Full moon brings out strange football happenings
I was driving my two sons home the other evening and the older one pointed out a full moon in the sky. Although he mistakenly identified it as a half-moon – he’s still building his knowledge base in astronomy -that full moon must have been hanging in the sky for at least the past week.
Now, I realize this is a scientific impossibility, as full moons only hang in the sky for around three days. However, the past seven days or so have produced a larger than usual collection of bizarre happenings on the gridiron. Whether they were lunar influenced or not, here is a brief list of some of those weird, unexpected or simply tradition-breaking occurrences that really caught my eye.
This Pennsylvania’s high school football season ended that weekend with the Commonwealth’s six title games. Friday, Dec. 9 and Saturday Dec. 10 saw results from the four WPIAL participants that ranged from historically dominant, to head-scratchingly odd.
In the WPIAL, no team invokes stronger feelings of dread than the Clairton Bears. Despite being one of the smallest school districts in Pennsylvania, the Orange and Black routinely churns out big time college talent that brings in district and state trophies. However, the mighty Bears were tamed in such a way that hasn’t been seen for 13 years.
Bishop Guilfoyle, a small private school in Altoona, shut out Clairton 17-0 and limited the storied program to just 193 yards of total offense. The Marauders also forced the WPIAL champs into four turnovers. It was Guilfoyle’s third-straight state crown.
Speaking of teams that can seemingly do no wrong, Pittsburgh Central Catholic got a taste of its own medicine in the 6-A title tilt. The Vikings ran into another large, tradition-rich parochial school in Philadelphia’s St. Joseph’s Prep and were handed by far their worst loss of the season at by far the worst possible time of year. The Hawks soundly thrashed PCC 42-7.
While the first and last championship games of the year ended on incredibly sour notes for the WPIAL, Steel Valley and 2-A and Beaver Falls in 3-A returned from Chocolate Town with a much sweeter taste in their mouths. Both schools made their own bit of history in Hershey.
Steel Valley not only completed an undefeated season on its way to the gold, but did so in the most dominant fashion possible. The Iron Men showed no mercy in forcing every one of their games into the mercy rule by gaining leads of at least 35 points. Amazingly, SV not only did so against one of the top programs in the state, Southern Columbia, but it scorched the defending champs 49-7 without star running back DeWayne Murray.
Even though Beaver Falls didn’t crush every opponent they came across like Steel Valley, the Tigers’ first-ever PIAA crown was still a memorable one. The Black and Orange allowed just 118 yards, piled up five sacks, intercepted five passes and gave up negative rushing yardage to Middletown to bring the trophy back to Beaver County.
The college game wasn’t immune to whatever strange forces were playing with the normality of the gridiron.
While some may most closely identify the color purple with Prince or Barney the Dinosaur, Division III football fans consider it the color of excellence. Not only have the past 16 title games featured at least one team with the royal hue in its uniform, but all 24 participants in the last 12 championship tilts sported purple in their helmets and jerseys.
When Stagg Bowl XLIV kicks off on Friday night, Wisconsin-Oshkosh will bring its black and gold to Salem, Virginia, to take a shot at a national championship. However, the universe made sure not to completely turn the game on its head as Texas-based Mary Hardin-Baylor, which sports a purple and gold motif, will look to deny the Titans the crown.
It seems like every year, the game of football produces weirder and weirder scandals. However, the latest, which comes out of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is a particularly eye-opening one.
Wake Forest radio announcer Tommy Elrod, who was also a player and assistant coach for the Demon Deacons, has been accused of providing sensitive information to opposing teams for at least the past three seasons. While the gavel has not officially fallen on his guilt, the evidence is fairly overwhelming against Elrod, who was suspected of wrongdoing after a play sheet was discovered in an opponent’s locker room earlier this year.
For a guy that spent his entire adult football live as a part of the Wake Forest family, it’s hard to believe he would sabotage the program in such a blatant and malicious way. This is one story that I will definitely be keeping a close eye on.