanks again. Uh, we really appreciate what you do, and you uh you're rock solid out there in the eastern portion uh of section four, not only with football, but with everything. And then I want to put a plug in for your uh Nate Lull podcast, which is uh an excellent thing that you do. And um uh like like you said, that there's a lot of dates on the calendar that have been circled for uh a lot of different reasons. And uh that that bows well. And again, thank you for the time and what you do. Really appreciate it, and look forward to having more conversations with you and keep doing what you're doing. Take care.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

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