Leading off today: Thank you to the Ohio High School Athletic Association for showing the rest of the country how not to kick off the football postseason.
Just two days before the final weekend of regular-season game, the OHSAA created one mess by trying to create another by classifying a slew of canceled games as forfeits.
Their intentions may have been good -- there was strong suspicions that many of the cancellations were inspired by schools trying to duck a late season-loss that would drop them into an unfavorable tournament seed -- but they threw some babies out with the bath water.
Hopefully, other state associations will take note.
Here's what happened in the most grievous case:
Norton High School, just southwest of Akron, began the week with an 8-0 record and was projected as the top seed in the Division IV, Region 13 playoffs, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. On Wednesday, however, the Panthers were tagged with a forfeit loss stemming from a Week 1 cancellation. It dropped them down to a projected No. 5 seed when the playoffs begin next week.
Coach Glen Kruger told the paper via a text message that the game in question was scrapped following consultation with the school nurse, county health department, an even the OHSAA following an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease. He said school administrators were told by the OHSAA that the game would be treated as a no contest.
"Never have I witnessed a rule change made so arbitrarily, and done so 9 weeks after being told something else," he wrote. "Clearly, Norton is being punished and lumped in with teams who decided to cancel games because they did not want to play specific opponents. This decision is even more disappointing as it was released as a 2:39 p.m. email dump to the affected schools, three days before the regular season ended."
OHSAA Director of Media Relations Tim Stried said the reversal came about because the governing body had become alarmed by a combined 11 no contests on the books statewide from Week 4 to Week 8. He acknowledged that the OHSAA was aware of the circumstances of why Norton]s Week 1 game was not played.
"We have decided to have the same policy for all of those games that the team that had to cancel a game is going to receive a loss," he said. "They may not be asked to pay the damages clause in the contract, but they will still take a loss. Never great timing to do that, especially in Week 10 ... [W]e know that affects a lot of games and a lot of teams."
Interestingly, the OHSAA did not give wins to the final seven opponents on Youngstown Ursuline's schedule after the school shut down its season in the aftermath of being sued for an alleged hazing incident.
"I am sure people are going to ask about that, but we look at the season cancellation different than a school needing to cancel because several players were sick that week," Stried said.
What has the Ohio situation taught us?
Officials in the Ohio High School Athletic Association may think they've saved the integrity of their postseason by changing cancellations into forfeits, but what they've really done is told schools that they should put sick players -- even those with communicable diseases -- on the field rather than get dinged with a forfeit loss.
They obviously put a lot less thought into the repercussions of their decision than they should have.
No. 1 Syracuse CBA hangs on
Syracuse CBA's stay atop the New York State Sportswriters Association Class AA football rankings was nearly a very short one. However, senior Adrian Weather was having none of that, and the Brothers pulled out a 21-20 win over Cicero-North Syracuse on Thursday.
Weather, a defensive back, broke up a pass to the end zone with eight seconds left. On the next play, he blocked the potential game-winning field goal to extend the two-time defending state champions' winning streak to 36 games.
"Big players make big plays," Weather told Syracuse.com. "I know what I can do. I'm ready. Any team could test me. I'm ready. I was up for the challenge."
Said coach Casey Brown: "The senior class, they really are owning this season and understanding what this is all about. And Adrian's one of those guys that when you ask him to step up in the moment, they will."
CBA had ascended to No. 1 in the NYSSWA rankings this week following an Iona Prep loss to Monsignor Farrell.
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Stepinac twins pick Southern Cal
Archbishop Stepinac 7-foot twins
Adonis and Darius Ratliff committed to continue their basketball careers at USC next fall after visiting the school last week.
The highly regarded brothers picked Trojans over Alabama, Arkansas and Texas.
Trojans coach Eric Musselman was an assistant coach with the Atlanta Hawks in the early 2000s when their father Theo Ratliff played for the NBA team.
Darius is ranked as the No. 43 overall recruit and Adonis is No. 52 in the class of 2026, according to 247Sports.
Season ends early for Section 2 team
Hudson Falls/Fort Edward has forfeited this weekend's scheduled football game against undefeated Greenwich due to a lack of healthy players.
Hudson Falls/Fort Edward was 1-6 this fall after sitting out the 2024 season due to a low turnout.
Greenwich, ranked No. 2 in Class D by the NYSSWA, has outscored its opponents by 319-19.
Novel concept for new stadium
Executive Education Academy Charter School in Allentown, Pa., has received the go-ahead to build an athletic complex that includes a
football stadium atop a 300-car parking ramp.
Plans for the $25 million project call for a turf field with seating for 4,000 fans, a press box and concessions.
The facility will be adjacent to Coca-Cola Field, home of the Lehigh Valley IronPigs baseball franchise. The lot is shared by both the school and team, but the IronPigs hold easement rights.
The parking ramp is expected to be complete in spring, and the stadium could be ready for the start of the school's 2026 football season.
A pet peeve of mine lives on
The Section 5 basketball committee has released its list of 2025 Hall of Fame inductees. It's one of the oldest halls in the section, and I was part of the selection committee for the first few years.
I left due to time constraints brought on by work and family considerations. But I was also frustrated because one committee member held disproportionate power over the selection of female candidates, and he more or less blacklisted players who chose not to participate in the Empire State Games.
I'd like to call that something much worse, but I'll settle for "arbitrary" since this is a PG-13 rated blog.
We're now close to four decades after she graduated from Pittsford Mendon, and Kari Knapp still has not been inducted. Knapp and Penn Yan's Debbie Eaves were the Greater Rochester area's dominant lost players in the 1980s. Eaves rightfully was selected for induction shortly after becoming eligible.
Knapp was surrounded by excellent talent (as was Eaves), but she was the piece that made Mendon a top Section 5 team. For the committee to not respect the work of a three-time All-Greater Rochester selection continues to boggle my mind. It's easily the committee's most glaring omission -- by a wide, wide margin.
