BleacherCoaches.com

Local teams doing well

Glad to see the locals getting some mention. Just IMO there is no way Blairsville or Portage could compete with Tyrone. Good A teams, but not on that level

Agreed, Portage wouldn't be able to beat Tyrone. Ranking a whole side of state is tough, and ranking them by two classes instead of one is even more difficult. You want to include everyone, but if we are being honest with ourselves, Portage isn't the a top 10 AA team in the WPIAL, let alone a top 10 team in this whole side of the state taking into consideration both classifications.

Same thing with Somerset, they wouldn't be able to beat many WPIAL AAAA teams but for the sake of this ranking, they get credit for being 7-0.

Years ago I remember they used to do a clash of champions at Rec Hall in wrestling. Would be something to see but never will in football.

In this area I don't really think there is that much of a difference in Class. Yes we have different numbers but the skill matches up. Your going to see it in a few weeks, BG vs Somerset (A vs AAA) Tyrone vs Central Mountain (AA vs AAAA) are examples. You wouldn't want to do that in the WPIAL. Altoona is a quad a team and they don't want to compete with the big boys of the district.

they all belong in my rankings......thanks guys. I especially like that I can put teams like Somerset and Portage in there...We have been doing the rankings with 2 divisions for a long time. We found it creates more interest and debate (that's a good thing) plus, if I were to rank them according to class the rankings would be quite watered down in the 8,9,10 area since I'm only ranking for the western half of the state....Districts 5,6,7,8,9,10. And we will be giving an award to the top team in each section win or lose at Hershey.

Bg may be a, but a catholic a can compete with aaa. Some of those good players could be at altoona, and they wouldn't compete with the aaa.

But they are catholic kids that been going there the whole career. It is still a A school and they still have a single A class school size?

This is an endless debate. The talent pool isn't the same. Public A schools are stuck with what they got, anybody can attend parochial schools. Their programs depend heavily on how many parents want their talented kids to get a Catholic education. They dont even have to move to switch to these schools