We\u2019ve had a couple surprises through the first three weeks of the high school football season, yet many of our pre-season expectations remain firmly in place.<\/p>\n
The biggest surprise of the District XI high school football season has to be the improved performances of the Nazareth Blue Eagles.\u00a0 While the football pundits thought Nazareth\u2019s up-and-coming players might be a year away from contending, the Eagles have clearly established themselves as a team to watch this fall.\u00a0 Jahan Dotson, Travis Stefanik and company have played three outstanding games\u2014all against strong opponents\u2014and have won two of those contests.\u00a0 Several of those same Eagle athletes who surprised everyone during the basketball season during their tremendous run last winter are stepping up and making noise, pushing Nazareth forward and in to our football poll for the first time this season.<\/p>\n
Saucon Valley holds on to their first-place ranking after jumping out to a 49-24 cushion on previously unbeaten Southern Lehigh in posting a victory last Friday night.\u00a0 Parkland also continued its winning ways by jumping out to a 28-0 lead on Central Catholic last weekend en route to a win and a 3-0 record.\u00a0 Both Saucon Valley\u2019s and Parkland\u2019s games last weekend are available to watch on RCN On-Demand.<\/p>\n
Before we look at the complete list, here\u2019s a quick recap of our poll structure.\u00a0 Our pollsters consist of many different people over the entire Lehigh Valley region.\u00a0 Our voting panel consists of local media members from different outlets, along with local coaches and athletic directors from across the entire district.\u00a0 The voters are not identified so they can give their honest impressions without any worry of outside pressures or \u201cbulletin board\u201d material, and we rotate different pollsters from different schools each year, including guests from our biggest to our smallest schools.<\/p>\n
As in previous years, we take the 400-male enrollment number as the cutoff for schools within the District XI\/RCN footprint.\u00a0 All schools above that number qualify as \u201cbig schools\u201d in our poll. These schools consist of Parkland, Liberty, Allen, Easton, Emmaus, Liberty, Dieruff, Freedom, Stroudsburg, Pleasant Valley, Northampton, Nazareth, E. Stroudsburg-South, Whitehall, Southern Lehigh and Bangor.\u00a0 \u201cSmall schools\u201d (below 400-male enrollment) consist of Saucon Valley, Central Catholic, Bethlehem Catholic, Northwestern, Wilson, Palisades, Palmerton, Salisbury, Notre Dame, Pen Argyl, Nolehi and Catasauqua.\u00a0 Each pollster will identify their top five teams in each group\u2014the top school gets five points, the second team gets four points and so on, with an average score determining the order of teams in the poll.<\/p>\n
With the particulars out of the way, here\u2019s the full look at how this week\u2019s polls shake out\u2026<\/p>\n
BIG SCHOOL FB Poll<\/strong> (10 pollsters) SMALL SCHOOLS FB Poll<\/strong> (10 pollsters) Here are clips of the highlights from all of our high school games broadcast on RCN-TV so far this season.<\/p>\n
\n1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Parkland \u2013 50 total votes (10 -1st place votes)
\n2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Easton — 37
\n3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Freedom — 33
\n4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nazareth — 17
\n5) \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Liberty — 9
\nOther schools receiving more than one vote:\u00a0 Whitehall<\/p>\n
\n1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Saucon Valley \u2013 46 total votes (6 – 1st place votes)
\n2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bethlehem Catholic \u2013 43 (4 \u2013 1st place vote)
\n3-tie)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Central Catholic– 24
\n3-tie)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Notre Dame — 24
\n5)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Northern Lehigh — 9
\nOther schools receiving more than one vote: Northwestern, Palmerton<\/p>\n