1. Academy Park (7-0)
2. Haverford School (6-0)
3. Haverford High (6-1)
4. Upper Darby (6-1)
5. Garnet Valley (5-2)
6. Episcopal Academy (5-1)
7. Interboro (6-1)
Under Consideration: Marple Newtown (6-1), Ridley (5-2).
We have a new No. 1…
Academy Park takes the top spot from The Haverford School.
Why is this?
The Knights have dominated all year, outscoring (admittedly) much weaker competition, 256-33. However, the weak schedule, up to this point, doesn’t and shouldn’t belie how good the Knights are and can be.
Academy Park earned its fourth shutout of the season, a 24-0 victory over Chichester. Meanwhile, Haverford School survived a serious scare from Penn Charter, winning in three overtimes, 41-40. Penn Charter, you might recall, fell to Interboro, 17-14.
Which is the more complete team, AP or Haverford School? That’s hard to say. I’d take the Fords’ dynamic offensive over the Knights’, but defensively, there’s no arguing that the Knights are better.
While AP has one more game played under its belt, there is no question the Fords have played the stiffer schedule. I don’t think proof is necessary, but here goes:
Haverford School’s Opponents’ Record (Games Played): 18-22
Academy Park’s Opponents’ Record (Games Played): 17-30
The only team the Knights have played on their level was Lansdale Catholic, which was dealt a 21-7 loss. Consequently, AP scored its fewest points of the season in the LC game (21). It could be argued the only team that can threaten the Knights’ undefeated record before the start of district playoffs is Interboro.
Haverford School has played Del Val Charter, Archbishop Ryan and West Catholic, each of whom could give the Knights a real test. But the Fords lost some points for last week’s result, despite missing key starters on both sides of the ball. And while the Knights haven’t faced the same pressure, they deserve to take the No. 1 spot for the time being.
Moving on…
Haverford High stays at No. 3 after a lopsided win against Penncrest. Upper Darby moves to the No. 4 spot. I’m having a tough time determining which is better, Haverford or Upper Darby. I really hope the Delco football Gods have something special in store Thnaksgiving morning…
Garnet Valley remains at No. 5. The Jags and UD play on the final weekend of the regular season.
Episcopal Academy couldn’t keep up with Malvern, which is the best team I’ve seen all year. I think UD and Garnet Valley should be ranked ahead of the Churchmen, thus the two-spot drop off this week.
Finally, Interboro makes its Super 7 season debut, winning six in a row. The Bucs bump Ridley out of the rankings for this week, even though Ridley has won three in a row. Interboro has shown it deserves to mentioned among the top-7 teams in the county, so … here they are.
Delco Football 
I don’t quibble about the rankings as they are subjective and I have no prob with them. I see a lot of balance this year. You can argue AP and HS are the elite, but I think any Super 7 team that plays any other would be a game this year.
A few points from being at the MP/EA game. MP is really, really good. Big, physical, fast where they need to be and deep. They handled SJP and SJP has since handled a nationally ranked NJ team and LS.
Given all that, EA was only down 13-7 with about a 1:30 to go in the half. Yes, MP was clearly the better team, but EA did a great job keeping it close. Then EA fumbles a return at their own 45 and MP throws a bomb for a TD with a few seconds before half, gets the ball to start the half and before you know it, it is 27-7.
4 bad turnovers and stupid penalties kept EA from keeping this closer, though MP was clearly the better team.
Remember, though. EA has only 4 seniors on the entire team with only two contributing. Just as many freshman contributing.
Two interesting factoids not directly related to the game.
EA has three sophs and two juniors forming their O and D lines. One is a soph named James Bagnell who is 6’6, 300 and is quite agile and carries the weight very well on a very large frame. I expect him to be a really good one – and he showed flashes against formidable line play by MP. His dad started DT for the highly regarded and undefeated 1981 EA team and his grandfather is Reds Bagnell, an All-American tailback for Penn in the late ’40’s when they were a national power who finished third in the Heisman voting.
The other interesting story line related to this game came out of me watching Penn State get clobbered by OSU. PSU DE Carl Nassib went to MP (his brother started QB for MP and Syracuse and had a stint in the NFL). Turns out this younger Nassib never received any accolades at MP outside of winnings some varsity letters. Walked on to PSU as a 6’6, 218 pound lineman. Worked his tail off and got to be 6’7, 272 as a DE. Still, did not start for PSU until he was a 5th year senior this year. All that work, and all that paying his dues and now he leads the nation in sacks. Great story.
I was looking at the MP EA box score and it seems that MP had to play a 10th grade QB, as their Junior QB that beat SJP is ineligible for any IAC games because he transferred from EA this year. I guess it was up to EA whether or not he would be eligible to play league games for Malvern.
EA was without their starting QB too.
Like I posted. MP was certainly the better team. Just saying a young EA team hung in pretty well for a half against a far superior team. This MP team is at the level of TEP, SJP, LS and Wood.
The score, sometimes, is not indicative of the dominance. Looking at the box score Malvern outgained EA (it’s not in front of me) 480 yds-180 yds. You would think the score would be a little lopsided. EA apparently was missing a few guys as was Malvern. Haverford School who struggled this past week and has some key players hurt (not sure if they’re back this week) may struggle against this Malvern team. Three huge Delco games coming up over the next few weeks: Interboro vs AP, Ridley vs Haverford, Upper Darby vs Garnet Vally. Hopefully none of these teams have hiccups before these games. Interesting to see how Marple bounces back against Garnet Valley after losing to Stoga. It is quite possible that the Central League can have 6/7 teams make the playoffs this year- 4A- Haverford even with a loss to Ridley/UD even with a loss to GV /Ridley winning out /Garnet winning out. 3A- Marple/Radnor needs some help /Springfield winning out. Academy Park is also on a crash course to see Bishop Shanahan in round 1 of the playoffs, which would be the best team AP would have faced this year.
The Bishop Shanahan team that lost to Penn Charter?
Yes same team. But Looking at their remaining schedule they will probably not get in so strike my last statement.
JJ55 I’ll give you the fact they have the hardest schedule in AAA. I’d argue that to the end. BS has a big three weeks ahead of them. Downingtown East looks like a crash course with DTW, not seeing an upset there. Coatesville is most likely playing for pride at this point with 3 losses in AAAA. Do they have any knowing playoffs are unlikely? End with Avon Grove…toss up as Avon Grove has improved and have one heck of a running back.
My comment was short and looking back provided very little. The above one does, if I had to guess AP could be seeing Pottsgrove as an 8th seed…that’s interesting.