COMMENTARY

 

In today's climate of rampant transfers, stacked rosters and monumental disparity too many schools playing football (heck pick a sport) are left in the recognition dust.

It's sexy to be elite. Star players overfilling rosters. Nearly every week Chandler, Centennial, Mountain Pointe and the like are involved in a marquee, must-see matchup. Fans can't get enough of these schools. The college commits at all levels are daily fodder to whet the appetites of football-crazed fans. 

Just this week there are a bunch of mouth-watering games to choose from. A few quickly come to mind in 6A and 5A -- Perry-Pinnacle, Centennial-Casteel, Chaparral-Hamilton, Desert Ridge-Red Mountain, Chandler-Centennial, CA, Williams Field-Norco, CA.

The tragedy is there are some 230 schools playing football in the state. Seems often like there are only 40 or 50 that matter. It's a shame.

The other say 180 to 200 deserve recognition past a line or two in a preseason preview. They play 10 times like the elites. It wouldn't be criminal to take in a game featuring lesser-talented schools. Problem in football is it's one game a week. Most often the same day (Friday) of the week. In other team sports one can view three or four games a week. Not football.

To that end I've pledged to highlight as many teams and games post-Friday's as I can this year to borderline playoff teams and those schools who most realize have a hard time reaching that level. Games this week such as Sandra Day O'Connor-Mesa, Kofa-Trevor Browne, Dobson-Shadow Ridge, Coronado-Arcadia are a few others given how they finished record-wise in 2017.Most of those schools located in rural areas 3A-1A especially, have local papers that do them justice. Some fall through the cracks.

The deck is stacked today against many of them. Naysayers retort harder work and/or better coaching would turn these schools into playoff contenders in a very short time. That just isn't the case. I'd like to see a coach from today's elite programs step down and take their expertise to guide schools who are playoff barren for the last 5, 10, 15 years or more.

The takers on that account would be few -- if any. Keep it in the back of your mind that 40 or so schools per conference in the state play every week. Take a peek from time to time at those not in the limelight. Everyone knows who they are. They deserve more looks than they're getting. 

 

The view expressed in this article is strictly that of the writer.