Week Four Prep Football - Things Are Heating Up!

Are you ready for Week Four? At this point in the season, league games are starting to mean a whole lot more and the intensity of practices are being turned up. It’s about now that the contenders are separated from the pretenders. In five weeks, the playoff picture will be set and some teams will be turning in their equipment for the season and starting to think about basketball or wrestling. I don’t even want to talk about my game last night, it sucked, let’s get on to the varsity games profiled this week.

West

Rockford vs. Grandville (at Grandville)

Look at this crazy division! The Ottawa-Kent Red Division has got to be the toughest division in high school football. Not only does the conference have three of the top five ranked teams in the state (Muskegon #1, Rockford #3, Hudsonville #4 in the Detroit Free Press Poll) they also have a boatload of State Championship Trophies to go along with those rankings. This game will be a real test for Grandville. If they expect to move up in the rankings and keep their conference title hopes alive, this is a must win. On the flipside, Rockford had to maintain “business as usual” and win another tough game.

Rockford senior Robert Banaszak must have another good game and not throw interceptions if he wants the win. On the other hand, Grandville must get their ground game going and keep the defense honest in order to pull out the win. This will be a tough game between two tough teams and the team that wins will be the squad that makes the least mistakes. This is a game I’d love to see if I wasn’t getting married this weekend.

North

Traverse City West vs. Cadillac (at Cadillac)

I had a request from one of the SpartanNation readers to cover Cadillac and this is the prefect situation for it. They open their season against Traverse City West in the Big North Conference opener for both teams. TC-West was a preseason favorite to win the conference but has fallen a bit behind in the overall rankings due to some tough early season opponents (Hudsonville and Grandville). Cadillac has lost a lot to graduation and is trying to find their new identity and win the conference. I’ve heard that Caddy has been improving in the past couple of weeks, especially with the “big uglies” on the offensive and defensive lines.

At Traverse City West, the defense will have to step it up. With the improved play of Cadillac’s offensive line, TCW will have to put pressure on Cadillac to step it up for an entire game. They got it done on the road last week against a good Kingsford squad, and now they have to go play a team that hasn’t beaten them since 2000. That doesn’t mean anything though. Cadillac has put together a couple of decent seasons and they hope to continue with this winning way. This one should leave both teams exhausted and I fully expect it to be a close game.

Detroit

Allen Park vs. Dearborn (at Allen Park)

This Michigan Mega Red Conference matchup features two undefeated teams. Allen Park was named an honorable mention for “teams that have never won a state championship” by the Detroit News. That’s for good reason though. The Jaguars haven’t had a losing season since 1981 and has won eight games every season since 1992. Dearborn on the other hand, has problems beating Allen Park. They beat them last season when it counted though, in the playoffs.

Anthony Mifsud, senior quarterback and coach’s son for Dearborn will have to come though in a big way in order for his team to win. Allen Park will be ready for him and if Coach Mifsud doesn’t have his team ready and pumped up in the first quarter, the game might get away from them before it really starts. The reason for that is Dearborn running back Dylan O’Reilly. After a couple of fumbles in the season opener, O’Reilly has come on strong and done a nice job of keeping the ball in his team’s possession. This game will be really close and the winner has the inside track for the Michigan Mega Red Conference Championship.

Mid Michigan

Frankenmuth vs. Essexville (at Frankenmuth)

The return of Coach Blankenship has done a lot for Frankenmuth. Last season started slowly, but they won four games in a row and just barely missed the playoffs with a record of 5-4. This season has gone well so far, beating Saginaw Swan Valley and a good Birch Run team. The option offense has started to click for the Eagles and they seem poised to take those next steps, a Tri Valley East Conference Championship and a trip back to the playoffs.

Essexville is no slouch either. They are also 3-0 and hoping to take those same steps Frankenmuth wants to take. The Dukes beat Bridgeport and legendary Saginaw coach Mel Skillman last week 41-16 behind a strong offensive performance of running back Josh Pierson (132 yards rushing, four touchdowns). He has seven touchdowns on the season. The question is whose defense will step up and force the opposing offense out of their routine and put them away.

Please excuse me while I go get married. I’ll be back soon.