Nov 15, 2021 4 min read

When the final seconds drained off the clock Friday night at Pine-Richland High School, it signaled the end to a generally miserable WPIAL football playoff season for teams from Washington and Greene counties.

There were 11 teams from the two counties that qualified for the postseason, eight of them in Class 2A and Class A. The 11 combined for a 1-11 playoff record, the lone win being Peters Township’s 33-28 triumph at North Hills in the first round of Class 5A. The Indians were eliminated last Friday by Pine-Richland, 20-14.

The average margin of defeat in the 11 losses was 24.6 points, even with PT’s close defeat and a one-point upset loss by Washington to New Brighton in Class 2A. Eight local teams lost playoff games by at least 21 points.

Unfortunately, noncompetitive games are a sign of the times in high school football. The modern game doesn’t resemble your father’s high school football, which often ended in a 12-6 score.

Whether it’s improved passing games, the spread offense, too many teams with a lack of depth or simply bad tackling – the latter is a problem at all levels of football these days, from the NFL on down – never before has there been a greater divide between the haves and have-nots.

And I thought expanding to six classes was supposed to cut down on one-sided games?

• If you want to find a future major league batting coach maybe you should visit Wild Things Park next summer.

With the announcement last week that the Minnesota Twins have hired 31-year-old David Popkins as their new hitting coach, there are currently two former Wild Things players serving in that role in the major leagues. The St. Louis Cardinals’ Jeff Albert is the other.

After being released following three years in the Cardinals’ minor-league system, Popkins spent the 2015 and 2016 Frontier League seasons in Washington as an outfielder. A power-hitting switch-hitter, Popkins belted 35 home runs in 187 games and had a .272 batting average for some mediocre Washington teams.

The 31-year-old Popkins was a coach in the lower levels of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ farm system before getting a major-league call from the Twins.

“I know when we got a chance to interview him, you don’t get a lot of good information, sometimes, from inside the organization, when people don’t want to lose good people,” Twins director of baseball operations Derek Falvey told reporters. “But as we got further along in the process, it became so clear to us that everyone in the Dodger organization spoke so highly of who David is as a coach, as a learner, as a guy that’s continuing to get better, how much he’s processed.”

An infielder, Albert played only one season (2003) with the Wild Things after Washington signed him out of Butler University. He is entering his second season as St. Louis’ hitting coach.

• Hall of Famer Cy Young, who set baseball’s records for wins (511), innings pitched (7,356), games started (815) and complete games (749) over a 22-year major-league career, was so good that the top pitcher in the American League and National League each year receive an award that bears Young’s name.

Do you think there would be a Cy Young Award today if during Young’s era starting pitchers threw one inning before being removed or were routinely yanked before pitching a third time through the batting order?

• It’s hard to believe that the one-loss California University football team, which is ranked No. 14 in NCAA Division II this week, is not one of the 28 teams in the national playoffs.