Fryer's Week 3 football notes
Fryer's Week 3 football notes
Check out a challenge for St. Margaret's, the talent at Fullerton and a new team to beat.
St. Margaret's, 2-0 with a two-game cumulative score of 110-0, plays Whittier Christian on Friday, at St. Margaret's.
Whittier Christian last week beat Savanna, and while Savanna obviously is down this year, any time a lower-division small private school beats a fairly-good, mid-division, public-school team, that's noteworthy.
No such teams are on St. Margaret's schedule this year, but this is the next-best thing when it comes to trying to figure out just how good St. Margaret's really is.
THE TRIBE
Fullerton was very impressive in so many ways in its 20-16 victory over El Dorado, a two-time CIF-Southern Section Southwest Division champion.
The only team that beat El Dorado in 2006 and '07 was Esperanza.
Fullerton has team speed where it matters most - on defense. And the Indians have a great running back, Michael Allain, who takes the handoff at full speed and is running behind and through an outstanding offensive line of Julio Cortez, Randall Hicks, Eric Lopez, Andre Polo and Taylor Rees, with more great blocking from fullback Brian Lopez and tight end Austin Ruiz.
MATER DEI FOLLOW-UP
Postgame talk after Mater Dei's 47-35 loss to Centennial was focused mostly on Mater Dei's sloppy tackling, especially when trying to bring down Centennial running back Arthur Burns.
Perhaps that was more Burns being difficult to wrap up once Burns got through the line of scrimmage, because he's that good. Good backs make good tacklers look bad.
LaDainian Tomlinson and Adrian Peterson run against the same defensive players the NFL's other backs do.
THE TOP 10
Orange Lutheran occupied the top spot, but after Lutheran lost to Bishop Amat of La Puente, Mater Dei took over - but for only one week before the loss to Centennial. Now, Mission Viejo is No. 1, and could be there for the duration of the season. The Diablos will face a good team this week - Vista, a San Diego County team that beat Mission Viejo last year and should be better this year.
Will we have four No. 1 teams in as many weeks?
GAME OF THE WEEK
Edison-Servite, Friday at Cerritos College. Edison is averaging 51 points a game, but has not played a challenging team yet. Servite just lost by one point to Crespi of Encino, the No. 6-ranked team in the state. We will find out just how good Edison really is, and if Servite can bounce back after a tough loss.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
