Countdown to Kickoff

   We're now less than 48 hours from the opening whistle of the 2018 high school football season. Despite all the rain over the late spring and summer, Friday night's forecast as of now is for near-perfect weather, which is also a welcome sign.
   And there's plenty of intrigue around my coverage area for the Bedford Gazette. By the way, the Gazette's annual preview insert comes out on Friday (I didn't do much for the issue, so forward any comments/concerns to others not named Ryan Spring, LOL).
   Here's some of the top storylines in my opinion:

Chestnut Ridge to the Laurel Highlands
   The Lions, who have been very good of late, find themselves back in a league this fall as a full member of the Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference. They will have a lot of new faces in the skill positions, and their development will be key. I've heard some people saying that Ridge will struggle in the LHAC, but to that point, I'll make two counterpoints.
   First, I would argue that Chestnut Ridge's independent scheduling over the past decade has been just as rigorous as any league team. The Lions have faced opponents such as Berks Catholic, Fort Hill and Allegany from Maryland, Musselman from West Virginia, plus more regional powers like Berlin, Portage, Tyrone and others.
  Second, in the 10 seasons against many of those above, Chestnut Ridge has had only one losing season, and that was 5-6 in 2009.
  Sure, like mentioned above, Max Shoemaker will have a lot of new people on his first string offense and defense, but it is one of the stronger football programs from top to bottom around right now. The Lions draw one of the LHAC favorites, Forest Hills, right out of the box on Friday night in Sidman, and while I'm not sure they could pull out an upset in that one, I wouldn't sleep on them over the rest of the fall.

Rest of the LHAC
   Bedford, my other team in the league, has had a couple down years of late, but I expect the Bisons to be better. That said, I think they're still a year or two away from contending. They do avoid Bishop Guilfoyle on the schedule this season, which helps.
   It appears as if Forest Hills and Bishop Guilfoyle are the preseason favorites, while it could be a battle between several teams for the next slot or two.

New Coaches
   There's two new head coaches in my area, and they'll face each other in two days as Claysburg-Kimmel visits Tussey Mountain.
   After winning its first playoff game in nearly 30 years, the Bulldogs gave the reigns to Matt Bilchak, who is the head man for the first time anywhere. He was an assistant to Dan Foor previously. Bilchak has a nice nucleus of starters back and expectations are up in CK country.
   Meanwhile, the Titans went with Anthony Sottasante, who previously coached at Columbia in District 3.
   Tussey Mountain has only three wins in the past two years, but rumors are a scrimmage this past weekend with perennial WestPAC power Portage went better than expected. A scrimmage is a scrimmage, so I don't know what can be taken out of it. But it's at the very least some positive vibes for the Titan faithful.

Inter-County Glory
   It's a broken record, but it seems again like the road to an ICC title goes through Bellwood-Antis. Despite the fact that legendary coach John Hayes retired, the Blue Devils should be strong again, as assistant Nick Lovrich moved up to Hayes' spot.
   The contenders could include Juniata Valley, Claysburg, and Southern Huntingdon.
   Northern Bedford isn't getting a lot of press, but that's probably how Black Panthers' coach Garry Black likes it, coming off a district championship in 2017. Like Chestnut Ridge, Black will have a lot of skill position changes from a year ago. Central and Southern Huntingdon in the first two weeks will be challenges, but could also pave the way for success later on in the season. By the way, the Southern Huntingdon game is on a Thursday if you saw that and thought it was a misprint. The game is at Southern next Thursday, August 30.