Photographer/videographer Mark Mulville & I headed to Athol Springs this afternoon to talk to St. Francis standout senior running back Akeel Lynch about committing to Penn State:
More to come in Tuesday's paper and we'll certainly discuss Lynch's choice during Wednesday evening's live video chat.
At the time, he said he selected BC over Penn State.
That was long before the news broke -- in November -- of the child sex abuse charges against former Penn State assistant Jerry Sandusky. The tumultous months that followed included the school's firing of legendary coach Joe Paterno, the hiring of current New England Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien earlier this month to replace him, and Paterno's death on Sunday.
Lynch's committment to Boston College became more and more tenuous as the high school season came and went. Lynch did participate in a recruiting trip to BC on Dec. 3, which caused him to miss the Connolly Cup awards banquet (he was one of 10 finalists).
After his successful senior season -- during which St. Francis won the Monsignor Martin Association championship -- Lynch began to received more recruiting attention.
In early January, he told Boston College that he would be considering other schools. Iowa and Oklahoma had coaches visit Lynch. On Monday, Lynch said Penn State was a finalist along with Iowa, Ole Miss and Oklahoma.
Lynch visited Iowa in early January, had a visit to Oklahoma canceled when a snowstorm canceled his flight, and he visited Penn State this past weekend.
The first day football recruits can sign with schools is Feb. 1. Lynch will make his official announcement then during a ceremony at the Athol Springs school.
A highlight game in his highlight season was running for five touchdowns and a school-record 376 yards on 31 carries (the totals were updated after the game) in St. Francis' 42-27 win at fellow top 10 large school Bishop Timon-St. Jude on Oct. 7. Check out the PrepTalkTV video from that game:
Our All-Western New York team will be published Saturday, which is also the day that the Connolly Cup will be awarded.
But when it comes to postseason awards, Akeel Lynch of St. Francis -- as he has a tendency to do -- got a quick start.
The outstanding running back of the Monsignor Martin champion Red Raiders, who has verbally committed to Boston College, was named New York State's Gatorade Player of the Year.
Here's the info at ESPNHS site, which includes the award program's "three pillars: athletic production and impact in the 2011 season, high academic achievement and exemplary personal character." There's also a nice quote from Bishop Timon-St. Jude coach Charlie Comerford.
It is the third time a Western New York player has won the award, and first since Malik Campbell of Turner-Carroll won it in 1996. Bill Schoenle of Williamsville South won it in 1986, which was the second year the award was presented.
Our Player of the Year award comes out Saturday. I'll discuss our choice, the Connolly Cup and the entire All-WNY team in our weekly live chat next Wednesday.
Here are the Plays of the Weekend for Week Five of high school football.
Watch video highlights below and vote in the poll:
1. Patterson Off To The Races: Alden's Justin Patterson left defenders in his path as he ran 76 yards on this touchdown run in Alden's 14-13 win over Depew in a battle of unbeatens.
2. Kelly Krunch: It isn't very often Chad Kelly gets sacked, but St. Francis' Joseph Smith delivered the quarterback quite the blow on this play. St. Joe's defeated St. Francis 27-20.
3. Akeel Airborn: St. Francis' Akeel Lynch usually uses his feet to get the ball to the end zone. This time he sent some airmail 35 yards to Jarrett Dolegala for The Red Raiders' first score of the game.
4. Lake Shore Sack Attack: Lake Shore's defense delivered back-to-back- sack's to South Park's quarterback Maurice Howie in the first quarter. Final score: Lake Shore 29, South Park 6.
5. Zach Zips On By: St. Francis' Zachary Wells wiggled through defenders to return this kickoff 78 yards and into the end zone.
If it's the last Saturday of August, it must be Scrimmage Saturday, and we must be on our way to seeing as much football action as we can.
We'll be bopping around Western New York today -- as we have the last two years -- to catch as much football as we can in a limited time.
