Weeks of summer workouts, heat acclimatization practices and two-a-days get put to the test today when all 16 area high school football teams participate in their annual preseason scrimmage.

The PIAA eliminated the second scrimmage from the preseason schedule several years ago, opting to move up the start of the regular season one week so that football didn’t overlap with the beginning of the winter sports season.

That change led to teams being more active over the summer in 7-on-7s, lift challenges and team camps, and put more of an emphasis on today’s scrimmage, the only time during the preseason that teams will square off against another school in pads.

The T102SportsNow staff will be out and about today at a couple of scrimmages and will provide some updates, photos, video and more.

Here’s a look at today’s scrimmages:

Tamaqua at Hamburg, 9 a.m.

Blue Mountain at Exeter Township, 10 a.m.

Executive Education at Pine Grove, 10 a.m.

Jim Thorpe at Northern Lehigh, 10 a.m.

Mount Carmel at Pottsville, 10 a.m.

Nativity at Halifax, 10 a.m.

Danville at North Schuylkill, 10 a.m.

Panther Valley at Palmerton, 10 a.m.

Pocono Mountain East at Lehighton, 10 a.m.

Schuylkill Haven/James Buchanan at Biglerville, 10 a.m.

Jenkintown at Shenandoah Valley, 10 a.m.

Williams Valley at Newport, 10 a.m.

Nanticoke/Holy Redeemer at Mahanoy Area, 10 a.m.

Tri-Valley at Midd-West, 11 a.m.

Northern Lebanon at Minersville, noon

Upper Dauphin at Marian, 1 p.m.

There were some changes in the original scrimmage schedules that were released over the summer. The Northern Lebanon-Minersville and Upper Dauphin-Marian scrimmages were moved back to later in the day to accommodate officials. The sites for the Danville-North Schuylkill and Panther Valley-Palmerton scrimmages were switched, the latter due to forecasted rain for later today.

Finally, Pottsville’s scrimmage with Mount Carmel will be played in the outfield of Steidle Field, not at Veterans Memorial Stadium, due to ongoing construction on the Pottsville school campus. That should have an interesting look.

Community website

Sure, T102SportsNow.com is your No. 1 source for high school sports results and features in Schuylkill County. However, we want it to be much more.

The Community page of T102SportsNow.com was designed to give everybody involved in high school sports a chance to be part of the website, including marching band, cheerleaders, band front, etc. It’s also a place where you can submit your sports photos and other material like story ideas, tips, news, etc. that myself and my staff can enhance into bigger features.

So, if you’re at a scrimmage today and want to submit some photos, we encourage you to send us some. To do so, go to T102SportsNow.com, click on the “Features” tab at the top and find “Share Your Story.” Fill out the form and upload your photos.

If it’s something you do on a weekly basis, we may recruit you as one of our photographers.

SportsNow Super 7 debuts

Everybody loves polls, right?

We see them in every sport, but it’s football where polls seem to have the most impact. T102SportsNow.com conducted both a preseason coaches’ poll and a preseason media poll for the three divisions of the Schuylkill/Colonial Football Cooperative. Those polls were released last Sunday. You can find them here:

Coaches’ Poll: https://www.t102sportsnow.com/2024/08/12/2024-t102sportsnow-com-schuylkill-colonial-football-cooperate-preseason-coaches-poll/

Media Poll: https://www.t102sportsnow.com/2024/08/12/2024-t102sportsnow-com-schuylkill-colonial-football-cooperative-preseason-media-poll/

We also wanted to do a weekly poll of just our area teams. Thus, we created the SportsNow Super 7, which we’ll begin to unveil the preseason version Sunday with teams No. 7 and No. 6. Teams No. 5 and No. 4 will be released Monday, followed one day at a time by No. 3 (Tuesday), No. 2 (Wednesday) and No. 1 (Thursday). The poll will then be updated each week and released every Wednesday throughout the remainder of the season.

“Why seven?” a local coach asked Friday.

A simple reason is that seven is half of 14, which is the number of schools in the Schuylkill League that T102SportsNow.com will cover in every sport moving forward — there are 16 in football since we include Jim Thorpe and Lehighton. We also didn’t want to duplicate the Super 16 or Great 8 polls done by area television stations … a Top 10 would include some losing teams … and a Top 5 isn’t enough. So, we settled on seven.

Plus, Sportsnow Super 7 has a really nice flow to it.

I’m sure the first edition of the SportsNow Super 7 will be a great conversation piece … that’s the goal. It was voted on by three members of the T102SportsNow.com team and the broadcast anchors for the weekly T-102 and WPPA football games.

Did we get it right? Probably not, but only time will tell. Stay tuned.

Haven celebration finalized

As described in an earlier feature story that appeared on T102SportsNow.com, Schuylkill Haven will celebrate its 100^th season of football this year. You can read about the Hurricanes’ history here: https://www.t102sportsnow.com/2024/08/06/haven-to-celebrate-100th-football-season/

As a follow-up to that story, assistant coach/historian Mike Tracey has confirmed that an alumni reunion will be held at Haven’s game Friday, Sept. 6, against Shenandoah Valley at Rotary Field. Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m.

All former players, coaches and managers are invited to attend this game. Interested alumni will have to RSVP that they are attending. Information on the RSVP process will be provided by the school.

Odds and Ends

Shout out to Pen Argyl head coach Brady Mutton and the rest of the Colonial League Football Coaches Association for holding the first-ever Colonial League Football Media Day on Thursday, Aug. 8, at The Phoenix in Nazareth. Every media member and coach that I’ve talked with since the event was held praised its organization and hopes it continues. Me too.

** Williams Valley will honoring former NFL great Gary Collins during its Week 2 game against Mahanoy Area in Williamstown. More details will follow next week.

** The first edition of the 4^th and Short Podcast featuring myself and Eli Doyle should be released early this week … we hope. There were some technical difficulties that are being resolved. When it’s ready, we’ll let you know.