The Insider

We sometimes joke that we could write a story about how high school football (or sunshine, or a happy puppy dog) is great and Vindy.com posters could turn the discussion into a public vs. parochial debate within three posts.

So, it is with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that we unveil our first High School Football Readers Survey.

As I noted last week, we did something like this a few years ago (one with fans, one with area coaches), but those were in the print edition only. This one is on Vindy.com, making voting much easier — particularly since I was the one who compiled the votes for the earlier surveys.

We’ll have 10 questions, ranging from the tame (should games start at 7 or 7:30?) to the dangerous (should public and parochial schools compete in separate divisions?).

You get a voice and we get an easy story. It’s win-win!

High School Football Readers Survey.(www.vindy.com/blitz) and continues through Oct. 12. We’ll print the results in our Oct. 16 edition. And, for good measure, we’ll print our opinion, too.

Since we’re interested in getting a wide (and accurate) range of opinions, please (please!) don’t do any ballot-stuffing.

Some questions (such as the 7 vs. 7:30 start) are fairly straightforward. But on questions like “Best place to watch a game,” we tried to limit the options to nine choices, with the 10th being “other.” This eliminates a lot of area stadiums, but, we’d rather not have the winner garnering 7.8 percent of the vote.

Some other notes:

- Since Mooney-Ursuline would win hands-down as the area’s best rivalry, we decided to ask for the best area rivalry other than Mooney-Ursuline.

This doesn’t necessarily mean Mooney-Ursuline IS the best area rivalry, only that it would win the vote.

- Since former Mooney RB Ted Bell would win hands-down as the best player in the Valley’s history, we decided to limit the question to the last 25 years.

And since that skews the vote toward Warren Harding RB Maurice Clarett, we decided to phrase it “After Maurice Clarett, who is the Valley’s best player of the last 25 years?”

Again, this doesn’t necessarily mean he is the best player of the last quarter-century — although I think he is — just that he would run away with the vote.

- You can add your comments to the bottom of the poll, but please (please!) be civil.

We’re hoping to do this every year, so if there’s a question you’d like to see, feel free to drop us a line.

Power poll

Last weekend’s games went a long way toward sorting out which teams are the Valley’s best, so there’s quite a bit of movement on my second power poll of the year.

Big schools (Division I-III): 1. Mooney, 2. Fitch, 3. Poland, 4. Howland, 5. Hubbard. Honorable mention: Boardman, Warren Harding, Canfield.

Small schools (Division IV-VI): 1. Ursuline, 2. Girard, 3. East Palestine, 4. Lakeview, 5. McDonald. Honorable mention: Crestview, Wellsville.

Other thoughts

- There are a lot of terrific Web sites for high school sports (JJ Huddle, Maxpreps and, of course, Vindy.com, to name three) but one you might not know about is CoachesAid.com.

The site started in Oklahoma more than a decade ago and is beginning to spread across the country.

Brad Bournival, who used to work for the Medina County Gazette, runs the Ohio section of the site, which has a lot of high school football stories but also has a ton of scores on sports such as soccer, volleyball, golf, etc.

It’s good now — I especially like how clean and user-friendly it is — and it’s going to get better.

- Canton’s Fawcett Stadium was already the best high school stadium in the country (according to both ESPNRise.com and The Sporting News) and it’s only gotten better due to a $3 million upgrade of its press box.

This doesn’t mean much to the average fan — I should also note they gave me free pizza, which is the quickest way to my heart — but it’s one more reason to keep the state finals in Stark County.

- Fitch senior QB Jon Ballard was absolutely tremendous in Saturday’s 28-15 win over Canton McKinley.

Midway through the fourth quarter, when the outcome was still in doubt, Ballard drove the Falcons 91 yards in 11 plays for the game-clinching touchdown. He accounted for 88 of those yards (and the TD) and was the biggest reason for Fitch’s biggest win in five years.

- You can read all about East Palestine’s resurgence, but I’d like to go on record as someone who doubted the Bulldogs before they played Columbiana.

That was a big-time win.

- Ursuline (2-2), which is idle this week, does not play its first home game until Oct. 9 against Canton Central Catholic.

If the Irish can make it into the postseason — they have three very winnable games coming up, so I think they will — they’ll again be the best-prepared team in Division V.

Joe Scalzo covers high school football for The Vindicator. Write to him at scalzo@vindy.com.