Disclaimer/explainer: Regular visitors to the blog know how much I love it when fans cite scrimmages as evidence for one team being better than another during the regular season, especially when it comes to the discussion of our polls. Just because I'm interested in all of the scrimmages (and getting to as many as I can), and learning about teams and players, they are still scrimmages. Once the season starts, I don't want to hear about them. :-)
If you're out and about like we are today, we want your reviews and breakdowns of what you saw. Keep it in context -- try and notice which first-team units are out there and what the teams are trying to do. Be sure to comment here our on our Facebook page, tweet us at @KeithMcSheaBN or send an email.
8:34 a.m. We are on our way. I met up with photographer Mark Mulville at One News Plaza and we're headed to Cheektowaga for our kickoff.
Eden, Springville, Tonawanda and West Seneca East are visiting Cheektowaga. We're planning a quick stop before heading nearby to Cleveland Hill.
9:22 a.m. Great start to the day for us -- and for Eden. The Raiders, known for their ground-and-pound-and win formula, threw for two touchdowns against Cheektowaga -- including one on the first play of the scrimmage! -- and added in another touchdown as we were leaving.
We were on hand for some warmups before things got started, with Tonawanda coach Rob Gross asking his team, quite loudly, "What's this half-speed!? Why are we doing anything half speed?!"
After a fairly lenghty prepractice address by the officials, we got started as the head referee said, "Rock and roll, Scott," to Cheektowaga coach Scott Zipp.
And early misstep by Cheektowaga against Eden prompted a "Do your job!" admonition from an assistant coach to a player.
On the other half of the field, West Seneca East scored a TD against Tonawanda.
And let's go to the video:
Above is our first play of our season as West Seneca East got things off and running against Tonawanda.
Talk about a great start for Eden. This is their first play as their offense went against Cheektowaga.
A nice run for Eden.
9:30 a.m. Just about to pull in to Cleveland Hill. (Reminder for any hey-buddy-keep-your-hands-on-the-wheel fans: Mulville is driving).
9:37 a.m. iPhone update from Cleve Hill, where they haven't started due to Silver Creek being late. This may screw up some of our travel plans. We'll see.
9:48 a.m. Official addresses teams: "Next week it starts for real, today's for fun."
10:24 a.m. Back in Mulville's Honda heading north to Lockport. It's a super bummer that Cleve Hill was behind because we're a half hour off the ideal schedule I had set up for the day. That's alright. Every game (and every assignment) isn't going to go as planned and you've got to make those key adjustments, right?
On the bright side, we saw the first-stringers for all four teams at Cleve Hill. The defenses ruled the first round as a fired-up Silver Creek unit bottled up Burgard and the Cleve Hill defense kept Cardinal O'Hara out of the end zone.
Daryl Spencer had a nice sack for a big loss for Cleve Hill on defense, then looked very good with some rollout completions on offense. Zeddie Williams, who should be the feature back after the graduation of older brother Zach, looked solid out of the backfield for Silver Creek. Burgard also had some very solid run stops.
Here are the top videos from Cleve Hill:
10:36 a.m. It's a long trip to Lockport. We're just on to Transit from Millersport & the I-990. Six top programs in action up at Emmet Belknap Intermediate: St. Francis, Sweet Home, North Tonawanda, Williamsville South, Grand Island and the host Lions.
Trying to plot out a backup plan -- a main stop for us is Orchard Park, which is hosting Canisius in a scrimmage that started at 10.
11:02 a.m. Got to Lockport in time to catch the tail end of Jordan Johnson of Sweet Home leading the offense against Will South. Johnson and Sweet Home looked to be moving the ball fairly effectively -- he had a touchdown pass to the far left side of the field called back on a penalty. We didn't see a ton of Sweet Home against Will South but we saw a few more plays against Lockport.
Williamsville South and Grand Island were paired up on the other end and there were some hard hits, including a busted play for South that almost resulted in a hit on coach Kraig Kurzanski, who was in the customary coaches' spot behind the huddle.
