Heartland Fab Five Change

With Southern's 41-14 victory over Bloomsburg on Friday, there is a change to my Heartland Fab Five. The Top 3 remain the same with Lewisburg, Danville, and Southern.  Mount Carmel moves up to the 4th position and while Selinsgrove enters the #5 spot.  Bloomsburg drops out of the poll.

Friday's game for Southern could be described in three chapters; dominating, resting, and finishing. Southern came out and dominated the both sides of the line of scrimmage, but could not overcome some penalties to put the game out of reach.

The stumble at the end of the second and beginning of the 3rd allowed Bloomsburg to tie the game at 14.  The tie would only last for the kickoff.  On the first play from scrimmage following the kick, Tyrell Thomas went 70 yards for a TD and Southern never looked back.

With the win, Southern goes to 5-1 and will have another show down with undefeated Danville.  The good that came out of Friday's game was that the Tiger's running game got on track and were for the most part able to impose their will on the Panthers.

Defensively, Southern was able to cover most of the Bloomsburg receiver with man coverage and were able to keep the heat on Blake Rankin.

The only negative in the win were the penalties.  First, the Tigers committed 11 of them.  Second, they were not able to keep drives alive after they were committed.  More on penalties down below.

TV, Officials and Penalties

The Southern-Bloom game was televised live by WNEP16 (2).  Between TV timeouts, penalties and pass attempts the game lasted close to 3 hours.  The officials never seemed to be on the same page when the TV timeouts were called.  It led to Jim Roth questioning the officials whether coach Sones was allowed to bring his Panthers over to the sideline.

I'm all for TV coverage, but when it becomes more of a field distraction maybe some simple rules should be observed.

During the regular season, a game cannot be stopped by media.  Simple.

Getting back to the other side of officials,  I was a little surprised.  In Week 6, two teams were called for 21 penalties.  Friday was the third Southern game that I had the privilege to broadcast.  In the previous two with Line Mountain and Shamokin, the Tigers were not called for one illegal block.  On Friday, the were called for three from the line of scrimmage.   What did the officials see in Week 6 that wasn't seen in Week 1 or 2?

Bad Weekend for Local QB's

Dave Shinskie regained his starting spot on Saturday for Boston College.  One TD pass and two INT's, with the latter being returned 28 yards for a TD, Shinskie was pulled from the game.  Again, BC doesn't have a QB problem.  Their problem is lack of a running game and offensive line playing poor right now.  Boston College lost to NC State 44-17.

Shamokin Area graduate Marc Persing now sharing time at QB for Wilkes, suffered a broken leg that will require surgery.  Persing drove Wilkes 48 yards in the middle of a 22-point, 4th quarter comeback where the Colonels beat Lebanon Valley in 35-28 in OT.