With an earlier than normal start to the scholastic football season, the time to unveil the first \u201cRCN SportsTalk\u201d High School Football Poll for the Lehigh Valley is almost upon us!<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve remarked in previous years how comprehensive and diverse our poll is compared to other publications and media outlets, and we are using the same formula for the fall 2016 season.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\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
Before we get to unveiling our 2016 Lehigh Valley football poll (we\u2019re going to announce it on this Thursday\u2019s \u201cRCN SportsTalk\u201d show\u2014also available here on the website via podcast on Friday), let\u2019s take a quick look back at last year\u2019s poll and evaluate how we did:<\/p>\n
2015 BIG SCHOOL FB Preseason Poll<\/strong> (10 pollsters) ANALYSIS:<\/em> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Parkland was clearly the best team in the area, and came within a few minutes of winning a PIAA state title.\u00a0 Freedom and Easton split a pair of games against each other last year and Liberty was the fourth team that advanced to a district semifinal matchup.\u00a0 Whitehall\u2014with nearly everyone returning this year\u2014was one of several teams that finished a step below the first four, along with Emmaus and a faster-than-expected rebuilding effort from the Nazareth Blue Eagles.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a02015 SMALL SCHOOLS FB Preseason Poll<\/strong> (9 pollsters) \u00a02015 SMALL SCHOOLS FB Poll<\/strong> (10 pollsters) How will our 2016 preseason poll look?\u00a0 Find out over the next week as we will bring you an unprecedented THREE BIG HOURS<\/strong> of high school football previews, predictions, insights and interviews with head coaches and players themselves.\u00a0 On both the \u201cRCN SportsTalk\u201d program and on our podcasts (rcn.com\/atvn\/sports-talk<\/a>), we will present three, one hour-long shows featuring the Lehigh Valley media\u2019s top football insiders breaking down the different leagues, top match-ups and players to watch.\u00a0 Our first show will be broadcast live on RCN-TV this Thursday at 7pm, followed by two additional live program broadcasts from the Allentown Fair\u2019s RCN Farmerama Stage<\/a> area next Tuesday and Wednesday, 6-7 pm.<\/p>\n Then on Thursday at the Fair (7:30 \u2013 8:30 pm), we\u2019ll feature the 50th<\/sup> anniversary\/reunion show featuring the first undefeated football team in Parkland High School history, with players from that historic team, great stories from the golden years of high school football, and those players\u2019 thoughts on current football issues and how today\u2019s athletes compare.<\/p>\n We hope you\u2019ll join us in person for these special shows from the Fair!<\/p>\n Last but not least, make sure you tune in for the season premiere of high school football this Friday, featuring Central Catholic versus Freedom, live at 7 pm on RCN-TV.\u00a0 Plus, check out the RCN broadcast schedule here on the website for upcoming games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With an earlier than normal start to the scholastic football season, the time to unveil the first \u201cRCN SportsTalk\u201d High School Football Poll for the Lehigh Valley is almost upon us! I\u2019ve remarked in previous years how comprehensive and diverse our poll is compared to other publications and media outlets, and we are using the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"Yoast SEO Relevanssi index exclude","inline_featured_image":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,5],"tags":[18,220],"class_list":["post-78543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-sports","category-the-sportstalk-shop","tag-allentown-fair","tag-high-school-football"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n1) Parkland \u2013 50 total votes ( 10 -1st<\/sup> place votes)
\n2\u2014tied) Easton — 28
\n2\u2014tied) Freedom — 28
\n4)\u00a0 Liberty — 16
\n5)\u00a0 Whitehall \u2013 11
\nOther schools receiving more than one vote:\u00a0 Emmaus, Stroudsburg<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our panelists pretty much nailed the 2015 season before the first game was played, despite us getting some early season grief about having Freedom and Easton tied for the second spot\u2014and not just from Red Rovers fans). <\/em><\/p>\n
\n1) Bethlehem Catholic \u2013 43 total votes (8\u00a0 -1st<\/sup> place votes)
\n2) Saucon Valley \u2013 36 (1 \u2013 1st<\/sup> place vote)
\n3) Northern Lehigh — 20
\n4) Central Catholic — 11
\n5) Northwestern \u2013 10
\nOther schools receiving more than one vote: Notre Dame, Pen Argyl, Salisbury
\nANALYSIS:<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This wasn\u2019t our best year as far as pre-season predictions for the smaller schools, as Saucon topped Becahi in the 3A District XI title game.\u00a0 Both Northern Lehigh and Central Catholic struggled, while Notre Dame had arguably its greatest season ever, and Salisbury showed strong signs of improving that will probably continue into 2016.\u00a0 However, let the record show that, by the time we did our first \u201cin-season\u201d small school poll, the teams shook out this way (which nearly mirrors the final standings):<\/em><\/p>\n
\n1) Saucon Valley (5\u00a0 -1st<\/sup> place votes)
\n2) Bethlehem Catholic (4 \u2013 1st<\/sup> place votes)
\n3) Notre Dame (1 \u2013 1st<\/sup> place vote)
\n4) Northwestern
\n5) Central Catholic\/Salisbury (Tied)<\/p>\n