St. Francis finished strong on defense against Grand Island and then paired up with North Tonawanda. I caught the second half of that pairing, with NT making some nice stops on defense.
Here's our best video from Lockport:
11:31 a.m. We're on the road again, heading south and hoping to fit in a stop at Riverside but that might not be a great decision with OP are key final stop.
11:37 a.m. Just talked to PrepTalkTV partner Lauren Mariacher at Canisius. The first-stringers are done there -- she has video and interviews from there so I might not go down there. I think we'll head to Riverside.
11:40 a.m. Just checked in with Lauren again. Canisius and OP will be on the field for another hour, so Mark and I are going to squeeze in a visit to Riverside, which is hosting McKinley, Bishop Timon-St. Jude and Maple Grove.
Even if we stay just a few moments, we'll be able to get some video, photos and some looks at the teams. Right now we've seen 14 teams in three stops.
With Scrimmage Saturday, it's certainly about quantity, not quality.
11:54 a.m. And JUST when we think we've come up with a great plan, we pull into the Riverside parking lot and pass a kid wearing orange-and-black carrying his shoulder pads out.
"That's not a good sign," says Mark.
It wasn't. The Riverside field was empty.
The kid was from McKinley. Arghhhhhhh.
If I wrote what I'm feeling right now, I'd get an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Maybe two.
Off to OP. Arrrrrrgh. Sigh.
1 p.m. We caught the very end of the Canisius scrimmage at Orchard Park, did some interviews and filmed an intro for PrepTalkTV. Lauren Mariacher is working on that and it'll be posted later today.
I'm headed back to One News Plaza to get some more videos and details posted before heading out to evening scrimmages at Iroquois and Amherst.
More updates to come ...
3:02 p.m. Here is the finished PrepTalkTV product (now starring on the buffalonews.com home page):
3:49 p.m. I've posted a bunch of video here, and I'll have more to come from the six-team Lockport scrimmage as well as some from my next two stops -- Iroquois and Amherst.
4:26 p.m. Hello from the awesome back field setting at Iroquois.
5:40 p.m. Note to football coaches and athletic directors. If you want Prep Talk hanging out at your scrimmage for a long time, have it at night :-).
Got a good long look -- along with the Prep Talk blog's "Milt Latimer" -- at Lackawanna, Frontier, Iroquois and Niagara-Wheatfield, seeing all of their first-strings go at in in their second go-round of '1's.
Lackawanna was very impressive with Keith Taggart leading the way not only at running back but on defense. Some big hits there.
Niagara-Wheatfield sure looked the part, sporting uniforms which looked ready for gameday, right down to every player's pulled-up red calf socks with a black Falcon logo on them. Coming off a winless season and with a new coach in Tim Hagerty, the program looks like it has a little spark. The sideline was extremely into the final offensive session against Iroquois in the first go-round.
Iroquois and Frontier both had good spurts in their session against each other, some nice run stuffs and scoring drives. Frontier got a spark on its offensive series after it made a change at quarterback.
It looked like a productive scrimmage for all four teams.
Here are the video highlights, which were included the best stuff I saw all day:
With six stops and 20 teams seen, now I'm off to Amherst for the final stop of the day.
6:25 p.m. Arrived at Amherst, which is hosting West Seneca West, Kenmore East and Hutch-Tech.
7:09 p.m. Saw some nice play at Amherst's Dimp Wagner Alumni Field, where it appeared that the hosts were the top unit -- not too surprising based on last season and the Tigers' returning experienced players, but certainly impressive nonetheless. Amherst is very fast, and they showed it off on both sides of the ball against a West Seneca West unit that made a few unforced errors, including some turnovers on offense. The Tigers had one player sprint from the backside to chase down a run, and also sped to big gains off of short passes.
Hutch-Tech had some nice run stops and moved the ball better than Kenmore East did in their two series.
The highlights:
And check this out -- I call it a day and walk off the field, and as I walk out of the gate, I run into Tonawanda coach Rob Gross. He was the first coach I saw this morning, and the last coach I see as I leave. Can't make this stuff up.
I think that gives us a very strong finish to our Scrimmage Saturday -- looks like we're ready to go for next weekend.
Just got back from watching St. Joe's and St. Francis on their first day. Wasn't able to see any 7-on-7 or 11-on-11 stuff at either camp, but did get to speak with Joe's quaterback Chad Kelly and St. Francis running back Akeel Lynch.
Lynch and Kelly are regarded as the top two prospects in the area. Over the summer Kelly comitted to play at Clemson and Lynch comitted to Boston College.
Highlights from the summer for Kelly included meeting numerous NFL and college level quaterbacks and being named one of the best QBs in the country at the Elite Eleven camp in Malibu, Calif.
But on Monday Kelly was all about getting his team back to the Monsignor Martin championship game.
"I'm ready to win a championship again, hopefully we can repeat," Kelly said. "St. Francis, they reloaded, Canisius, they reloaded too. It's going to be a great league again this year and hopefully we can get back to another championship. Hopefully we get new chemistry with all these new players and hopefully they are ready to go."
St. Joe's has lost 16 players from last year's squad said heach coach Dennis Gilbert.
As for Lynch, he said he is hoping to be able to play a full 12 games this year. Lynch was forced to sit on the bench for the season's final six weeks because of a ruptured tendon in a finger on his left hand.
One of those six games just happened to be a loss to St. Joe's in the championship game.
"I only played half the season last year. My first goal is to just make it through the season," Lynch said with a laugh. "Then just take it one game at a time. We're trying to go and win every game, that's our goal."
Lynch also said that even though he is comitted to Boston College he still plans on looking at other schools before signing his letter of intent.
St. Francis coach Jerry Smith was pretty optomistic about his teams chances. He said that he thinks he has 22 solid players that he can rely on. As always with high school football though, Smith wondered about his teams depth.
I have to go write a notebook up for tomorrow's paper now, but check back here later. If some stuff doesn't make it into the notebook I might put it up here.
PrepTalkTV met up with a few coaches before the Kensington Lions All-Star Classic at Depew High School to ask them about the upcoming season. Here's what they had to say about their teams and divisions:
St. Francis head coach Jerry Smith:
Burgard head coach Jason Kolb:
Sweet Home head coach John Faller:
Wilson head coach Bill Atlas:
South Park head coach Tim Delaney:
Hamburg head coach Mike McFadden:
St. Mary's head coach Dave Hersey:
Be sure to check back to the PrepTalk blog as we gear up for the first day of practices all around Western New York on Aug. 15.
St. Francis running back Akeel Lynch verbally committed to Boston College this afternoon.
Lynch, a native of Toronto who will be a senior this fall, made the decision in the Athol Springs private school's weight room.
The 6-foot, 1/2-inch, 205-pound Lynch -- who runs a 4.45 40-yard dash -- said he selected BC over Penn State.
"The offense fits my style, it's the zone offense that we run here," Lynch said. "Also, their ability to move me around [on offense], which I really like. I think what really made the difference were the coaches. They made me feel like I was part of the family. I think that's key in anywhere you go, because after football you got to have people to help you succeed in life."
Other schools to offer Lynch a scholarship included Duke, Cincinnati, Syracuse, UConn, University at Buffalo and Akron.
Lynch played just six games as a junior, missing the final five after undergoing surgery to repair a detached tendon on his left ring finĀger. He still earned a spot on the All-Western New York second team by running for 828 yards on 121 carries for an average of 6.8. He scored a total of 10 touchdowns, including five in one game in a 49-21 win at St. Joe's.
This gives Western New York in general, and the Monsignor Martin Association in particular, two major college verbal commitments for the Class of 2012. Quarterback Chad Kelly of St. Joe's has committed to Clemson.